Regulating the pyrolysis process of cation intercalated MnO nanomaterials for electrocatalytic urea oxidation performance.

Exploring an efficient way to enhance electron/ion transport behavior of nanomaterials plays an important role in the study of energy storage & conversion. However, the evolution rules of lattice and electronic structure during the pyrolysis process of low-dimensional nanomaterials, which further regulate its electron/ion transport properties, have not been effectively elucidated. Here we study the pyrolysis process of cation intercalated MnO as a case for realizing optimized electron/ion transport behavior.

The sequential structural transformation of a heptanuclear zinc cluster towards hierarchical porous carbon for supercapacitor applications.

The peripheral N/O chelating of Schiff base ligands, inner bridges, counterions, and metal centers gave rise to a brucite disk cluster [ZnL(OCH)](NO) (Zn, (HL = 2-methoxy-6-((methylimino)-methyl)phenolate)) which crystallized into hexagonal prismatic plates. The combination of crystallographic studies, TG-MS, and other characterization techniques showed that with a fixed metal and ligand composition in the precursors, weak correlative interactions (, electrostatic interactions) and shape matching between the cluster core and counterions determine the cluster packing modes in the crystals and affect their phase and morphological changes during pyrolysis. The tracking of the pyrolysis process showed that the peripheral ligands, inner bridge, and counterion decompose first, followed by the ZnO core merging with cubic ZnO, which was then reduced by carbon and eventually evaporated, leaving behind a porous carbon structure.