Bennettwalters7640

Design of highly active and stable non-precious electrocatalysts towards hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a hot research topic in low cost, clean and sustainable hydrogen energy field, yet remaining the important challenge caused by the sluggish reaction kinetics for water-alkali electrolyzers. Herein, a robust electrocatalyst is proposed by designing a novel sub-nanometer of copper and ruthenium bimetallic phosphide nanoclusters (RuxCuyP2) supported on a graphited carbon nanofibers (CNF). Uniform RuxCuyP2 (~1.90 nm) on the surface of CNF are obtained by introducing the dispersed Ru, thereby improving the intrinsic activity for HER. On optimizing the Ru ratio, the (x = y = 1) RuCuP2/CNF catalyst exhibits an excellent HER electroactivity with an overpotential of 10 mV in 1.0 M NaOH electrolyte to produce 10 mA cm-2 current density, which is lower than commercial 20% Pt/C in alkaline solution. Moreover, the kinetic study demonstrated that electrochemical activation energies for HER of RuCuP2/CNF is 20.7 kJ mol-1 highest among different ratio bimetallic phosphide. This simple, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly methodology can pave the way for exploitation of bimetallic phosphide nanoclusters for catalyst design.

Plant seeds store lipids in oleosomes, which are storage organelles with a triacylglycerol (TAG) core surrounded by a phospholipid monolayer and proteins. Due to their membrane components, oleosomes have an affinity for the air/oil-water interface. Therefore, it is expected that oleosomes can stabilise interfaces, and also compete with proteins for the air-water interface.

We mixed rapeseed oleosomes with whey protein isolate (WPI), and evaluated their air-water interfacial properties by interfacial rheology and microstructure imaging. To understand the contribution of the oleosome components to the interfacial properties, oleosome membrane components (phospholipids and membrane proteins) or rapeseed lecithin (phospholipids) were also mixed with WPI.

Oleosomes were found to disrupt after adsorption, and formed TAG/phospholipid-rich regions with membrane fragments at the interface, forming a weak and mobile interfacial layer. Mixing oleosomes with WPI resulted in an interface with TAG/phospholipid-rich rthe interface.Emulsions and foams were constructed by using surfactant particles as stabilizers. Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phosphate, abbreviated as HDEHP, was used as both an oil in neutral form and an anionic surfactant in deprotonated form, DEHP-. In the system of HDEHP/H2O, upon adding NaOH, a portion of HDEHP was deprotonated to form DEHP- as stabilizers of O/W emulsions. After introducing some certain metal ions, the O/W emulsions were transformed to W/O Pickering emulsions due to the generation of insoluble particles by DEHP- and metal ions. In addition, DEHP- could also combine with some metal ions to produce particles absorbed at air/water interface, forming ultrastable foams. Accompanied with the formation of Pickering emulsions and foams, the extraction of metal ions from water could be realized with high removal efficiency. The extractant, HDEHP, could be effectively recycled through convenient demulsification of Pickering emulsions or destruction of foams. This work provides new ideas for the construction of particle-stabilized dispersion systems and proposes methods with potential applications in industrial wastewater treatments.Hierarchical microstructures of electrode materials for supercapacitors have attracted strong attention owing to the enlarged surface area, fast charge transportation and enhanced volume expansion. All these advantages of hierarchical structures are available for facilitating the electrochemical performances and stability of electrode materials for advanced supercapacitors. However, few reports focused on the development of transition metal-based homogeneous 2D/1D hierarchical structures use the same material. Herein, the ZnCo-LDH with 3D hierarchical microstructure was self-assembled with 1D nanoneedles and 2D nanosheets that in situ synthesized on Ni foam through a simple and effective strategy. The optimal sample (ZnCo-LDH-2) exhibited the ultra-high specific capacitance of 3871.2 F g -1 at 1 A g -1 and excellent cycle life span (capacitance retention of 87.5% after 6000 cycles at 5 A g-1). Particularly, the current density was as high as 100 A g-1, the specific capacitance of ZnCo-LDH-2 still remained 1526 F g-1. Moreover, the symmetric supercapacitor (SSC) fabricated with ZnCo-LDH-2 showed the maximum energy density of 40.3 Wh kg-1 and power density of 15.08 kW kg-1.Designing efficient electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is crucial to enhance the energy efficiencies of metal-air batteries and fuel cells. Palladium (Pd) catalysts show great potential due to their high intrinsic activity towards ORR but suffer from inferior durability. Here, we aim to employ tin oxide (SnO2) supports to tailor the lattice strain and electron density of Pd catalysts to enhance their ORR performance. By using electrospinning and solvothermal techniques, a hierarchical Pd/SnO2 hybrid catalyst was facilely synthesized with Pd nanoparticles anchored onto both the inside and outside walls of nanotube-like SnO2 supports. Owing to the SnO2 supports and the endowing metal-support interactions, tensile-strain and electron-rich features were both verified for the Pd nanoparticles in the Pd/SnO2 catalyst. In comparison, no such features were found for the Pd nanoparticles in the Pd/C catalyst. As a consequence, the Pd/SnO2 hybrid catalyst exhibits 2.5-times higher mass activity than the Pd/C catalyst and greatly improved durability with a current decay of 4% loss over 50 h compared with that (18%) of the Pd/C catalyst.In this work, a sulfonic acid-functionalized magnetic separable solid acid (Fe3O4@SiO2-SO3H) was synthesized, characterized, and tested for fructose conversion to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). Results indicated that the prepared catalyst had a good efficacy for fructose dehydration to HMF due to its larger specific surface area, appropriate acid amount and homogeneous acid distribution. selleckchem The maximum HMF yield of this work was 96.1 mol%. It was obtained at 120 °C for 1.5 h with 100 mol% fructose conversion. More importantly, the produced HMF could be further in-situ oxidized into 2,5-diformylfuran (DFF) after the replacing of the Fe3O4@SiO2-SO3H with a ZnFeRuO4 catalyst, and the highest DFF yield of 90.2 mol% (based on initial fructose) was obtained after reaction another 8.5 h. The production of DFF from fructose through the above two consecutive steps avoids the intermediate HMF separation, which saves time and energy. In addition, both Fe3O4@SiO2-SO3H and ZnFeRuO4 catalysts exhibited satisfied stability in the recycling experiments, which can be reused at least for five times with the HMF and DFF yield loss less then 5.