Treatment of bisphenol pollutant in water by N,P-co-doped carbon nanosheet: Fast degradation, toxicity elimination and reaction mechanism investigation

Metal-free carbon catalysts perform well in peroxymonosulfate-based advanced oxidation process for the treatment of organic pollutant-containing wastewater. Herein, a natural biomolecule of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), containing abundant N and P elements, served as sole precursor to prepare N,P-co-doped carbon through one-step anoxic pyrolysis, which was applied as peroxymonosulfate activator to treat bisphenol-contaminated water. Owing to the endogenous N and P elements in ATP, in-situ doping was achieved for the prepared carbon material with excellent doping effect, such as high doping amount and numerous defects. During pyrolysis process, the generated gases facilitated the exfoliation of carbon structure, resulting in a nanosheet-like morphology with large specific surface area, e.g., 852.75 m² g^-1 for NPCN-900 sample obtained at 900 °C. Benefiting from the structural modulation brought by N,P co-doping, typical sample of NPCN-900 presented excellent catalytic performance towards bisphenol AF (BPAF) degradation through PMS activation. An apparent reaction rate constant of 0.4115 min^-1 was calculated under the investigated reaction conditions. Further studies indicated that ¹O₂, surface-bound •OH and SO₄^-• worked together in NPCN-900/PMS system for BPAF degradation. Graphitic N, pyrrolic N, CO groups, defect structure and the doped P atoms in NPCN-900 contributed to PMS activation. It was also important that the toxicity of BPAF solution could be preliminarily eliminated after treatment by NPCN-900/PMS system, which was verified by ecotoxicity assessments through ECOSAR program and green algae growth experiments.

Adsorptive/photo-catalytic process for naphthalene removal from aqueous media using in-situ nickel doped titanium nanocomposite

The present study investigates the synthesis and characterization of in-situ nickel doped titanium nanocomposite (TiO2/NiO) use as an adsorbent and a photo-catalyst for naphthalene removal from aqueous phase. Nickel-titanium nanocomposites were synthesized by using an in-situ process for the nickel doping and further calcined at 600 °C for 6 h to produce the desired TiO2/NiO nanocomposite, which was then characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-Vis analysis before and after naphthalene removal. The removal of naphthalene was explored with effect of pH, time and initial concentration of naphthalene (2-25 mg/L) in the presence of dark and light phases. Naphthalene removal tests were conducted under both batch and continuous flow conditions. A special column without any channeling problem was successfully designed for the removal of naphthalene by continuous flow process in the presence of visible light source. The removal was maximized at pH 6.5. The maximum amount of naphthalene removed by TiO2/NiO(0.1) nanocomposite in the presence of visible light phase was 322.1 mg/g, which was 2.5 times greater than that of the parent TiO2. The removal of naphthalene obtained during the breakthrough analysis was consistent with the batch equilibrium data.

A Novel Method to Fabricate Silicon Nanowire p-n Junctions by a Combination of Ion Implantation and in-situ Doping

We demonstrate a novel method to fabricate an axial p-n junction inside <111> oriented short vertical silicon nanowires grown by molecular beam epitaxy by combining ion implantation with in-situ doping. The lower halves of the nanowires were doped in-situ with boron (concentration ~1018cm-3), while the upper halves were doubly implanted with phosphorus to yield a uniform concentration of 2 × 1019 cm-3. Electrical measurements of individually contacted nanowires showed excellent diode characteristics and ideality factors close to 2. We think that this value of ideality factors arises out of a high rate of carrier recombination through surface states in the native oxide covering the nanowires.