Current advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are chemically and energetically intensive processes, which are undesirable for cost-effective and large-scale system water treatment and wastewater recycling. This study explored the Strontium Ferrite (SFO) metal oxide on the degradation of highly concentrated organic pollutants under dark ambient condition without any external stimulants. The SFO particles with single perovskite structure were successfully synthesized with a combined high temperature and high-energy ball milling process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVarious annealing conditions (environment, temperature, and duration) are applied to study the nanoscale Kirkendall effect of copper (Cu) nanowire (NW) arrays on a Si substrate. The results show that an appropriate amount of oxygen supply is crucial for uniform transformation from Cu NWs (average diameter ∼50 nm) into Cu oxide nanotube arrays. An annealing duration of 30 min at 200 °C in a low vacuum environment reveals that the voids are not uniformly distributed at the Cu/Cu oxide interface.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDifferent types of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), pristine (p-), metallic (m-) and semiconducting (s-) are incorporated into TiO(2) photoanodes to improve the dye-sensitized solar-cell (DSSC) performance and their effects on the device performance are further investigated. Although all three types of SWCNTs are found to have comparable structural morphologies and a reduced charge transport resistivity for the photoanodes, only the semiconducting one was able to suppress charge-recombination events, resulting in even greater improvement of DSSC performances. This is very likely to be ascribed to the higher energy barrier of s-SWCNTs compared to both m- and p-SWCNTs to block the back flowing of dye-injected electrons for I(3)(-) reduction in the charge recombination process.
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