Confined Thermolysis for Oriented N-Doped Carbon Supported Pd toward Stable Catalytic and Energy Storage Applications.

Carbon-based nanomaterials have been widely utilized in catalysis and energy-related fields due to their fascinating properties. However, the controllable synthesis of porous carbon with refined morphology is still a formidable challenge due to inevitable aggregation/fusion of resulted carbon particles during the high-temperature synthetic process. Herein, a hierarchically oriented carbon-structured (fiber-like) composite is fabricated by simultaneously taking advantage of a confined pyrolysis strategy and disparate bond environments within metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).

Engineering Oxygen Vacancies in a Polysulfide-Blocking Layer with Enhanced Catalytic Ability.

The practical application of the lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery is seriously restricted by its shuttle effect, low conductivity, and low sulfur loading. Herein, first-principles calculations are conducted to verify that the introduction of oxygen vacancies in TiO not only enhances polysulfide adsorption but also greatly improves the catalytic ability and both the ion and electron conductivities. A commercial polypropylene (PP) separator decorated with TiO nanosheets with oxygen vacancies (OVs-TiO @PP) is fabricated as a strong polysulfide barrier for the Li-S battery.