Advanced systems for enhanced CO electroreduction.

Carbon dioxide (CO) electroreduction has extraordinary significance in curbing CO emissions while simultaneously producing value-added chemicals with economic and environmental benefits. In recent years, breakthroughs in designing catalysts, optimizing intrinsic activity, developing reactors, and elucidating reaction mechanisms have continuously driven the advancement of CO electroreduction. However, the industrialization of CO electroreduction remains a challenging task, with high energy consumption, high costs, limited reaction products, and restricted application scenarios being the issues that urgently need to be addressed.

Active hydrogen boosts electrochemical nitrate reduction to ammonia.

Electrochemical nitrate reduction to ammonia is a promising alternative strategy to the traditional Haber-Bosch process but suffers from a low Faradaic efficiency and limited ammonia yield due to the sluggish multi-electron/proton-involved steps. Herein, we report a typical hollow cobalt phosphide nanosphere electrocatalyst assembled on a self-supported carbon nanosheet array synthesized with a confinement strategy that exhibits an extremely high ammonia yield rate of 8.47 mmol h cm through nitrate reduction reaction, which is highly superior to previously reported values to our knowledge.

Metal vacancy-enriched layered double hydroxide for biomass molecule electrooxidation coupled with hydrogen production.

The electrochemical oxidation of biomass molecules coupling with hydrogen production is a promising strategy to obtain both green energy and value-added chemicals; however, this strategy is limited by the competing oxygen evolution reactions and high energy consumption. Herein, we report a hierarchical CoNi layered double hydroxides (LDHs) electrocatalyst with abundant Ni vacancies for the efficient anodic oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and cathodic hydrogen evolution. The unique hierarchical nanosheet structure and Ni vacancies provide outstanding activity and selectivity toward several biomass molecules because of the finely regulated electronic structure and highly-exposed active sites.

Flame-Assisted Synthesis of O-Coordinated Single-Atom Catalysts for Efficient Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction and Hydrogen Evolution Reaction.

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) exhibit intriguing performance in electrocatalysis owing to their maximized atom utilizations and unique electronic structures, but effective anchoring metal atoms with defined coordination structure on hierarchical integrated electrode remain a challenge. Herein, a fast and facial flame-assisted strategy is developed to construct oxygen-coordinated SACs on integrated carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays with promising applications in electrocatalysis. Density functional theory calculations show that oxygen in carbon substrate imparts homogeneous sites for the efficient anchoring of metal atoms, thereby enabling SACs to disperse uniformly and firmly and thus bringing optimized activities.

NiSn Atomic Pair on an Integrated Electrode for Synergistic Electrocatalytic CO Reduction.

The development of efficient electrocatalysts for the CO reduction reaction (CO RR) remains a challenge. Demonstrated here is a NiSn atomic-pair electrocatalyst (NiSn-APC) on a hierarchical integrated electrode, which exhibits a synergistic effect in simultaneously promoting the activity and selectivity of the CO RR to formate. The NiSn atomic pair consists of adjacent Ni and Sn, each coordinated with four nitrogen atoms (N -Ni-Sn-N ).

Coordinating Adsorption and Catalytic Activity of Polysulfide on Hierarchical Integrated Electrodes for High-Performance Flexible Li-S Batteries.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have been known to be a promising substitute because of their much higher theoretical energy density than that of traditional Li-ion batteries. However, the low utilization of sulfur caused by the poor conductivity of sulfur and shuttle of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) severely restrict the commercial application of Li-S batteries, especially in flexible wearable devices. Herein, a hierarchical nitrogen-doped carbon nanotube (NCNT)@Co-CoO nanowire array (NWA)-integrated electrode was developed based on the rational design of density functional theory calculations, which shows simultaneous confinement adsorption and catalysis conversion of LiPSs.

Hierarchical Carbon Microtube@Nanotube Core-Shell Structure for High-Performance Oxygen Electrocatalysis and Zn-Air Battery.

Zinc-air batteries (ZABs) hold tremendous promise for clean and efficient energy storage with the merits of high theoretical energy density and environmental friendliness. However, the performance of practical ZABs is still unsatisfactory because of the inevitably decreased activity of electrocatalysts when assembly into a thick electrode with high mass loading. Herein, we report a hierarchical electrocatalyst based on carbon microtube@nanotube core-shell nanostructure (CMT@CNT), which demonstrates superior electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction with a small potential gap of 0.

A sensing element based on a bent and elongated grooved polymer optical fiber.

An experimental and numerical investigation is performed into the power loss induced in grooved polymer optical fibers (POFs) subjected to combined bending and elongation deformations. The power loss is examined as a function of both the groove depth and the bend radius. An elastic-plastic three-dimensional finite element model is constructed to simulate the deformation in the grooved region of the deformed specimens.

[The relations between dental fluorosis and economic status in Shuicheng, a fluorosis-endemic County in Guizhou province].

Objective: To discuss the relations of dental fluorosis and the social economic status in fluorosis-stricken villages where drying the corn by burning coal was prevail.

Methods: A total of 6 fluorosis-endemic villages and one non-endemic village were involved in the study. The general fluorine intake and the concentrations of fluorine in corn, in the pupils' were tested.