The leaching and recycling of valuable metals via environmentally benign solvents is important because of the everincreasing waste lithium-ion batteries, but it remains a challenge. Herein, a multi-functional deep eutectic solvent (DES) based on lactic acid (LA) and guanidine hydrochloride (GHC) was used to extract cobalt and lithium ions from LiCoO 2 . Due to the strong acidity (protons) and abundant chlorine coordinating ions of LA/GHC, the solubility of LiCoO 2 in LA/GHC could reach as high as 19.9 mg g À 1 (stirred at 80 °C for 24 h), and a little LiCoO 2 powder even could be dissolved at room temperature without stirring. Oxalic acid was used to strip and separate the oxalates of cobalt and lithium. Furthermore, LA/ GHC could be recycled with a similar dissolving performance. This work avoided using corrosive acids and could be realized at low temperature (80 °C), making it energy-saving and costeffective. It shows DESs have great potential in extracting strategically important metals from LiCoO 2 cathodes and provides an efficient and green alternative for sustainable recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries.

Ultrasonic irradiation drives the reduction of Pt4+ and tight adherence of the resulting metallic Pt nanoparticles to CdS to boost photocatalytic H2 evolution.

Visible light driven transformation of biomass to high-valued chemicals is attractive for achieving a low-carbon society. The solar-catalyzed oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to 2,5-diformylfuran (DFF) has great industrial potential because...

No abstract

With a conceptual shift in sewage treatment from ‘waste pollution’ to ‘vehicle of resource and energy recovery’ and the further intensification of the energy crisis, the separation and recovery of carbon resources from discharged sewage has gained increasing recent attention in the field of water treatment. The ultra-short Solids Retention Time (SRT) activated sludge process (SRT ≤ 4 d) is highly efficient for separating organic matter and improving the energy recovery rate in wastewater treatment plants, but the effluent quality is relatively poor. If organics in the ultra-short SRT effluent can be reduced further to separate and recover carbon resources, the process may soon replace the traditional activated sludge process. We conducted physical adsorption carbon recovery experiments in an ultra-short SRT (SRT = 2 d) activated sludge system using three carbon nanotubes. Considering that Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) arises from a mixture of organic compounds, and because humic acid (HA) makes up a large fraction of the effluent and can cause great environmental harm, further experiments were conducted on the adsorption of HA in the effluent COD to three nanotubes. This study proposes a novel method to completely remove organics from the effluent from ultra-short SRT activated sludge processes and reveals nanotube adsorption properties and mechanisms.

No abstract

Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been well-known as novel solvents due to their unique properties, which are dispensable for the development of green chemistry in future. The CoCl2·6H2O and NiCl2·6H2O-based...

The development of catalysts with relatively high current densities at low potentials for the electrooxidation of 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is still challenging. In this study, an in situ deep eutectic solvent (DES) etching phosphorization strategy is developed to prepare nickel phosphides encapsulated in P,O‐codoped carbon nanosheets (Ni−P@POC). The DES serves not only as an etchant to extract Ni2+ from the nickel foam, but also as a phosphorus source to form nickel phosphides in situ uniformly embedded in the carbon films to produce a sheet structure. The electrooxidation performance is further greatly improved by implementing an electrochemical activation step to transform Ni−P@POC into NiOOH/Ni−P@POC (t‐Ni−P@POC). t‐Ni−P@POC exhibits a low onset potential of 1.20 V vs. RHE and a high current density of 200 mA cm−2 at 1.33 V vs. RHE for HMF electrooxidation, outperforming most reported catalysts. The as‐developed DES etching phosphorization strategy offers a facile, flexible, and universal route for the design of high‐performance catalysts with specific nanostructures.