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The solar‐driven interfacial evaporation system has attracted much attention in recent years due to its reduced heat loss and accelerated steam generation. As a low‐cost and readily available resource, wood is widely applied as photothermal materials in solar‐driven interfacial evaporation system because of its superior water transfer and heat loss prevention properties. Herein, a simple, mild, and cost‐effective method is employed to fabricate wood‐based photothermal materials. The results demonstrate that the solar absorption rate of wood‐nigrosine is more than 97.5% across a wide wavelength range (200–2500 nm), and an evaporation rate of 1.46 kg m−2 h−1 and evaporation efficiency (86.1%) are achieved under 1‐sun illumination (100 mW cm−2). The solar‐driven interfacial evaporation system based on wood‐nigrosine exhibits strong structural stability and processing capability for dyes and seawater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As electron transport layers (ETLs) in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), tin oxide (SnO2) possess high carrier mobilities with appropriate energy band alignment and high optical transmittance. Herein, SnO2 ETLs were fabricated by intermediate‐controlled chemical bath deposition (IC‐CBD) at ultralow temperature, where the chelating agent effectively altered the nucleation and growth process. Compared with conventional CBD, SnO2 ETLs fabricated by IC‐CBD had lower defects, smooth surface, good crystallinity, and remarkable interfacial contact with perovskite, resulting in good quality of perovskite, high photovoltaic performance (23.17 %), and enhanced stability of devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environment-friendly electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) is considered to be a promising alternative to the traditional Haber–Bosch process for ammonia production. However, the stability of nitrogen and competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) lead to low faradaic efficiency (FE) and ammonia selectivity for the NRR. Compared with the NRR, the electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NO3RR), with no process of N2 adsorption, exhibits a higher NH3 yield and FE. In this work, the MIL-101(Fe) is synthesized and composited with Nb2C MXene, which exhibited excellent NRR and NO3RR performance. For the NRR, the MIL-101(Fe)@Nb2C achieved an ammonia yield of 8.92 μg h−1 cm−2 and a high FE of 20.77%. Meanwhile, for the NO3RR, it achieved a large NH3 yield of 199.68 μg h−1 cm−2 and a high FE of 89.9%. In addition, MIL-101(Fe)@Nb2C exhibits excellent stability for the NRR and NO3RR. DFT calculations proved that the interfacial interaction between Nb2C and MIL-101(Fe) acquired a significant synergistic mechanism to improve the catalytic performance. Since the NH3 yield and FE of the NO3RR are much higher than those of the NRR, it is vital to design NRR catalysts that can easily adsorb and activate nitrogen as well as inhibit the HER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The photoelectric properties of nontoxic Sn‐based perovskite make it a promising alternative to toxic Pb‐based perovskite. It has superior photovoltaic performance in comparison to other Pb‐free counterparts. The facile oxidation of Sn2+ to Sn4+ presents a notable obstacle in the advancement of perovskite solar cells that utilize Sn, as it adversely affects their stability and performance. The study revealed the presence of a Sn4+ concentration on both the upper and lower surfaces of the perovskite layer. This discovery led to the adoption of a bi‐interface optimization approach. A thin layer of Sn metal was inserted at the two surfaces of the perovskite layer. The implementation of this intervention yielded a significant decrease in the levels of Sn4+ and trap densities. The power conversion efficiency of the device was achieved at 14.31 % through the optimization of carrier transportation. The device exhibited operational and long‐term stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The photoelectric properties of nontoxic Sn‐based perovskite make it a promising alternative to toxic Pb‐based perovskite. It has superior photovoltaic performance in comparison to other Pb‐free counterparts. The facile oxidation of Sn2+ to Sn4+ presents a notable obstacle in the advancement of perovskite solar cells that utilize Sn, as it adversely affects their stability and performance. The study revealed the presence of a Sn4+ concentration on both the upper and lower surfaces of the perovskite layer. This discovery led to the adoption of a bi‐interface optimization approach. A thin layer of Sn metal was inserted at the two surfaces of the perovskite layer. The implementation of this intervention yielded a significant decrease in the levels of Sn4+ and trap densities. The power conversion efficiency of the device was achieved at 14.31 % through the optimization of carrier transportation. The device exhibited operational and long‐term stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Binary transition metal sulfides demonstrate abundant morphological features and high redox activity. By studying the relationship between different morphological characteristics of active materials and electrochemical performance, high-performance supercapacitors can be discovered. In this work, binary Ni3S2/MoS2 composites in situ grow on the current collector Ni foam via electrochemical deposition and subsequently hydrothermal reaction, then it was directly used as a binder-free electrode for supercapacitors. The micro-morphological evolution process was investigated by controlling the hydrothermal time from 3 to 12 h. The electrochemical characterization showed that Ni3S2/MoS2@NF-9 (hydrothermal reacted for 9 h) with fluffy and abundant nanopores demonstrated the highest specific capacity (341.7 C g−1 at 1 A g−1), best rate performance (50% capacity retention from 1 to 20 A g−1), and superior charge transfer ability compared with others. Ni3S2/MoS2@NF-9 was also used as a positive electrode to assemble Ni3S2/MoS2@NF-9//RGO hybrid supercapacitor (HSC), which displayed a specific capacity of 129.2 C g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 and specific energy of 26.9 Wh·kg−1 at 375 W kg−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purification of carbon monoxide in H2-rich streams is an urgent problem for the practical application of fuel cells, and requires the development of efficient and economical catalysts for the preferential oxidation of CO (CO-PROX). In the present work, a facile solid phase synthesis method followed by an impregnation method were adopted to prepare a ternary CuCoMnOx spinel oxide, which shows superior catalytic performance with CO conversion of 90% for photothermal CO-PROX at 250 mW cm−2. The dopant of copper species leads to the incorporation of Cu ions into the CoMnOx spinel lattice forming a ternary CuCoMnOx spinel oxide. The appropriate calcination temperature (300 °C) contributes to the generation of abundant oxygen vacancies and strong synergetic Cu–Co–Mn interactions, which are conducive to the mobility of oxygen species to participate in CO oxidation reactions. On the other hand, the highest photocurrent response of CuCoMnOx-300 also promotes the photo-oxidation activity of CO due to the high carrier concentration and efficient carrier separation. In addition, the in situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) confirmed that doping copper species could enhance the CO adsorption capacity of the catalyst due to the generation of Cu+ species, which significantly increased the CO oxidation activity of the CuCoMnOx spinel oxide. The present work provides a promising and eco-friendly solution to remove the trace CO in H2-rich gas over CuCoMnOx ternary spinel oxide with solar light as the only energy source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SnO2, the most promising alternative to TiO2 as the electron transport layer (ETL), has attracted great attention for perovskite solar cells (PSCs) due to its high bulk electron mobility, good band energy at the ETL/perovskite interface, and high chemical stability. To enable more efficient carrier transfer and extraction, elemental doping with different metal cations has been studied in SnO2 ETLs. However, the systematic investigation of the doping mechanism lag far behind their efficiency promotion. In this paper, elements of the same main group (Li, Na, K) and period (K, Ca, Ga) have been selected for doping in SnO2. The results showed that among the properties of the dopants, the electronegativity has the greatest influence. The smaller the electronegativity of the doping species, the more conducive it is to carrier transmission and separation. The corresponding mechanism was proposed and discussed. At last, an efficiency of 20.92% of PSCs based on SnO2–K was achieved. In addition, the doped SnO2 is more beneficial for the growth of perovskite crystals, thus reducing grain boundaries and enhancing the stability of the device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]