| 1. |
- Bhatti, Adeel Liaquat, et al.
(författare)
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Nanostructured Co3O4 electrocatalyst for OER : The role of organic polyelectrolytes as soft templates
- 2021
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Ingår i: Electrochimica Acta. - : Elsevier. - 0013-4686 .- 1873-3859. ; 398
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Designing an efficient electrocatalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline media is highly needed but very challenging task. Herein, we used organic polyelectrolytes such as (carboxymethyl cellulose) CMC and polyacrylamide polymers for the growth of Co3O4 nanostructures by aqueous chemical growth method. The morphology and composition studies were performed on scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) techniques. The structural properties and the surface chemistry of the Co3O4 electrocatalysts were correlated to the OER performance, and the enhancement mechanism with respect to pristine Co3O4 was observed to be specifically related to the polyelectrolyte templating role.Co3O4@CMC composites displayed reduced crystallite size, producing OER overpotential as low as 290 mV at 10 mAcm−2 in 1.0 KOH and Tafel slope of 71 mVdec−1, suggesting fast transfer of intermediates and electrons during water electrolysis. On the other hand, the use of polyacrylamide and its different templating mechanism resulted in similar crystallite size, but preferential exposed faces and larger surface vacancies content, as demonstrated by HR-TEM and XPS, respectively. Consistently, this material displays cutting-edge OER performance, such as overpotential of 260 mV at 10 mAcm−2 and a low Tafel slope of 63 mVdec−1. The proposed strategy for the preparation of Co3O4 nanostructures in the presence of CMC and polyacrylamide is facile, mass production, thus it could equally contributed towards the realization of hydrogen energy. Therefore, these nanostructures of Co3O4 can be regarded as an alternative and promising materials for the different electrochemical applications including fuel cells, metal air batteries, overall water electrolysis and other energy storage devices.
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| 2. |
- Mahar, Ihsan Ali, et al.
(författare)
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Glucose sensing via green synthesis of NiO-SiO2 composites with citrus lemon peel extract
- 2024
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Ingår i: Journal of materials science. Materials in electronics. - : SPRINGER. - 0957-4522 .- 1573-482X. ; 35:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this study, NiO-SiO2-based composites were synthesized through low-temperature aqueous chemical growth utilizing a facile, low-cost, and environmentally friendly approach. The composite systems were prepared using a combination of silica gel and citrus lemon peel extract. Due to the remarkable green chemicals in orange peel extract, porous nanostructures have been developed with thin sheet-like properties. The composite materials were examined in terms of their crystalline structure, morphology, optical band gap, and surface chemical composition. An advanced non-enzymatic glucose sensor developed from NiO-SiO2 composites exhibits rich surface oxygen vacancies and abundant catalytic sites. Based on sample 2, cyclic voltammetry revealed a linear glucose concentration range between 0.1 and 20 mM, chronoamperometry exhibited glucose concentration ranges between 0.1 and 14 mM, and linear sweep voltammetry revealed glucose concentration ranges from 0.1 to 10 mM. In enzymatic glucose sensors, the minimum level of detection was estimated to be 0.08 mM. A number of sensor characterization parameters were examined, including selectivity, stability, reproducibility, and real-time applications. In addition, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) has shown that the NiO-SiO2 composite performs well in non-enzymatic glucose sensing due to its low charge transfer resistance and high electrochemical active surface area (ECSA). NiO-SiO2 composites could have significant biomedical, energy conversion, and storage applications based on the results obtained.
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| 3. |
- Qi, Kezhen, et al.
