Defect chemistry of electrocatalysts for CO reduction.

Electrocatalytic CO reduction is a promising strategy for converting the greenhouse gas CO into high value-added products and achieving carbon neutrality. The rational design of electrocatalysts for CO reduction is of great significance. Defect chemistry is an important category for enhancing the intrinsic catalytic performance of electrocatalysts.

Dual physically crosslinked healable polyacrylamide/cellulose nanofibers nanocomposite hydrogels with excellent mechanical properties.

To develop healable hydrogels with excellent mechanical properties is still a challenge topic. In this study, a novel class of physically crosslinked polyacrylamide based nanocomposite hydrogels reinforced with cellulose nanofibers (CNF) were fabricated using radical polymerization, followed by further strengthening through ferric ions via strong ionic coordination interactions between Fe and carboxyls on CNF surfaces. Then the obtained gels were characterized by FTIR, tensile and compressive measurements as well as healing experiments.

A Bottom-Up Synthesis of Vinyl-Cellulose Nanosheets and Their Nanocomposite Hydrogels with Enhanced Strength.

Extracted nanocellulose from natural resources commonly requires modification before it is used as an effective nanofiller. In the present study, through an enzymatic polymerization of α-d-glucose 1-phosphate from the primer 2-(glucosyloxy)ethyl methacrylate (GEMA), a novel type of two-dimensional methacrylate-containing cellulose nanosheets (CNS) with a thickness of about 6 nm, named as GEMA-CNS, was directly synthesized under a mild condition by a "bottom-up" method. The structure and morphology of GEMA-CNS were characterized by H-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectra (MALDI-TOF MS), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM).