Optimized immobilization of lead and cadmium in soil using dithiocarboxy functionalized silica: A long-term effectiveness study.

The efficient immobilization of heavy metals often requires a high dosage of remediation material, resulting in increased remediation costs and potential ecological risks. In this study, we developed a novel silica-based material, RNS-TS, characterized by a high density of dithiocarboxy groups, aimed at remediating Pb and Cd contaminated soils and evaluating the long-term efficacy via aging experiments. The synthesized RNS-TS achieved a functional group density of 2.

Magnetic Hyperporous Elastic Material with Excellent Fatigue Resistance and Oil Retention for Oil-Water Separation.

Oily wastewater has caused serious threats to the environment; thus, high-performance absorbing materials for effective oil-water separation technology have attracted increasing attention. Herein, we develop a magnetic, hydrophobic, and lipophilic hyperporous elastic material (HEM) templated by high internal phase emulsions (HIPE), in which free-radical polymerization of butyl acrylate (BA) and divinylbenzene (DVB) is employed in the presence of poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), lecithin surfactant, and modified FeO nanoparticles. The adoption of the emulsion template with nanoparticles as both stabilizers and cross-linkers endows the HEM with biomimetic hierarchical open-cell micropores and elastic cross-linked networks, generating an oil absorbent with outstanding mechanical stability.

Dual functionalized copper nanoparticles for thermoplastics with improved processing and mechanical properties and superior antibacterial performance.

The utilization of metal nanoparticles for antibacterial thermoplastic composites has the potential to enhance the safety of human and animal life by mitigating the spread and transmission of foodborne pathogenic bacteria. The dispersion, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of metal nanoparticles directly affect the application performance of the composites. This study focused on achieving amine-carboxyl co-modified copper nanoparticles (Cu-AC) with excellent antioxidant properties and monodispersity through grafting of amine and carboxyl groups onto the surface of copper nanoparticles ligand interaction.

Roll to roll in situ preparation of recyclable, washable, antibacterial Ag loaded nonwoven fabric.

Functional fabrics with antibacterial performance are more welcome nowadays. However, the fabrication of functional fabrics with durable, steady performance via a cost-effective way remains a challenge. Polypropylene (denoted as PP) nonwoven fabric was modified by polyvinyl alcohol (denoted as PVA), followed by the in-situ deposition of silver nanoparticles (denoted as Ag NPs) to afford PVA-modified and Ag NPs-loaded PP (denoted as Ag/PVA/PP) fabric.

Silver Nanoparticle-Decorated Silica Nanospheres and Arrays as Potential Substrates for Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering.

Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) was used as both a modifier and reductant to in situ deposit silver nanoparticles (denoted Ag NPs) on the surface of silica nanospheres (nanosilica or nano-SiO), affording Ag-decorated nanosilica (denoted SiO@Ag). The as-obtained SiO@Ag composite can form silver nanoparticle-decorated silica nanosphere arrays (denoted SiO@Ag arrays) via evaporation-induced self-assembly. The as-prepared SiO@Ag composite and SiO@Ag array were used as the SERS substrates to measure the Raman signals of the dilute solutions of rhodamine 6G (denoted R6G), an organic dye that is a potential pollutant to the environment.

Thiol-functionalized nano-silica for in-situ remediation of Pb, Cd, Cu contaminated soils and improving soil environment.

Heavy metal contamination has been threatening the health of human beings. To decrease the bio-toxicity of heavy metals, a thiol-functionalized nano-silica (SiO-SH) was adopted to remediate the soil contaminated by lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd) and copper (Cu). The remediation effect of SiO-SH on contaminated soils was investigated by the uptake of the heavy metals into lettuce and pakchoi in pot experiment.

Mercapto propyltrimethoxysilane- and ferrous sulfate-modified nano-silica for immobilization of lead and cadmium as well as arsenic in heavy metal-contaminated soil.

Nano-silica as an important part of soil is an ideal carrier of passivator material. In this paper, nano-silica was modified by silane coupling agent containing mercapto group and iron (II) salt to afford an organic-inorganic hybrid containing -S-Fe-S functional group (coded as RNS-SFe) on the surface of nano-silica. Results demonstrate that the RNS-SFe nanoparticle has network-like spheroidal shape and a primary particle size is about 18.

Functional Janus-SiO Nanoparticles Prepared by a Novel "Cut the Gordian Knot" Method and Their Potential Application for Enhanced Oil Recovery.

Currently available methods (e.g., interfacial protection and phase separation) for preparing Janus nanoparticles are often complex and expensive.

Hydrophobic Silica with Potential for Water-Injection Augmentation of a Low-Permeability Reservoir: Drag Reduction and Self-Cleaning Ability in Relation to Interfacial Interactions.

An aqueous nanofluid containing superhydrophobic silica nanoparticles with a high surface activity and an average size of 7 nm was used to enhance the water injection of a low-permeability well. The mechanism for the aqueous nanofluid to enhance water injection was discussed. Findings indicate that the silica aqueous nanofluid can greatly increase the effective water permeability even after injecting water for 2100 pore volumes.

Waterproof, Ultrahigh Areal-Capacitance, Wearable Supercapacitor Fabrics.

High-performance supercapacitors (SCs) are promising energy storage devices to meet the pressing demand for future wearable applications. Because the surface area of a human body is limited to 2 m , the key challenge in this field is how to realize a high areal capacitance for SCs, while achieving rapid charging, good capacitive retention, flexibility, and waterproofing. To address this challenge, low-cost materials are used including multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNT), reduced graphene oxide (RGO), and metallic textiles to fabricate composite fabric electrodes, in which MWCNT and RGO are alternatively vacuum-filtrated directly onto Ni-coated cotton fabrics.

Production of Two-Dimensional Nanomaterials via Liquid-Based Direct Exfoliation.

Tremendous efforts have been devoted to the synthesis and application of two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials due to their extraordinary and unique properties in electronics, photonics, catalysis, etc., upon exfoliation from their bulk counterparts. One of the greatest challenges that scientists are confronted with is how to produce large quantities of 2D nanomaterials of high quality in a commercially viable way.

Charging Guidance of Electric Taxis Based on Adaptive Particle Swarm Optimization.

Electric taxis are playing an important role in the application of electric vehicles. The actual operational data of electric taxis in Shenzhen, China, is analyzed, and, in allusion to the unbalanced time availability of the charging station equipment, the electric taxis charging guidance system is proposed basing on the charging station information and vehicle information. An electric taxis charging guidance model is established and guides the charging based on the positions of taxis and charging stations with adaptive mutation particle swarm optimization.

Biomimicking Topographic Elastomeric Petals (E-Petals) for Omnidirectional Stretchable and Printable Electronics.

are new versatile substrates for stretchable and printable electronics. Compared with conventional flat polydimethylsiloxane substrates, elastomeric petals have biomimicking topographic surfaces that can effectively inhibit the propagation of microcracks formed in the conducting layer, which is deposited on top, regardless of the type of conductive materials and the deposition methods.

Full-solution processed flexible organic solar cells using low-cost printable copper electrodes.

Full-solution-processed flexible organic solar cells (OSCs) are fabricated using low-cost and high-quality printable Cu electrodes, which achieve a power conversion efficiency as high as 2.77% and show remarkable stability upon 1000 bending cycles. This device performance is thought to be the best among all full-solution-processed OSCs reported in the literature using the same active materials.

Photosensitive graphene transistors.

High performance photodetectors play important roles in the development of innovative technologies in many fields, including medicine, display and imaging, military, optical communication, environment monitoring, security check, scientific research and industrial processing control. Graphene, the most fascinating two-dimensional material, has demonstrated promising applications in various types of photodetectors from terahertz to ultraviolet, due to its ultrahigh carrier mobility and light absorption in broad wavelength range. Graphene field effect transistors are recognized as a type of excellent transducers for photodetection thanks to the inherent amplification function of the transistors, the feasibility of miniaturization and the unique properties of graphene.

Organic electrochemical transistors with graphene-modified gate electrodes for highly sensitive and selective dopamine sensors.

Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are successfully used as highly sensitive and selective dopamine sensors. The selectivity of the OECT-based dopamine sensors is significantly improved by coating biocompatible polymer Nafion or chitosan on the surface of the gate electrodes. The interference induced by uric acid and ascorbic acid is effectively eliminated especially after the modification of Nafion.

Highly selective and sensitive glucose sensors based on organic electrochemical transistors with graphene-modified gate electrodes.

The sensitivity of glucose sensors based on organic electrochemical transistors (OECT) is increased by co-modifying graphene or reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and enzyme (glucose oxidase) on the gate electrodes for the first time. The optimized device shows linear responses to glucose in a broad concentration region from 10 nM to 1 μM and with a detection limit down to 10 nM, which is two orders of magnitude better than that for the device without the graphene modification. The selectivity of the device is systematically studied for the first time.

Salt-assisted direct exfoliation of graphite into high-quality, large-size, few-layer graphene sheets.

We report a facile and low-cost method to directly exfoliate graphite powders into large-size, high-quality, and solution-dispersible few-layer graphene sheets. In this method, aqueous mixtures of graphite and inorganic salts such as NaCl and CuCl2 are stirred, and subsequently dried by evaporation. Finally, the mixture powders are dispersed into an orthogonal organic solvent solution of the salt by low-power and short-time ultrasonication, which exfoliates graphite into few-layer graphene sheets.