Environmental water inevitably influences the catalytic
oxidation
of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Herein, particle-, sheet-, and
rod-like Co3O4 (Co3O4-P,
Co3O4-S, and Co3O4-R,
respectively) were fabricated and the effect of water on propane oxidation
was explored. The results showed that Co3O4-P
displayed the best catalytic activity under dry conditions, while
Co3O4-R presented the best water resistance
under humid conditions. A series of correlative characterizations
and DFT calculations were adopted to reveal the effect of water at
the atomic level. It can be obtained that Co3O4 with the (110) plane promotes the formation of oxygen vacancy and
the mobility of surface lattice oxygen, while Co3O4 with the (111) plane has a weaker water adsorption capacity,
resulting in the balance effect of catalytic activity and water resistance.
The inhibitory effect of water on catalytic activity can be attributed
to the competitive adsorption of water that weakens the adsorption
of propane and restrains the mobility of surface lattice oxygen. Significantly,
this work will be helpful for understanding the design of water-resistant
catalysts with defect engineering and crystal facet engineering.
Aluminum–air
batteries possess high theoretical specific
capacities and energy densities. However, the desired application
performance in the field of flexible electronics is limited by the
rigid battery structure and slow kinetics of the oxygen reduction
reaction (ORR). To address these issues, flexible, stretchable, and
customizable aluminum–air batteries with a reference to honeycomb
shape are composed of multilayer single battery units to achieve large
scalability and start–stop control. The single aluminum–air
battery combines MnO2 with N/S codoped graphene to improve
the electrocatalytic activity. Benefiting from an efficient electrocatalyst
and reasonable structural design, the single aluminum–air battery
exhibits excellent electrochemical characteristics under deformation
conditions with a high specific capacity and energy density (1203.2
mAh g–1 Al and 1630.1 mWh g–1 Al).
Furthermore, the obtained honeycomb-shaped stretchable aluminum–air
batteries maintain a stable output voltage over the 2500% stretching.
More interestingly, the stretchable honeycomb structure not only can
solve the start–stop control problem but also has the potential
to reduce the self-corrosion in disposable metal–air batteries.
In addition, owing to the customizable shapes and sizes, the honeycomb-shaped
stretchable aluminum–air batteries facilitate the integrated
application of flexible batteries in wearables.
A novel zeolite−activated carbon (Ze−AC) with Brunauer−Emmett−Teller (BET) specific surface area of 660 m 2 /g has been prepared successfully as a low-cost adsorbent for NH 4 + -N and methylene blue (MB) removal. The present Ze−AC composite showed the NaY zeolite structure (characteristic of faujasite) bonded with amorphous carbon. The introduced AC facilitated the formation of oxygen-containing species around silicon, enhanced the interaction of silicon, oxygen, and carbon, and improved the porous structure of Ze−AC. All these phenomena led to the excellent adsorbability for NH 4 + -N and MB, and the adsorption capacities for MB and NH 4 + -N were 15.49 (94.05% of that of zeolite) and 498.61 mg/g (54.03% of that of AC), respectively. NH 4 + was mainly adsorbed by the interaction between Si, double CO bond groups (CO and COOH), and NH 4 + , whereas MB was mainly adsorbed on the CO and COOH sites on Ze−AC. Overall, the findings in this work indicate that the Ze−AC composite prepared from the industrial waste LSP is a valuable adsorbent for the removal of multiple contaminants from water.
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