Design and Synthesis of Cu@CuS Yolk–Shell Structures with Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

Non-spherical Cu@CuS yolk–shell structures are successfully obtained using Cu2O cube templates in a process combining rapid surface sulfidation followed by disproportionation of the Cu2O core upon treatment with a hydrochloric acid solution. By employing the above method, Cu@CuS yolk–shell structures with different morphologies, including octahedral, truncated octahedral, and cuboctahedral shapes, can be synthesized. The void space within the hollow structures provides a unique confined space, where the metallic copper present in the core of a shell can be protected from agglomeration and oxidation. Furthermore, the presence of metal copper in these hollow structures contributes to improvement in the photocatalytic properties of these materials. The application of these Cu@CuS structures indeed shows clearly improved photocatalytic performance. Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40820-017-0135-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Carbon Cloth‐based Hybrid Materials as Flexible Electrochemical Supercapacitors

“…For supercapacitor applications, carbon cloths have been found to act as excellent substrates as they provide high conductivity, surface area and enable ion diffusion, which leads to a decrease in charge transfer resistance and increases in specific capacitance of the resultant electrode. These are highly promising compared to the widely used supercapacitor substrate materials like Ni foam and Fe nanostructures [14,15,[28][29][30][31][32] Chemically treated or activated carbon cloths (ACCs) act as effective adsorbents for inorganic ions and organic molecules. Also, the ACC adsorbents have high reusability as the adsorption sites can be regained by desorption of the adsorbed constituents.…”

“…[67] Since then, carbon cloths have gained tremendous attention as current collectors in metal oxide-based supercapacitor electrodes due to their good electrical conductivity. [68] Apart from MnO 2 , there have been several other metallic and bimetallic oxides such as V 2 O 5 , [44] Fe 2 O 3 , [29,[50][51][52] NiO, [69,70] MoO 3 , [67,71,72] ZnO, [69,73,74] WO 3 , [75] CoMoO 4 , [76,77] NiMoO 4 , [78] NiCo 2 O 4 , [78,79] FeCo 2 O 4 , [80] which have been deposited onto the carbon cloths to fabricate supercapacitor electrodes. Recently, ZnO@C@NiO core-shell nanorods arrays were grown upon carbon cloth substrate.…”

Iron oxide modified with pyridyl‐triazole ligand for stabilization of gold nanoparticles: An efficient heterogeneous catalyst for A3 coupling reaction in water

“…[112,113] The X-ray photoelectron spectrum (XPS) of the Fe 2p region shows two main binding energy peaks corresponding to the electronic states of Fe 2p 3 (Figure 8a). [114][115][116] In the case of the XPS spectrum for the Au 4f region, a doublet peak at 83.9 and 87.5 eV corresponding to Au(0) was observed, comprising the only Au species in the material (Figure 8b). [108] Moreover, the N 1 s core-level spectrum confirms the presence of nitrogen by revealing a peak at 399.9 eV (Figure 8c).…”

“…[108] Moreover, the N 1 s core-level spectrum confirms the presence of nitrogen by revealing a peak at 399.9 eV (Figure 8c). [115] The C 1 s XPS spectrum showed three peaks centred at 284.6, 286.4 and 288.5 eV, which are related to C─ C or C═ C, C─ N or C─ O and C═ N forms of carbon, respectively (Figure 8d). [117][118][119][120] The catalytic activity of 3 was evaluated in the threecomponent coupling reaction of amines, aldehydes and alkynes (A 3 coupling).…”

Coupling Photothermal Effect into Efficient Photocatalytic H2 Production by Using a Plate‐like Cu@Ni Core‐shell Cocatalyst

“…However, their activities are often unsatisfactory in photocatalytic hydrogen production, because of the rapid recombination of photogenerated charges arising from the extremely low surface redox reactions . To this end, semiconductors are usually incorporated with a cocatalytic material (usually in the form of noble metal nanoparticles) to facilitate the surface mass and energy transfer and exchange . Despite the success, the moderate reaction condition, i. e ., near ambient pressure, room temperature, and water solution, makes such enhancement at a limited level.…”