TiO2/BP/g-C3N4 heterojunction photocatalyst for the enhanced photocatalytic degradation of RhB.

The efficiency of graphite carbon nitride (g-C3N4, CN) as a photocatalyst is limited due to its quick recombination of photogenerated carriers and layer re-stacking. To enhance its photocatalytic activity, a multi-heterojunction photocatalyst was developed using TiO2 and black phosphorus (BP) coupled with CN through a liquid-phase ultrasonic method. The composite, TiO2/BP/CN, demonstrated a wider range of light response and higher photo-induced carrier separation efficiency. The presence of TiO2 nanoparticles on CN nanolayers reduced interlayer stacking and increased specific surface area, thereby providing more reactive sites. As a result, the optimized TiO2/BP/CN composite demonstrated enhanced photocatalytic efficiency for the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB), with a first-order kinetic constant of 2.8, 4.3, and 6.4 times that of CN, TiO2, and BP, respectively. Active substance capture experiments confirmed that superoxide radical (·O2) was the primary reactive species. This study highlights the potential of the developed TiO2/BP/CN composite as a promising photocatalyst for environmental remediation applications.

Hierarchically porous graphene-like biochar for efficient removal of aromatic pollutants and their structure-performance relationship: A combined experimental, MD and DFT study.

Development of high-efficiency adsorbents and exploration of the structure-performance relationship holds exciting implications for removal of aromatic pollutants (APs) from water. Herein, hierarchically porous graphene-like biochars (HGBs) were successfully prepared by K2CO3 simultaneous graphitization and activation of Physalis pubescens husk. The HGBs possess high specific surface area (1406-2369.7 m2/g), hierarchically meso-/microporous structure and high graphitization degree. The optimized HGB-2-9 sample exhibits rapid adsorption equilibrium time (te) and high adsorption capacities (Qe) for seven widely-used persistent APs with different molecular structures (e.g., phenol: te = 7 min, Qe = 191.06 mg/g; methylparaben: te = 12 min Qe = 482.15 mg/g). HGB-2-9 also shows a wide pH (3-10) suitability and good ionic strength (0.01-0.5 M NaCl) resistance properties. The effects of the physicochemical properties of HGBs and APs on the adsorption performance were deeply investigated by the adsorption experiments, molecular dynamics (MD) and density functional theory (DFT) simulation. The results demonstrate that the large specific surface area, high graphitization degree and hierarchically porous structure of HGB-2-9 can supply more active sites on accessible surface and facilitate the transport of APs. And the aromaticity and hydrophobicity of APs play the more crucial roles during the adsorption process. Besides, the HGB-2-9 presents good recyclability and high removal efficiency for APs in various real water, which further confirms its potential for practical applications.

Gradient descent based algorithm of generating phase-only holograms of 3D images.

Fraunhofer diffraction based computer generated holograms (CGH) adopts a Fourier transform lens that reconstructs the image on the Fourier plane. Fresnel diffraction based CGH directly reconstruct the image on the near field, however, the reconstructed image is much farther, which brings difficulty of application. In this paper, a Fresnel transform with the utilization of a Fourier transform lens and a gradient descent based algorithm is proposed to generate holograms of 3D images.

Facile and Powerful In Situ Polymerization Strategy for Sulfur-Based All-Solid Polymer Electrolytes in Lithium Batteries.

All-solid-state polymer electrolytes can improve the safety of lithium batteries. However, the common Bellcore polymer electrolyte technology faces several issues such as wasting a mass of solvent, high manufacturing cost, and poor interfacial compatibility between polymer electrolytes and electrodes. Herein, we propose an in situ polymerization technique to synthesize all-solid-state polymer electrolytes by a thiol-Michael addition click reaction. The alternating copolymer is made from the Michael addition reaction of ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) and 1,2-ethane dithiol (EDT). At ambient temperature, the obtained composite polymer electrolyte displays an ionic conductivity of 3.02 × 10-5 S/cm, an electrochemical window of 4.5 V, and a lithium-ion transference number of 0.45. In light of this unique polymerization process, the traditional fabrication method of liquid electrolyte-based lithium batteries can be adopted in the current study for the preparation of all-solid-state Li/LiFePO4 batteries. It was found that the assembled all-solid-state Li/LiFePO4 batteries exhibited superior charging/discharging performance and preferable safety. Thus, this facile and powerful in situ polymerization strategy may open up a new approach for the design and fabrication of all-solid-state batteries with desirable performances.