Extremely high efficient nanoreactor with Au@ZnO catalyst for photocatalysis

Aquatic environment remediation by atomic layer deposition-based multi-functional materials: A review

Water pollution still poses significant threats to the ecosystem and human health today. The adsorption, advanced oxidation and membranes filtration have been extensively investigated and utilized for aquatic contaminants remediation, and their efficiency is closely correlated with the advanced materials design and fabrication (e.g. adsorbents, catalysts and membranes). Thanks to uniform deposition, three-dimensional conformity and process controllability, the atomic layer deposition (ALD) has emerged as a promising strategy for fabrication of these multifunctional materials, arising their successful application in aquatic contaminants remediation. Therefore, a timely review on ALD-based water treatment materials is highly important to summarize the current opportunity and elucidate unaddressed problems in this field. Herein, in this review, the advantages of ALD process, the superiority of ALD-based materials and the corresponding decontamination performance were analyzed comprehensively, highlighting key advantages offered by this technology.

Size-dependent strong metal–support interaction in Pd/ZnO catalysts for hydrogenation of CO2 to methanol

Size-dependent strong metal–support interactions govern both the activity and selectivity decisively.

Efficient Photocatalytic Removal of Methylene Blue Using a Metalloporphyrin-Poly(vinylidene fluoride) Hybrid Membrane in a Flow-Through Reactor

A novel combination of a poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membrane with pore size 0.2 μm and a photosensitizer 5,10,15,20-tetrakis (pentafluorophenyl)-21H,23H-porphine palladium(II) (PdTFPP) makes a promising hybrid material for the generation of singlet oxygen (¹O₂) and, thus, water treatment applications. The fabricated photocatalytic membrane exhibits permeability of 4280 ± 250 L·m^-2·h^-1·bar^-1 and stable photocatalytic degradation performance over a 90 h period, when illuminated with green light (528 ± 20 nm) and operated in a dead-end, single-pass configuration. Methylene blue (MB) degradation of 83% was achieved for MB concentration of 1 mg·L^-1 under the flow rate of 0.1 × 10^-3 L·min^-1 (flux of 30 L·m^-2·h^-1), light intensity of 21 mW·cm^-2, and PdTFPP loading of 25 μmol·g^-1. Due to an enhanced mass transfer, the reaction rate of MB removal (with apparent rate constant of k_app = 6.52 min^-1) results in an efficient photodegradation of MB inside the PdTFPP-PVDF membrane. The influence of experimental parameters such as catalyst loading, flow rate, light intensity, and solute concentration on MB removal was investigated. This research enables the application of photocatalytic PdTFPP-PVDF membranes as a potential technology for water decontamination under visible-light illumination.

Two-Solvent Method Synthesis of NiO/ZnO Nanoparticles Embedded in Mesoporous SBA-15: Photocatalytic Properties Study

Different loadings of NiO/ZnO nanoparticles embedded in mesoporous silica (SBA-15) were prepared via a two-solvent method with the ordered hexagonal mesoporous structure of SBA-15 kept. X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, diffusive reflective UV-vis spectroscopy, and N2 adsorption porosimetry were employed to characterize the nanocomposites. The results indicate that the ordered hexagonal mesoporous structure of SBA-15 is kept and the absorption band edges of the nanocomposites shift into the ultraviolet light regime. The photocatalytic activity of our samples for degradation of methylene orange was investigated under UV light irradiation, and the results show that the nanocomposites have higher photodegradation ability toward methylene orange than commercial pure P-25. The photocatalytic activity of the nanocomposites was found to be dependent on both the adsorption ability of the SBA-15 and the photocatalytic activity of NiO-ZnO nanoparticles encapsulated in SBA-15. In addition, there is an optimal loading of NiO-ZnO nanoparticles. Too high or low loading will lower the photodegradation ability of the nanocomposites.

Surface functionalized H2Ti3O7nanowires engineered for visible-light photoswitching, electrochemical water splitting, and photocatalysis

The mechanism of the visible-light driven photoelectrochemical properties of surface engineered H₂Ti₃O₇nanowires has been demonstrated.