Heteroatom-doped hollow carbon micro-tube derived from platanus catkins fiber for sodium ion supercapacitor

Biotemplate Fabrication of Hollow Tubular CexSr1-xTiO3 with Regulable Surface Acidity and Oxygen Mobility for Efficient Destruction of Chlorobenzene: Intrinsic Synergy Effect and Reaction Mechanism

Developing economic and applicable catalysts with elegant chlorine resistance and organic byproduct inhibition capability is of great significance for chlorinated volatile organic compounds (Cl-VOCs) eco-friendly purification. Here, ternary Ce_xSr_1-xTiO₃ catalysts with tunable surface acidity and oxygen species mobility were creatively fabricated using the hollow tubular-structured fruit hair of Platanus (FHP; a widespread greenery waste) as the scaffolding biotemplate. It is shown that the oxygen vacancy (O_v) triggered by the presence of Ce can optimize the synergy between the Lewis acid sites (LAS) and Brønsted acid sites (BAS). High concentration of O_v and BAS promotes the C-Cl cleavage of chlorobenzene (CB) and accelerates the desorption of Cl^• radicals as inorganic chlorine. Simultaneously, the strong electron transfer within Ti-Ce-Sr linkage increases the acidity of LAS, resulting in the superior reducibility of Ce_0.4Sr_0.6TiO₃ and facilitating the deep oxidation of dechlorination intermediates. Additionally, the spatial confinement of the tubular structure remarkably accelerates the CB flow rate and reduces the residence time of byproducts over the prepared catalysts. Owing to these, CB can be efficiently destructed over Ce_0.4Sr_0.6TiO₃ with selectivity of CO₂ and inorganic chlorine dramatically enhanced, respectively, approximately 16 and 21 times at 275 °C compared to those of pure SrTiO₃. The present work provides a feasible and promising strategy for engineering efficient catalysts for heterogeneous thermocatalytic reactions for industrial-scale Cl-CVOC destruction.

Nature inspired approach to mimic design for increased specific capacitance as supercapacitor electrodes

In this study, the experiment was conducted assuming that the citrus fruits were contaminated with bacteria. Herein, orange peels (OP) and lemon peels (LP) can be used as a carbon source and have the advantage of using discarded materials and heteroatoms. Also, the nitrogen heteroatom is introduced by naturally doping the materials with bacteria (Escherichia Coli, E. coli). The as-prepared bacteria doped activated carbon showed an increase in nitrogen content and surface properties which led to an improvement in electrochemical properties. The specific capacitance of bacteria doped OP and LP was 92.4 and 139 Fg^-1 compared to the bare samples with a specific capacitance of 60.9 and 49.6 Fg^-1 at a current density of 0.2Ag^-1 and capacity retention of 129% after 10,000 cycles for the bacteria-doped samples. This process which is simple, cheap, and environmentally friendly can be applied to discarded fruit peels for the fabrication of supercapacitor materials.