New covalently tethered CO2 adsorbents are synthesized through the in situ polymerization of N-carboxyanhydride (NCA) of l-alanine from amine-functionalized three-dimensional (3D) interconnected macroporous silica (MPS). The interconnected macropores provide low-resistant pathways for the diffusion of CO2 molecules, while the abundant mesopores ensure the high pore volume. The adsorbents exhibit high molecular weight (of up to 13058 Da), high amine loading (more than 10.98 mmol N g(-1)), fast CO2 capture kinetics (t1/2 < 1 min), high adsorption capacity (of up to 3.86 mmol CO2 g(-1) in simulated flue gas and 2.65 mmol CO2 g(-1) in simulated ambient air under 1 atm of dry CO2), as well as good stability over 120 adsorption-desorption cycles, which allows the overall CO2 capture process to be promising and sustainable.

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We synthesized a new MXene/PANI composite by chemical oxidative polymerization of aniline monomers with enhanced electrochemical performances.

The semiconducting metal oxide-based photoanodes in the most efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) desires a low doping level to promote charge separation, which, however, limits the subsequent electron extraction in the slow diffusion regime. These conflicts are mitigated in a new photoanode design that decouples the charge separation and extraction functions. A three-dimensional highly doped fluorinated SnO(2) (FTO) nanoparticulate film serves as conductive core for low-resistance and drift-assisted charge extraction while a thin, low-doped conformal TiO(2) shell maintains a large resistance to recombination (and therefore long charge lifetime). EIS reveals that the electron transit time is reduced by orders of magnitude, whereas the recombination resistance remains in the range of traditional nanoparticle TiO(2) photoelectrodes.