Tuning the Structural and Electronic Properties of Zn-Cr LDH/GCN Heterostructure for Enhanced Photodegradation of Estrone in UV and Visible Light.

Estrone is an emerging contaminant found in waters and soils all over the world. Conventional water treatment methods are not suitable for estrone removal due to its nonpolarity and low bioavailability. Heterogeneous photocatalysis is a promising approach; however, pristine semiconductors need optimization for efficient estrone photodegradation.

Recent developments in piezo-photocatalytic CO reduction: concepts, mechanism, and advances.

Out of the high number of photocatalytic applications, CO reduction has proved to be quite a boon for the present world. Increasing CO emissions owing to fossil fuel usage has been a menace to our society. To date, many methods have been developed to redress the situation.

Enhancing the Hydrogen Evolution Performance of Tungsten Diphosphide on Carbon Fiber through Ruthenium Modification.

Hydrogen-based energy systems hold promise for sustainable development and carbon neutrality, minimizing environmental impact with electrolysis as the preferred fossil-fuel-free hydrogen generation method. Effective electrocatalysts are required to reduce energy consumption and improve kinetics, given the need for additional voltage (overpotential, η) despite the theoretical water splitting potential of 1.23 V.

Phosphide-Based Electrocatalysts for Urea Electrolysis: Recent Trends and Progress.

Electrolysis is a trend in producing hydrogen as a fuel for renewable energy development, and urea electrolysis is considered as one of the advanced electrolysis processes, where efficient materials still need to be explored. Notably, urea electrolysis came into existence to counter-part the electrode reactions in water electrolysis, which has hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Among those reactions, OER is sluggish and limits water splitting.

The prospect of CuO-based catalysts in photocatalysis: From pollutant degradation, CO reduction, and H production to N fixation.

The topic of photocatalysis and CuO-based materials has been intertwined for quite a long time. Its relatively high abundance in the earth's crust makes it an important target for researchers around the globe. One of the properties exploited by researchers is its ability to exist in different oxidation states (Cu, Cu, Cu, and Cu) and its implications on photocatalytic efficiency improvement.

Enabling N to Ammonia Conversion in Bi WO -Based Materials: A New Avenue in Photocatalytic Applications.

The field of photocatalysis has been evolving since 1972 since Honda and Fujishima's initial push for using light as an energy source to accomplish redox reactions. Since then, many photocatalysts have been studied, semiconductors or otherwise. A new photocatalytic application to convert N gas to ammonia (N fixation or nitrogen reduction reaction; NRR) has emerged.

Optimization of Intercalated 2D BiOCl Sheets into BiWO Flowers for Photocatalytic NH Production and Antibiotic Pollutant Degradation.

Photocatalytic N fixation is a complex reaction, thereby prompting researchers to design and analyze highly efficient materials. Herein, one-pot hydrothermal BiWO-BiOCl (BW-BiOCl) heterojunctions were synthesized by varying the molar ratio of tungsten: chlorine precursor. Major morphological transformations in BiOCl were observed wherein it turned from thick sheets ∼230 nm in pure BiOCl to ∼30 nm in BW-BiOCl.

Anchoring Polydopamine on ZnCo O Nanowire To Facilitate Urea Water Electrolysis.

To overcome the sluggishness of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the urea oxidation reaction was developed. In the case of OER application studies ZnCo O is an excellent electrocatalyst, towards the UOR has been performed with surface-grown polydopamine (PDA) with surface-grown polydopamine (PDA). ZnCo O @PDA is produced over the surface of nickel foam by a hydrothermal method followed by self-polymerization of dopamine hydrochloride.

Morphological and elemental tuning of BiOCl/BiVO heterostructure for uric acid electrochemical sensor and antibiotic photocatalytic degradation.

Deep eutectic solvents (DES) consisting of EG-(ChCl: CHO) and TU-(ChCl: CHNS) assisted synthesized BiOCl/BiVO heterostructured catalyst studied for electrochemical uric acid (UA) sensor and tetracycline photocatalytic degradation. The chemical composition of the BiOCl/BiVO catalyst was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). UV-vis spectroscopy reveals increased absorption of visible light till the near-infrared region, which results in a narrowing of band gap energy from 2.

Microwave-assisted synthesis of ZnAl-LDH/g-CN composite for degradation of antibiotic ciprofloxacin under visible-light illumination.

Ciprofloxacin (CIP) is a fluoroquinolone family antibiotic pollutant. CIP existence in water environment has been rising very fast in day-to-day life and subsequently, it gives enormous health issues for humans because of its potent biological activity. To encounter this, current researchers are focusing on the development of highly efficient visible light semiconductor nanocomposites with potential photocatalytic activity.

A multifunctional Ni-doped iron pyrite/reduced graphene oxide composite as an efficient counter electrode for DSSCs and as a non-enzymatic hydrogen peroxide electrochemical sensor.

Nickel-doped FeS/rGO composites were synthesized as multifunctional materials via a facile hydrothermal method. The synthesized materials were characterized with XRD, FESEM, XPS, and TEM-SAED for structural, morphological and chemical studies. To study their electrochemical properties, all the synthesized composites were subjected to cyclic voltammetry tests.

