Imbedding Pd Nanoparticles into Porous In2O3 Structure for Enhanced Low-Concentration Methane Sensing.

Methane (CH4), as the main component of natural gas and coal mine gas, is widely used in daily life and industrial processes and its leakage always causes undesirable misadventures. Thus, the rapid detection of low concentration methane is quite necessary. However, due to its robust chemical stability resulting from the strong tetrahedral-symmetry structure, the methane molecules are usually chemically inert to the sensing layers in detectors, making the rapid and efficient alert a big challenge. In this work, palladium nanoparticles (Pd NPs) embedded indium oxide porous hollow tubes (In2O3 PHTs) were successfully synthesized using Pd@MIL-68 (In) MOFs as precursors. All In2O3-based samples derived from Pd@MIL-68 (In) MOFs inherited the morphology of the precursors and exhibited the feature of hexagonal hollow tubes with porous architecture. The gas-sensing performances to 5000 ppm CH4 were evaluated and it was found that Pd@In2O3-2 gave the best response (Ra/Rg = 23.2) at 370 °C, which was 15.5 times higher than that of pristine-In2O3 sensors. In addition, the sensing materials also showed superior selectivity against interfering gases and a rather short response/recovery time of 7 s/5 s. The enhancement in sensing performances of Pd@In2O3-2 could be attributed to the large surface area, rich porosity, abundant oxygen vacancies and the catalytic function of Pd NPs.

Nitrogen-Doped Magnetic-Dielectric-Carbon Aerogel for High-Efficiency Electromagnetic Wave Absorption.

Carbon-based aerogels derived from biomass chitosan are encountering a flourishing moment in electromagnetic protection on account of lightweight, controllable fabrication and versatility. Nevertheless, developing a facile construction method of component design with carbon-based aerogels for high-efficiency electromagnetic wave absorption (EWA) materials with a broad effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) and strong absorption yet hits some snags. Herein, the nitrogen-doped magnetic-dielectric-carbon aerogel was obtained via ice template method followed by carbonization treatment, homogeneous and abundant nickel (Ni) and manganese oxide (MnO) particles in situ grew on the carbon aerogels. Thanks to the optimization of impedance matching of dielectric/magnetic components to carbon aerogels, the nitrogen-doped magnetic-dielectric-carbon aerogel (Ni/MnO-CA) suggests a praiseworthy EWA performance, with an ultra-wide EAB of 7.36 GHz and a minimum reflection loss (RLmin) of - 64.09 dB, while achieving a specific reflection loss of - 253.32 dB mm-1. Furthermore, the aerogel reveals excellent radar stealth, infrared stealth, and thermal management capabilities. Hence, the high-performance, easy fabricated and multifunctional nickel/manganese oxide/carbon aerogels have broad application aspects for electromagnetic protection, electronic devices and aerospace.

Large-Scale Synthesis of Multifunctional Single-Phase Co2 C Nanomaterials.

Achieving scalable synthesis of nanoscale transition-metal carbides (TMCs), regarded as substitutes for platinum-group noble metals, remains an ongoing challenge. Herein, a 100-g scale synthesis of single-phased cobalt carbide (Co2 C) through carburization of Co-based Prussian Blue Analog (Co-PBA) is reported in CO2 /H2 atmosphere under mild conditions (230 °C, ambient pressure). Textural property investigations indicate a successful preparation of orthorhombic-phased Co2 C nanomaterials with Pt-group-like electronic properties. As a demonstration, Co2 C achieves landmark photo-assisted thermal catalytic CO2 conversion rates with photo-switched product selectivity, which far exceeds the representative Pt-group-metal-based catalysts. This impressive result is attributed to the excellent activation of reactants, colorific light absorption, and photo-to-thermal conversion capacities. In addition to CO2 hydrogenation, the versatile Co2 C materials show huge prospects in antibacterial therapy, interfacial water evaporation, electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction, and battery technologies. This study paves the way toward unlocking the potential of multi-functional Co2 C nanomaterials.

Heterogeneous Cu9S5/C nanocomposite fibers with adjustable electromagnetic parameters for efficient electromagnetic absorption.

One-dimensional carbon-based materials have emerged as promising electromagnetic wave absorption agents due to their outstanding conductivity, high stability, low weight, and easy availability. Properly optimizing their electromagnetic parameters is expected to further enhance the electromagnetic wave attenuation capacity. In this work, efficient Cu9S5/C nanocomposite fibers are prepared by a combined approach of electrospinning and subsequent carbonization-sulfurization processes. The Cu9S5 nanoparticles with size of ca. 100-200 nm were homogeneously embedded in fibrous carbon matrix with diameter of 300 nm. For electromagnetic wave absorption, the optimized composited nanofibers (Cu9S5/C-3) exhibited an extremely superb reflection loss of -65.4 dB (9.5 GHz, 2.7 mm) at a lower mass fraction (20 wt%). And the effective absorption bandwidth could be up to 4.1 GHz (8.0-12.1 GHz) with a matching thickness of 2.9 mm, covering the whole X-band. Electromagnetic wave attenuation mechanism investigation revealed that the performance enhancement originated from the synergy of various loss pathways, including interfacial polarization, dipole polarization, and conductive loss. The unique hierarchical structure from particle embedding, one-dimensional fiber, to three-dimensional network further amplified the performance advantages of each component. This work is anticipated to provide a feasible strategy to synthesize sulfide/carbon binary composite fibers for efficient electromagnetic wave absorption.