Urea electrolysis offers the prospect of cost-effective and energy-saving hydrogen production together with mitigating urea-rich wastewater pollution instead of overall water splitting.
Urea electrolysis is an appealing energy conversion technology to produce hydrogen (H2) and alleviating the problem of urea-rich wastewater treatment concurrently. In particular, the electrocatalytic performance can be dramatically enhanced...
In this work, a microwave welding method has been used for the construction of chemical Ni-C bonding at the interface between carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and metal Ni to provide a different surface electron distribution, which determined the electromagnetic (EM) wave absorption properties based on a surface plasmon resonance mechanism. Through a serial of detailed examinations, such as X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Raman spectrum, the as-expected chemical Ni-C bonding between CNTs and metal Ni has been confirmed. And the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller and surface zeta potential measurements uncovered the great evolution of structure and electronic density compared with CNTs, metal Ni, and Ni-CNT composite without Ni-C bonding. Correspondingly, except the EM absorption due to CNTs and metal Ni in the composite, another wide and strong EM absorption band ranging from 10 to 18 GHz was found, which was induced by the Ni-C bonded interface. With a thinner thickness and more exposed Ni-C interfaces, the Ni-CNT composite displayed less reflection loss.
Lithium–selenium batteries, employing selenium as a cathode material, exhibit some notable advantages, such as high discharge rates and good cycling performance, due to their high electrical conductivity, high output voltages, and high volumetric capacity density. However, an important problem, termed the “shuttle effect”, can lead to capacity decay in Li‐Se cells (and in Li‐S cells), which arises from aggregation and the loss of Se or S from the cathode into the electrolyte. In this work, in order to solve this problem, a new self‐repairing system has been devised, in which some Se atoms are chemically bonded to the carbon atoms of graphene and act as reclaiming points for dissociated Se atoms through the establishment of ‐Se‐Se‐Se‐ chains. Se‐decorated graphene (Se‐GE) was first constructed through a facile high‐energy ball‐milling process. Its formation was confirmed by XRD, SEM, HRTEM, XPS, and Raman analyses. As we anticipated, in examining cell properties, the as‐prepared Se‐GE composite underwent an initial capacity decay in the first 20 cycles (from 1050 mAh g−1 to 750 mAh g−1, ca. 29 % loss), but the capacity then reverted to 970 mAh g−1 (ca. 92 % of the initial value). Other measurements were also consistent with the recapture of dissociated Se atoms.
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