Unlocking Bimetallic Active Centers via Heterostructure Engineering for Exceptional Phosphate Electrosorption: Internal Electric Field-Induced Electronic Structure Reconstruction.

Development of electrode materials exhibiting exceptional phosphate removal performance represents a promising strategy to mitigate eutrophication and meet ever-stricter stringent emission standards. Herein, we precisely designed a novel LaCeOx heterostructure-decorated hierarchical carbon composite (L8C2PC) for high-efficiency phosphate electrosorption. This approach establishes an internal electric field within the LaCeOx heterostructure, where the electrons transfer from Ce atoms to neighboring La atoms through superexchange interactions in La-O-Ce coordination units. The modulatory heterostructure endows a positive shift of the d band of La sites and the increase of electron density at Fermi level, promoting stronger orbital overlap and binding interactions. The introduction of oxygen vacancies during the in situ nucleation process reduces the kinetic barrier for phosphate-ion migration and supplies additional active centers. Moreover, the hierarchical carbon framework ensures electrical double-layer capacitance for phosphate storage and interconnected ion migration channels. Such synergistically multiple active centers grant the L8C2PC electrode with high-efficiency record in phosphate electrosorption. As expected, the L8C2PC electrode demonstrates the highest removal capability among the reported electrode materials with a saturation capacity of 401.31 mg P g-1 and a dynamic capacity of 91.83 mg P g-1 at 1.2 V. This electrochemical system also performs well in the dephosphorization in natural water samples with low concentration that enable effluent concentration to meet the first-class discharge standard for China (0.5 mg P L-1). This study advances efficient dephosphorization techniques to a new level and offers a deep understanding of the internal electric field that regulates metal orbitals and electron densities in heterostructure engineering.

A novel sustainable N recycling process: Upcycling ammonia to ammonium fertilizer from dilute wastewater and simultaneously realizing phenol degradation via a visible solar-driven PECMA system with efficient Ag2S-BiVO4 photoanodes.

The selective recovery of NH4+ as N fertilizers from dilution wastewater is a promising but challenging topic. Herein, a novel visible-light driven photo-electrochemical membrane stripping cell (designated "PECMA") with Ag2S-BiVO4 heterojunction photoanode was proposed to recover ammonium from dilute wastewater, which comprised an anode chamber for organics treatment, intermediate chamber for separating ammonium, cathode chamber for upcycling NH4+ into NH3, and recovery chamber for converting NH3 into (NH4)2SO4. The NH4+ is concentrated by 21.5 times and recovered as (NH4)2SO4 with a concentration of 7103 mg L-1 after 10 cycles. At a current density of 3.86 A m-2, PECMA system achieves excellent NH4+ removal and recovery rates of 97.5 and 37.2 g N m-2 d-1 in 100 mgN L-1 wastewater. Moreover, PECMA degrades refractory organic pollutants through ClO· generated by Ag2S-BiVO4 photoanode, which effectively decompose phenol to CO2 with a degradation rate of 93 %. Although tested as a proof-of-concept, the hybrid system opens up a novel field involving a sunlight-water-energy nexus, promising high efficiency NH4+ recovery and wastewater remediation.

Corporate Social Responsibility Activities and Green Innovation Performance in Organizations: Do Managerial Environmental Concerns and Green Absorptive Capacity Matter?

From the environmental sustainability perspective, scholars have considered corporate social responsibility activities as an essential mechanism for enhancing enterprise performance and innovation outcomes. However, how and under what conditions corporate social responsibility activities influence green innovation performance in emerging economies is still unclear. From the perspective of the theory of planned behavior, we construct a theoretical model to assess how corporate social responsibility activities affect enterprises' green innovation performance. Explicitly, we investigate the mediating and moderating effects of managerial environmental concern and green absorptive capacity on the relationship between corporate social responsibility activities and enterprises' green innovation performance. This research relies on a sample of 358 enterprises from the manufacturing and service sectors in China, and uses regression analysis and bootstrap to test the hypotheses proposed. The empirical results demonstrate that (1) corporate social responsibility activities positively enhance enterprises' green innovation performance; (2) corporate social responsibility activities have a positive influence on managerial environmental concern; (3) managerial environmental concern has a mediating role between corporate social responsibility activities and green innovation performance; (4) managerial environmental concern has a powerful influence on green innovation performance; (5) green absorptive capacity positively moderates the association between managerial environmental concern and green innovation performance. This research work proposes that managerial environmental concern and green absorptive capacity play a mediating and moderating function on the linkage amongst corporate social responsibility activities and green innovation performance.

Iron-nitrogen-activated carbon as cathode catalyst to improve the power generation of single-chamber air-cathode microbial fuel cells.

In order to improve the performance of microbial fuel cell (MFC), iron-nitrogen-activated carbon (Fe-N-C) as an excellent oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst was prepared here using commercial activated carbon (AC) as matrix and employed in single chamber MFC. In MFC, the maximum power density increased to 2437±55 mW m(-2), which was 2 times of that with AC. The open circuit potential (OCP) of Fe-N-C cathode (0.47) was much higher than that of AC cathode (0.21 V). The R0 of Fe-N-C decreased by 47% from 14.36 Ω (AC) to 7.6 Ω (Fe-N-C). From X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), pyridinic nitrogen, quaternary nitrogen and iron species were present, which played an important role in the ORR performance of Fe-N-C. These results demonstrated that the as-prepared Fe-N-C material provided a potential alternative to Pt in AC air cathode MFC for relatively desirable energy generation and wastewater treatment.