Surface defects in semiconductors have a significant role to tune the photocatalytic reactions. However, the dominant studied defect type is oxygen vacancy, and metal cation vacancies are seldom explored. Herein, bismuth vacancies are engineered into BiOBr through ultrathin structure control and employed to tune photocatalytic CO 2 reduction. V Bi -BiOBr ultrathin nanosheets deliver a high selective CO generation rate of 20.1 μmol g −1 h −1 in pure water, without any cocatalyst, photosensitizer, and sacrificing reagent, roughly 3.8 times higher than that of BiOBr nanosheets. The increased CO 2 reduction activity is ascribed to the tuned electronic structure, optimized CO 2 adsorption, activation, and CO desorption process over V Bi -BiOBr ultrathin nanosheets. This work offers new opportunities for designing surface metal vacancies to optimize the CO 2 photoreduction performances.
A carbon microtube
aerogel (CMA) with hydrophobicity,
strong adsorption capacity, and superb recyclability was obtained
by a feasible approach with economical raw material, such as kapok
fiber. The CMA possesses a great adsorption capacity of 78–348
times its weight. Attributed to its outstanding thermal stability
and excellent mechanical properties, the CMA can be used for many
cycles of distillation, squeezing, and combustion without degradation,
which suggests a potential practical application in oil–water
separation. In addition, the adsorption capacity still retained 98%
by distillation, 97% by squeezing, and 90% by combustion after 10
cycles. Therefore, the obtained CMA has a broad prospect as an economical,
efficient, and environmentally friendly adsorbent.
Fibrous material with high strength and large stretchability is an essential component of high‐performance wearable electronic devices. Wearable electronic systems require a material that is strong to ensure durability and stability, and a wide range of strain to expand their applications. However, it is still challenging to manufacture fibrous materials with simultaneously high mechanical strength and the tensile property. Herein, the ultra‐robust (≈17.6 MPa) and extensible (≈700%) conducting microfibers are developed and demonstrated their applications in fabricating fibrous mechanical sensors. The mechanical sensor shows high sensitivity in detecting strains that have high strain resolution and a large detection range (from 0.0075% to 400%) simultaneously. Moreover, low frequency vibrations between 0 and 40 Hz are also detected, which covers most tremors that occur in the human body. As a further step, a wearable and smart health‐monitoring system has been developed using the fibrous mechanical sensor, which is capable of monitoring health‐related physiological signals, including muscle movement, body tremor, wrist pulse, respiration, gesture, and six body postures to predict and diagnose diseases, which will promote the wearable telemedicine technology.
Synthesis of large-area patterned MoS 2 is considered the principle base for realizing high-performance MoS 2 -based flexible electronic devices. Patterning and transferring MoS 2 films to target flexible substrates, however, require conventional multi-step photolithography patterning and transferring process, despite tremendous progress in the facilitation of practical applications. Herein, an approach to directly synthesize large-scale MoS 2 patterns that combines inkjet printing and thermal annealing is reported. An optimal precursor ink is prepared that can deposit arbitrary patterns on polyimide films. By introducing a gas atmosphere of argon/hydrogen (Ar/H 2 ), thermal treatment at 350 °C enables an in situ decomposition and crystallization in the patterned precursors and, consequently, results in the formation of MoS 2 . Without complicated processes, patterned MoS 2 is obtained directly on polymer substrate, exhibiting superior mechanical flexibility and durability (≈2% variation in resistance over 10,000 bending cycles), as well as excellent chemical stability, which is attributed to the generated continuous and thin microstructures, as well as their strong adhesion with the substrate. As a step further, this approach is employed to manufacture various flexible sensing devices that are insensitive to body motions and moisture, including temperature sensors and biopotential sensing systems for real-time, continuously monitoring skin temperature, electrocardiography, and electromyography signals.
Since the first demonstration, remarkable progress has been made in the theoretical analysis, structural design, numerical simulation, and potential applications of metamaterial absorbers (MAs). With the continuous advancement of novel materials and creative designs, the absorption of MAs is significantly improved over a wide frequency spectrum from microwaves to the optical regime. Further, the integration of active elements into the MA design allows the dynamical manipulation of electromagnetic waves, opening a new platform to push breakthroughs in metadevices. In the last several years, numerous efforts have been devoted to exploring innovative approaches for incorporating tunability to MAs, which is highly desirable because of the progressively increasing demand on designing versatile metadevices. Here, a comprehensive and systematical overview of active MAs with adaptive and on‐demand manner is presented, highlighting innovative materials and unique strategies to precisely control the electromagnetic response. In addition to the mainstream method by manipulating periodic patterns, two additional approaches, including tailoring dielectric spacer and transforming overall structure are called back. Following this, key parameters, such as operating frequency, relative tuning range, and switching speed are summarized and compared to guide for optimum design. Finally, potential opportunities in the development of active MAs are discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.