Deep Eutectic Solvent-Assisted Synthesis of Ternary Heterojunctions for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction and Photocatalysis.

Hierarchical nano-/microstructured photocatalysts have drawn attention for enhanced photocatalytic performance. Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been used as a green sustainable media to act as both solvent and structure-inducing agent in the synthesis of hierarchical nanomaterials. In this work, the DESs-assisted synthesis of flower-structured BiOCl/BiVO (BOC/BVO) with g-C N (BOC/BVO/g-CN) ternary heterojunctions was achieved by using a simple wet-chemical method, providing good acidic and alkaline oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts.

Bi-functional Ag-CuO/g-CN hybrid catalysts for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol and the electrochemical detection of dopamine.

The immense need to build highly efficient catalysts has always been at the forefront of environmental remediation research. Herein, we have synthesized dual-phase copper oxide containing Cu2O and CuO originating from the same reaction using hexamethyltetramine (HMT). Simultaneously, we coupled it with g-C3N4 (g-CN), constructing a triple synergetic heterojunction, which is reported significantly less often in the literature.

Investigation of the structural, optical and crystallographic properties of BiWO/Ag plasmonic hybrids and their photocatalytic and electron transfer characteristics.

Effective exploitation of visible-light unique structural and electronic properties has enormously attracted more researchers for photocatalytic systems. Here, we have fabricated an efficient BiWO-Ag plasmonic hybrid via the photoreduction technique and the obtained materials were well characterized with sophisticated instruments. The BW-Ag-1 catalyst showed the maximum photocatalytic activity for the degradation of cationic dyes rhodamine B (RhB) and malachite green (MG) and the rate constant was 2.

Photocatalytic 4-nitrophenol degradation and oxygen evolution reaction in CuO/g-CN composites prepared by deep eutectic solvent-assisted chlorine doping.

Anion doping into the oxygen site as a new plan for tuning the physical and chemical properties of metal oxides and adjusting their catalytic behavior has been studied. Herein, we report a Cl anion-doped CuO (Cl-CuO) preparation method using deep eutectic solvents (DESs) as a green solvent, and the Cl-CuO/g-CN heterostructure was successfully prepared in various weight ratios via a simple ultrasonication and mixing method for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in acidic media and the photocatalytic degradation of 4-nitrophenol. Cl was doped into the CuO crystal lattice, as revealed by the XRD and XPS studies.

Utilizing Infrared Spectroscopy to Analyze the Interfacial Structures of Ionic Liquids/Al₂O₃ and Ionic Liquids/Mica Mixtures under High Pressures.

The interfacial interactions between ionic liquids (1,3-dimethylimidazolium methyl sulfate and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethanesulfonate) and solid surfaces (mesoporous aluminum oxide and mica) have been studied by infrared spectroscopy at high pressures (up to 2.5 GPa). Under ambient pressure, the spectroscopic features of pure ionic liquids and mixtures of ionic liquids/solid particles (Al₂O₃ and mica) are similar.

Facile synthesis of hierarchically nanostructured bismuth vanadate: An efficient photocatalyst for degradation and detection of hexavalent chromium.

Heterostructured nanomaterials can paid more significant attention in environmental safety for the detection and degradation/removal of hazardous toxic chemicals over a decay. Here, we report the preparation of hierarchically nanostructured shuriken like bismuth vanadate (BiVO) as a bifunctional catalyst for photocatalytic degradation and electrochemical detection of highly toxic hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) using the green deep eutectic solvent reline, which allows morphology control in one of the less energy-intensive routes. The SEM results showed a good dispersion of BiVO catalyst and the HR-TEM revealed an average particle size of ca.

Reduced graphene oxide-supported Ag-loaded Fe-doped TiO for the degradation mechanism of methylene blue and its electrochemical properties.

Graphene oxide-based composites have been developed as cheap and effective photocatalysts for dye degradation and water splitting applications. Herein, we report reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/Ag/Fe-doped TiO that has been successfully prepared using a simple process. The resulting composites were characterized by a wide range of physicochemical techniques.

Chemical Waste and Allied Products.

This review of literature published in 2014 focuses on waste related to chemical and allied products. The topics cover the waste management practices, hospital waste, pesticide waste, chemical wastewater, pesticide wastewater and pharmaceutical wastewater. The other topics include aerobic treatment, anaerobic treatment, sorption and ozonation.

Co-melting technology in resource recycling of sludge derived from stone processing.

Stone processing sludge (SPS) is a by-product of stone-processing wastewater treatment; it is suitable for use as a raw material for making artificial lightweight aggregates (ALWAs). In this study, boric acid was utilized as a flux to lower sintering temperature. The formation of the viscous glassy phase was observed by DTA curve and changes in XRD patterns.

Resource recycling through artificial lightweight aggregates from sewage sludge and derived ash using boric acid flux to lower co-melting temperature.

This study focuses on artificial lightweight aggregates (ALWAs) formed from sewage sludge and ash at lowered co-melting temperatures using boric acid as the fluxing agent. The weight percentages of boric acid in the conditioned mixtures of sludge and ash were 13% and 22%, respectively. The ALWA derived from sewage sludge was synthesized under the following conditions: preheating at 400 degrees C 0.