Hydrothermal Synthesis of Cr2Se3 Hexagons for Sensitive and Low-level Detection of 4-Nitrophenol in Water

Micrometer Sized Hexagonal Chromium Selenide Flakes for Cryogenic Temperature Sensors

Nanoscale thermometers with high sensitivity are needed in domains which study quantum and classical effects at cryogenic temperatures. Here, we present a micrometer sized and nanometer thick chromium selenide cryogenic temperature sensor capable of measuring a large domain of cryogenic temperatures down to tenths of K. Hexagonal Cr-Se flakes were obtained by a simple physical vapor transport method and investigated using scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements. The flakes were transferred onto Au contacts using a dry transfer method and resistivity measurements were performed in a temperature range from 7 K to 300 K. The collected data have been fitted by exponential functions. The excellent fit quality allowed for the further extrapolation of resistivity values down to tenths of K. It has been shown that the logarithmic sensitivity of the sensor computed over a large domain of cryogenic temperature is higher than the sensitivity of thermometers commonly used in industry and research. This study opens the way to produce Cr-Se sensors for classical and quantum cryogenic measurements.

Ultrathin, High-Aspect Ratio, and Free-Standing Magnetic Nanowires by Exfoliation of Ferromagnetic Quasi-One-Dimensional van der Waals Lattices

Driven by numerous discoveries of novel physical properties and integration into functional devices, interest in one-dimensional (1D) magnetic nanostructures has grown tremendously. Traditionally, such structures are accessed with bottom-up techniques, but these require increasing sophistication to allow precise control over crystallinity, branching, aspect ratio, and surface termination, especially when approaching the subnanometer regime in magnetic phases. Here, we show that mechanical exfoliation of bulk quasi-one-dimensional crystals, a method similar to those popularized for two-dimensional van der Waals (vdW) lattices, serves as an efficient top-down method to produce ultrathin freestanding nanowires that are both magnetic and semiconducting. We use CrSbSe₃ as a representative quasi-1D vdW crystal with strong magnetocrystalline anisotropy and show that it can be exfoliated into nanowires with an average cross-section of 10 ± 2.8 nm. The CrSbSe₃ nanowires display reduced Curie-Weiss temperature but higher coercivity and remanence than the bulk phase. The methodology developed here for CrSbSe₃, a representative for a vast class of 1D vdW lattices, serves as a blueprint for investigating confinement effects for 1D materials and accessing functional nanowires that are difficult to produce via traditional bottom-up methods.

Highly efficient and simultaneous catalytic reduction of multiple toxic dyes and nitrophenols waste water using highly active bimetallic PdO-NiO nanocomposite

Azo dyes and nitrophenols have been widely used in the various industry which are highly toxic and affecting the photosynthetic cycle of aquatic organism. The industry disposals increase the accumulation of azo compounds in the environment. In the present study, we synthesized the low cost, PdO-doped NiO hetero-mixture via simple hydrothermal combined calcination process. The morphology results proved that, the spherical PdO nanoparticles are evenly doped with NiO nanoparticles. The band gap values of metal oxides NiO, PdO and PdO–NiO composite were found to be 4.05 eV, 3.84 eV and 4.24 eV, respectively. The high optical bandgap (Eg) value for composite suggests that the PdO interface and NiO interface are closely combined in the composite. The catalytic activity of the PdO–NiO was analyzed for the reduction of different toxic azo compounds namely, 4-nitrophenol (NP), 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP), 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP), methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RhB) and methyl orange (MO) separately and their mixture with the presence of a NaBH₄. For the first time, the large volume of the toxic azo compounds was reduced into non-toxic compounds with high reduction rate. The proposed PdO–NiO catalyst exhibit excellent rate constant 0.1667, 0.0997, 0.0686 min⁻¹ for NP, DNP and TNT and 0.099, 0.0416 and 0.0896 min⁻¹ for MB, RhB and MO dyes respectively which is higher rate constant than the previously reported catalysts. Mainly, PdO–NiO completes the reduction of mixture of azo compounds within 8 min. Further, PdO–NiO exhibit stable reduction rate of azo compounds over five cycles with no significant loss. Hence, the proposed low cost and high efficient PdO–NiO catalyst could be the promising catalyst for degradation of azo compounds.

Simple hydrothermal synthesis of defective CeMoSe2 dendrites as an effective electrocatalyst for the electrochemical sensing of 4-nitrophenol in water samples

This work reports the fabrication of a highly selective and novel electrocatalyst for electrochemical sensing applications.