(författare)
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Enhanced photocatalytic activity of anatase-TiO2 nanoparticles by fullerene modification : A theoretical and experimental study
- 2016
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Ingår i: Applied Surface Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 0169-4332 .- 1873-5584. ; 387, s. 750-758
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A series of fullerene (C-60)-modified anatase TiO2 (a-TiO2) nanocomposites with different weight loadings of C-60 were successfully synthesized by a simple solution phase method. The as-prepared C-60@a-TiO2 nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), UV-vis diffuse reflectance absorption spectra (DRS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). The photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) by the neat a-TiO2 and C-60@a-TiO2 nanocomposites was investigated under UV-A light irradiation, demonstrating that C-60 effectively enhances the photocatalytic activity of a-TiO2 nanoparticles with an optimal amount of 2.0 wt%. By combining with the density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we investigated the electronic structures of C-60@a-TiO2 hetero-interfaces to reveal the underlying principle of the C-60 loading on the photocatalytic activity. It was found that the incorporation of C-60 on the a-TiO2 surface not only narrowed the band gap, but also introduced an additional doping state between the valance and conduction band. Therefore, the presence of intermediate electronic state will in turn contribute to the efficient charge separation and enhanced light adsorption for the C-60@a-TiO2 nanocomposites, resulting in an improved photocatalytic performance.
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| 4. |
- Qi, Kezhen, et al.
(författare)
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Hierarchical alpha-MnS microspheres : Solvothermal synthesis and growth mechanism
- 2016
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Ingår i: Materials letters (General ed.). - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-577X .- 1873-4979. ; 166, s. 116-120
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Hierarchical-like alpha-MnS microspheres have been successfully synthesized via a simple solvothermal route using L-Cystein as both sulfur source and capping agent. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis confirmed that these hierarchical microspheres were made of alpha-phase MnS. Morphological studies performed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) methods showed that the alpha-MnS hierarchical microspheres are obtained from the nanocubes by self-assembly due to the main driving force of the minimization of overall surface energy. It is highly expected this research can provide a useful fundamental understanding of shape-controlled synthesis of the semiconductor material with hierarchical microstructures.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Qi, Xingmei, et al.
(författare)
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Spiders use structural conversion of globular amyloidogenic domains to make strong silk fibers
- 2024
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Ingår i: Advanced Functional Materials. - : Wiley-VCH Verlagsgesellschaft. - 1616-301X .- 1616-3028. ; 34:23
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Spider silk—an environmentally friendly protein-based material—is widely recognized for its extraordinary mechanical properties. Biomimetic spider silk-like fibers made from recombinant spider silk proteins (spidroins) currently falls short compared to natural silks in terms of mechanical performance. In this study, it is discovered that spiders use structural conversion of molecular enhancers—conserved globular 127-residue spacer domains—to make strong silk fibers. This domain lacks poly-Ala motifs but interestingly contains motifs that are similar to human amyloidogenic motifs, and that it self-assembles into amyloid-like fibrils through a non-nucleation-dependent pathway, likely to avoid the formation of cytotoxic intermediates. Incorporating this spacer domain into a recombinant chimeric spidroin facilitates self-assembly into silk-like fibers, increases fiber molecular homogeneity, and markedly enhances fiber mechanical strength. These findings highlight that spiders employ diverse strategies to produce silk with exceptional mechanical properties. The spacer domain offers a way to enhance the properties of recombinant spider silk-like fibers and other functional materials.
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| 7. |
- Selvaraj, Rengaraj, et al.
(författare)
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A simple hydrothermal route for the preparation of HgS nanoparticles and their photocatalytic activities
- 2014
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Ingår i: RSC Advances. - : Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). - 2046-2069. ; 4:30, s. 15371-15376
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- HgS nanoparticles have been successfully prepared by a hydrothermal method using polyethylene glycol (PEG) as stabilizing agent and characterized by a variety of methods. Our experiments confirmed that the size of the HgS nanocrystals could be easily modified by tuning the chain length of PEG. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) results for the nanoparticles revealed the hexagonal structure of the HgS, i. e. a-phase known as cinnabar. Morphological studies performed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed that the synthesized nanocrystals were nanoparticles. Furthermore, a rational mechanism of the formation and evolution of the products was proposed. The optical properties of HgS were investigated by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), which indicated that the band gap of the nanoparticles is slightly decreased from 2.05 to 2.00 eV as the average particle size decreases from 55 to 35 nm. Furthermore, the photocatalytic activity studies of the particles demonstrated their excellent photocatalytic performance in rapidly degrading aqueous methylene blue dye solution under visible light irradiation. These results suggest that HgS nanoparticles will be an interesting candidate of photocatalyst working in visible light range.
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