Rapid Yet Efficient Reduction of Graphene Oxide Triggered by Semi-Molten Metals.

Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) has garnered extensive attention as electrodes, sensors, and membranes, necessitating the efficient reduction of graphene oxide (GO) for optimal performance. In this work, a swift reduction of GO that involves bringing GO foam in contact with semi-molten metals like tin (Sn) and lithium (Li) is presented. These findings reveal that the electrical resistance of GO foam is significantly diminished by its interaction with these metals, even in dry air. Taking inspiration from this technique, Sn foil is employed to encase the GO foam, followed by a calcination in 15 vol% H2 /Ar environment at 235 °C to fabricate the rGO, which demonstrates a remarkably lower electrical resistivity of 0.42 Ω cm when compared to the chemically reduced GO via hydrazine hydrate (650 Ω cm). The reduction mechanism entails the migration of Sn on GO and its subsequent reaction with oxygen functional groups. SnO/Sn(OH)2 formed from the reaction can be subsequently reversed through reduction by H2 to Sn. Utilizing this rGO as the host material for a sulfur cathode, a lithium-sulfur battery is constructed that displays a specific capacity of 1146 mAh g-1 and maintains a capacity retention of 68.4% after 300 cycles at a rate of 0.2 C.

Hierarchical CuS@ZnIn2S4 Hollow Double-Shelled p-n Heterojunction Octahedra Decorated with Fullerene C60 for Remarkable Selectivity and Activity of CO2 Photoreduction into CH4.

In this work, a hollow double-shelled architecture, based on n-type ZnIn2S4 nanosheet-coated p-type CuS hollow octahedra (CuS@ZnIn2S4 HDSOs), is designed and fabricated as a p-n heterojunction photocatalyst for selective CO2 photoreduction into CH4. The resulting hybrids provide rich active sites and effective charge migration/separation to drive CO2 photoreduction, and meanwhile, CO detachment is delayed to increase the possibility of eight-electron reactions for CH4 production. As expected, the optimized CuS@ZnIn2S4 HDSOs manifest a CH4 yield of 28.0 µmol g-1 h-1 and a boosted CH4 selectivity up to 94.5%. The decorated C60 both possesses high electron affinity and improves catalyst stability and CO2 adsorption ability. Thus, the C60-decorated CuS@ZnIn2S4 HDSOs exhibit the highest CH4 evolution rate of 43.6 µmol g-1 h-1 and 96.5% selectivity. This work provides a rational strategy for designing and fabricating efficient heteroarchitectures for CO2 photoreduction.

Efficient charge transfer in cadmium sulfide quantum dot-decorated hierarchical zinc sulfide-coated tin disulfide cages for carbon dioxide photoreduction.

Constructing hybrid photocatalysts with advanced structures and controllable compositions is a promising way to improve CO2 photoreduction performance. In this work, SnS2 nanosheets are grown on ZnS polyhedron cages to fabricate hierarchical ZnS@SnS2 double-shelled heterostructured cages. This design integrates ZnS cages and SnS2 nanosheets into a stable heterostructured hybrid catalyst with a hierarchical double-shelled cage-like architecture, possessing abundant active sites, quick charge separation/migration, and high CO2 adsorption capacity. Benefiting from these advantages, the optimized hierarchical ZnS@SnS2 heterostructured cages exhibit significant gas-phase CO2 photoreduction activity with a CO generation rate of 95.38 µmol g-1h-1 and 72.4% CO selectivity, which are greatly improved in comparison with those of pure ZnS cages and nanosheet-assembled SnS2 particles. Furthermore, charge carrier separation efficiency and visible light harvesting ability are further improved by constructing a ZnS@SnS2/CdS type-I/type-II complex heterostructured system through surface decoration of CdS quantum dots. The optimized ZnS@SnS2/CdS hybrid exhibits a CO generation rate of 155.57 µmol g-1h-1 and an excellent selectivity of 80.4%. This work is conducive to the design and manufacture of advanced hybrids for solar energy utilization and photocatalytic reactions.