Ag Nanoparticles-Confined Doped within Triazine-Based Covalent Organic Frameworks for Syngas Production from Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO.

Electrocatalytic CO reduction reaction (CORR) emerges as a promising avenue to mitigate carbon emissions, enabling the capture and conversion of CO into high-value products such as syngas with CO/H. One of the crucial aspects lies in the tailored development of durable and efficient electrocatalysts for the CORR. Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) possess unique characteristics that render them attractive candidates for catalytic applications.

Silica Confinement for Stable and Magnetic Co-Cu Alloy Nanoparticles in Nitrogen-Doped Carbon for Enhanced Hydrogen Evolution.

Ammonia borane (AB) with 19.6 wt % H content is widely considered a safe and efficient medium for H storage and release. Co-based nanocatalysts present strong contenders for replacing precious metal-based catalysts in AB hydrolysis due to their high activity and cost-effectiveness.

Modulating Electronic Metal-Support Interactions to Boost Visible-Light-Driven Hydrolysis of Ammonia Borane: Nickel-Platinum Nanoparticles Supported on Phosphorus-Doped Titania.

Ammonia borane (AB) is a promising material for chemical H storage owing to its high H density (up to 19.6 wt %). However, the development of an efficient catalyst for driving H evolution through AB hydrolysis remains challenging.

Surface barriers to mass transfer in nanoporous materials for catalysis and separations.

Surface barriers to mass transfer in various nanoporous materials have been increasingly identified. These past few years especially, a significant impact on catalysis and separations has come to light. Broadly speaking, there are two types of barriers: internal barriers, which affect intraparticle diffusion, and external barriers, which determine the uptake and release rates of molecules into and out of the material.

Structural Engineering of Hierarchical Aerogels Hybrid Networks for Efficient Thermal Comfort Management and Versatile Protection.

In recent years, growing concerns regarding energy efficiency and heat mitigation, along with the critical goal of carbon neutrality, have drawn human attention to the zero-energy-consumption cooling technique. Passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC) can be an invaluable tool for combating climate change by dispersing ambient heat directly into outer space instead of just transferring it across the surface. Although significant progress has been made in cooling mechanisms, materials design, and application exploration, PDRC faces challenges regarding functionality, durability, and commercialization.

Durable Hydrate-phobic Coating with In Situ Self-Replenishing Hydrocarbon Barrier Films for Low Clathrate Hydrate Adhesion.

Clathrate hydrate growth, deposition, and plug formation during oil and gas transportation causes blockage of pipelines. An effective strategy to solve this problem is to mitigate the hydrate formation and reduce its adhesion on pipe walls through a coating process. However, durability failure, corrosion, inability to self-heal, high cost, and strong hydrate adhesion remain unsolved issues.

Selective Aerobic Oxidation of C-H Bonds Catalyzed by Yeast-Derived Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Oxygen Codoped Carbon Materials.

Nitrogen, phosphorus, and oxygen codoped carbon catalysts were successfully synthesized using dried yeast powder as a pyrolysis precursor. The yeast-derived heteroatom-doped carbon (yeast@C) catalysts exhibited outstanding performance in the oxidation of C-H bonds to ketones and esters, giving excellent product yields (of up to 98% yield) without organic solvents at low O pressure (0.1 MPa).

Biomass-Derived, Water-Induced Self-Recoverable Composite Aerogels with Robust Superwettability for Water Treatment.

Polluted water is a worldwide problem; therefore, effective separation of oil/water and removal of dyes, organic micropollutants, and heavy metals in wastewater are the need of the hour. Herein, hydrophilic β-cyclodextrin-grafted carboxymethyl cellulose, biodegradable polyvinyl alcohol, and chitosan were used as main raw materials to construct a multifunctional aerogel framework by simple sol-gel and directional freeze-drying methods. Featuring intrinsic superamphiphilic wettability in air, robust superoleophobic wettability underwater, and excellent shape-recovery characteristics, the biomass-derived aerogel presents durable oil/water separation even after 10 cycles.

Facile approach to design a stable, damage resistant, slippery, and omniphobic surface.

Creating a robust omniphobic surface that repels various liquids would have broad technological implications for areas ranging from biomedical devices and fuel transport to architecture. The present omniphobic surfaces still have the problems of complex fabrication methods, high cost, and being environmentally harmful. To address these challenges, here we report a novel process to design a non-fluorinated, long-term slippery omniphobic surface of candle soot nanoparticles with a silicone binder that cures at room temperature.

Durable and Scalable Candle Soot Icephobic Coating with Nucleation and Fracture Mechanism.

Ice formation and accretion affect residential and commercial activities. Icephobic coatings decrease the ice adhesion strength (τ) to less than 100 kPa. However, rare icephobic coatings remove the ice under the action of gravity or natural winds.

Highly Stable Amphiphilic Organogel with Exceptional Anti-icing Performance.

Various organogel materials with either a liquid or solid surface layer have recently been designed and prepared. In this work, amphiphilic organogels (AmOG) are innovatively developed from copolymer P(PDMS-r-PEG-r-GMA) and 2,2'-diaminodiphenyldisulfide via epoxy group addition reaction and then infiltrated with amphiphilic lubricants instead of traditional hydrophilic or hydrophobic lubricants. Because of synergistic effects of hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments of amphiphilic lubricants, the AmOG surfaces showed high stability and excellent anti-icing performance.

Selective CO Evolution from Photoreduction of CO on a Metal-Carbide-Based Composite Catalyst.

A selective CO evolution from photoreduction of CO in water was achieved on a noble-metal-free, carbide-based composite catalyst, as demonstrated by a CO selectivity of 98.3% among all carbon-containing products and a CO evolution rate of 29.2 μmol h, showing superiority to noble-metal-based catalyst.

Fabrication of CeO2 nanotube supported Pt catalyst encapsulated with silica for high and stable performance.

This communication describes the fabrication of Pt/CeO2 nanotube@SiO2 core-shell catalysts applied to highly efficient water-gas shift reaction, where the initial CO conversion is 30.2% at 250 °C. Pt/CeO2 nanotube@SiO2 core-shell catalysts show outstanding thermal stability, even after accelerated aging under reaction conditions at 450 °C for 6 h, and the morphology is also unchanged after thermal treatment at 800 °C.

Reaction pathways of β-D-glucopyranose pyrolysis to syngas in hydrogen plasma: a density functional theory study.

In this work, density functional theory (DFT) was employed to investigate the reaction pathways of β-D-glucopyranose for better understanding the pyrolysis mechanism of cellulose in hydrogen plasma. Many possible reactions were considered, and the reaction enthalpies and activation energies of these reactions were calculated using density functional theory (DFT) with a Gaussian method of B3LYP and basic set of 6-31G(d,p). A most possible reaction pathway was brought up.