Search

Lithium metal‐graphene host composite is a promising anode material for high‐energy‐density Li battery owing to its three‐dimensional structure, micro‐level controllable thickness and ultrahigh specific capacity. However, we discover that the hydroxyl/carboxyl functional groups in the reduced graphene oxide (rGO) host are likely to be reduced into lithium carbonate composition in the solid‐electrolyte interphase (SEI), which resulted in severe lithium dendrite growth that deteriorate its electrochemical performances. Here, we develop a magnesium anchoring strategy that selectively bond the Mg ion with the hydroxyl/carboxyl groups in rGO host, generating an electrolyte‐derived lithium fluoride‐dominant SEI instead of oxygen groups‐derived, lithium carbonate‐dominant SEI. By anchoring 0.60% of Mg in the rGO host using a facile compositing‐pyrolysis approach, Li dendrite growth in anode can be significantly suppressed, and the cycling stability of Li metal full cells can be prolonged by 200%. These findings give new insight into the mechanism of SEI formation in Li metal anode, and provide a new design strategy for restraining the reduced reaction of hydroxyl/carboxyl groups in graphene to stabilize the composite anode of lithium metal battery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic electrode materials for lithium‐ion batteries have attracted significant attention in recent years. Polymer electrode materials, as compared to small‐molecule electrode materials, have the advantage of poor solubility, which is beneficial for achieving high cycling stability. However, the severe entanglement of polymer chains often leads to difficulties in preparing nanostructured polymer electrodes, which is vital for achieving fast reaction kinetics and high utilization of active sites. This study demonstrates that these problems can be solved by the in situ electropolymerization of electrochemically active monomers in nanopores of ordered mesoporous carbon (CMK‐3), combining the advantages of the nano‐dispersion and nano‐confinement effects of CMK‐3 and the insolubility of the polymer materials. The as‐prepared nanostructured poly(1‐naphthylamine)/CMK‐3 cathode exhibits a high active site utilization of 93.7%, ultrafast rate capability of 60 A g−1 (≈320 C), and an ultralong cycle life of 10000 cycles at room temperature and 45000 cycles at −15 °C. The study herein provides a facile and effective method that can simultaneously solve both the dissolution problem of small‐molecule electrode materials and the inhomogeneous dispersion issue of polymer electrode materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zn 1- x Fe x O nanoparticles with Fe doping content from 0 % to 6 % were fabricated by a facile auto combustion method. SEM, XRD, PL and XPS were carried out to characterize the morphologies, structures, optical properties and surface chemical states of the samples. The photocatalytic properties were also investigated toward Methyl Orange (MO) degradation. It was found that the maximum photocatalytic activity was obtained by 4 % Fe-doped ZnO nanoparticles, which was ascribed to the highest ratio of Fe2+/Fe3+. The experimental results and DFT calculations indicated that Fe could effectively affect the photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanoparticles, dependent on Fe2+/Fe3+ ratio and doping contents. Furthermore, a conceivable mechanism of band gap structure and carrier transfer of Fe2+/Fe3+ co-existed Zn 1-x Fe x O was proposed according to experimental analyses and theory calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TiO 2 microspheres and TiO 2 /carbon quantum dots (CQDs) composites with different CQDs contents were successfully synthesized via solvothermal and in situ hydrothermal method. The structure and morphology of the prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). Results showed that carbon elements were successfully doped into the TiO 2 lattice (C-TiO 2 ) and CQDs were hybrid with C-TiO 2 microspheres. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS), valence band XPS (VB-XPS) and UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS) analyses revealed that carbon doped into TiO 2 microspheres could lead to local energy levels in the band structure and generate valence band tails to absorb visible light. The photocatalytic activities of these samples were evaluated by the photodegradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) under visible light irradiation. C-TiO 2 /CQDs samples presented an enhanced photocatalytic performance compared with pristine TiO 2 , which could be attributed to the present of CQDs, acting as adsorption sites for RhB molecules and charge separation centers to impede the recombination and prolong the life time of electron and hole pairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BiOCl powders with different morphology were obtained through self-assembling. Their photocatalytic performance was tested through degradation of organic dye and mechanism of photocatalytic for obtained samples were investigated. Relevant characterization demonstrated that facet synergy was a main reason of photocatalytic performance promotion due to changed facet exposure and proportion under self-assembling. Theory and experimental analysis manifested that synergistic facet stimulated Z scheme transition in samples with lower (001) facet proportion, which provided favorable condition of 1 O 2 generation and simultaneously generated prominent charge separation. This work unveiled the facet synergy dominant photocatalytic performance improvement in self-assembling system of BiOCl and verified decisive role of facet proportion in constructing Z-scheme facet junction, which also prompted possibility of improving 1 O 2 generation through facet engineering under self-assembling., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

A new photoelectrochemical (PEC) sensing platform comprising TiO 2 nanotube arrays (TiONTAs), polyaniline (PANI), and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was successfully fabricated. After loading the enzyme, this Au-PANI-TiONTA electrode showed excellent response to glucose at a linear range of 2-36 mM with a 0.02 mM detection limit. Good PEC performance was obtained due to the following advantages of the material: high visible-light harvesting ability for excellent light trapping capacity of PANI and AuNPs, good separation of the photo-induced charges related to the specific Au-PANI-TiONTA heterostructure, efficient electrode surface reaction kinetics derived from the large specific surface area of TiONTAs and improved electrode catalytic activity. This work proposed a new and general PEC enzymatic format and can be extended to prepare different PEC biosensors for biomolecules such as DNA, proteins and substrates of oxidases., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)