Biomolecule‐Assisted Synthesis and Electrochemical Hydrogen Storage of Porous Spongelike Ni₃S₂ Nanostructures Grown Directly on Nickel Foils

Abstract

Nanothread-based porous spongelike Ni3S2 nanostructures were synthesized directly on Ni foil by using a simple biomolecule-assisted method. By varying the experimental parameters, other novel Ni3S2 nanostructures could also be fabricated on the nickel substrate. The electrochemical hydrogen-storage behavior of these novel porous Ni3S2 nanostructures was investigated as an example of the potential properties of such porous materials. The thread-based porous spongelike Ni3S2 could electrochemically charge and discharge with the high capacity of 380 mAh g(-1) (corresponding to 1.4 wt % hydrogen in single-walled nanotubes (SWNT)). A novel two-charging-plateaux phenomenon was observed in the synthesized porous spongelike Ni3S2 nanostructures, suggesting two independent steps in the charging process. We have demonstrated that the morphology of the synthesized Ni3S2 nanostructures had a noticeable influence on their electrochemical hydrogen-storage capacity. This is probably due to the size and density of the pores as well as the microcosmic morphology of different nickel sulfide nanostructures. These novel porous Ni3S2 nanostructures should find wide applications in hydrogen storage, high-energy batteries, luminescence, and catalytic fields. This facile, environmentally benign, and solution-phase biomolecule-assisted method can be potentially extended to the preparation of other metal sulfide nanostructures on metal substrates, such as Cu, Fe, Sn, and Pb foils.

Hydrotreating activity of bulk NiB alloy in model reaction of hydrodenitrogenation of carbazole

“…Fig. 8 shows two well resolved sulfur peaks at 162.4 eV and 163.3 eV corresponding to S2p 3/2 and S2p 1/2 respectively, typical for Ni 3 S 2 [23][24][25][26]. These results confirm presence of Ni 3 S 2 crystallites as detected by XRD analysis, these crystallites are formed during the HDN/HDS simultaneously reaction.…”

Topotactic Transformation of Single‐Crystalline Precursor Discs into Disc‐Like Bi2S3 Nanorod Networks

“…[20] It may be reasonably assumed that the hydrogen was first adsorbed into the interstitial sites/pores between Bi 2 S 3 nanorods in the network structures and then entered into the interlayers of Bi 2 S 3 crystals. It is noted that such a two-potential-plateau phenomenon in the charging curve was also observed in nanostructures of other materials with a lamellar structure including Ni 3 S 2 [31] and Cu(OH) 2 [32] and was interpreted in a similar way. Two plateaus of the discharging potential were observed at ca.…”

Glycine-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of single-crystalline LaF3:Eu3+ hexagonal nanoplates

“…Up to now, considerable efforts have been focused on using biomolecules as the structure-directing agents to assemble nanostructures [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. For instance, Qian's group described the synthesis of shape-controlled 3D and 1D structures assisted by l-cysteine, which plays an important role in controlling the morphology [34].…”

“…For instance, Qian's group described the synthesis of shape-controlled 3D and 1D structures assisted by l-cysteine, which plays an important role in controlling the morphology [34]. In the presence of l-cysteine, Ni 3 S 2 nanothread-based porous spongelike structures and other novel nanostructures were obtained by hydrothermal method [36]. Yu et al [37] prepared shuttle-like scrolled Te nanotubes and nanowires with sharp tips using amino acids as additives, noting that different amino acids can induce the formation of different tellurium nanostructures.…”