High capacity adsorption of antimony in biomass-based composite and its consequential utilization as battery anode.

Antimony is more than an emerging pollutant in water but a scare resource. In this study, we report an adsorbent with the record capacity so far from the balanced view of Sb(III) and Sb(V). The composite adsorbent was fabricated by encapsulating hollow Fe3O4 nanosphere with the EDTA grafted chitosan, and it has superhigh adsorption capacity of for 657.1 mg/g for Sb(III) and 467.3 mg/g for Sb(V), respectively. The mechanism study reveals that the adsorption of Sb initializes from the Fe3O4, propagates along the chitosan with hydrogen bond, and terminates at the inner sphere complex with the EDTA moiety in the adsorbent. In view of the ultra-high adsorption capacity of the adsorbent, the recovered adsorbent that contains abundant (>36.4%) highly dispersed antimony nanoparticles (600-FCSE-Sb) is applied to Li-ion battery anode after reduction. This article provides a new idea for connecting water treatment and electric energy storage.

Fe, Ni-modified ZIF-8 as a tensive precursor to derive N-doped carbon as Na and Li-ion batteries anodes.

Carbon materials derived from metal-organic frameworks have attracted increasing attention as anodes for energy storage. In this study, Fe, Ni-doped ZIF-8 is carbonized at high temperature to obtain bimetallic Fe and Ni modified tension -relaxed carbon (FeNi@trC). Fe and Ni have opposite structural modification effects when the metal ions are doped into the ZIF-8 dodecahedron. The obtained carbon material maintains the regular dodecahedron morphology, which means the relaxation of tension and strong thermal stability during annealing. Moreover, the presence of nickel enhances the carbonization degree and electrochemical stability of FeNi@trC, while the calcination of the tensive ZIF-8 precursor offers more defect sites. The discharge capacities of FeNi@trC materials are stable at 182.9 mAh·g-1and 567.9 mAh·g-1for sodium-ion batterie (SIB) and lithium-ion batterie (LIB) at 0.05 A·g-1. Compared with the current density of 0.05 A·g-1, the discharge capacity of SIB and LIB attenuates by 29.4% and 55.9% at 1 A·g-1, respectively, and the FeNi@trC shows good performance stability in the following cycles.

High-Quality Assembly and Analysis of the Complete Mitogenomes of German Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) and Roman Chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile).

German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) and Roman chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile) are the two well-known chamomile species from the Asteraceae family. Owing to their essential oils and higher medicinal value, these have been cultivated widely across Europe, Northwest Asia, North America, and Africa. Regarding medicinal applications, German chamomile is the most commonly utilized variety and is frequently recognized as the "star among medicinal species". The insufficient availability of genomic resources may negatively impact the progression of chamomile industrialization. Chamomile's mitochondrial genome is lacking in extensive empirical research. In this study, we achieved the successful sequencing and assembly of the complete mitochondrial genome of M. chamomilla and C. nobile for the first time. An analysis was conducted on codon usage, sequence repeats within the mitochondrial genome of M. chamomilla and C. nobile. The phylogenetic analysis revealed a consistent positioning of M. chamomilla and C. nobile branches within both mitochondrial and plastid-sequence-based phylogenetic trees. Furthermore, the phylogenetic analysis also showed a close relationship between M. chamomilla and C. nobile within the clade comprising species from the Asteraceae family. The results of our analyses provide valuable resources for evolutionary research and molecular barcoding in chamomile.

Engineering monodispersed 2 nm Sb2S3 particles embedded in a porphyrin-based MOF-derived mesoporous carbon network via an adsorption method to construct a high-performance sodium-ion battery anode.

Sodium ion batteries (SIBs) are expected to replace lithium ion batteries (LIBs) as the next generation of large-scale energy storage applications because of their superior cost performance. However, the larger ionic radius of Na+ causes a remarkable volume expansion than that of Li+ during charge and discharge, which reduces the performance of the battery. In this work, we engineered a composite material in that monodispersed 2 nm Sb2S3 particles are uniformly loaded into a carbon matrix (Sb2S3/CZM), which is obtained by carbonization of a zirconium-based MOF with adsorption of Sb. The obtained composite material has a high specific surface area in favor of mass transfer, and the porous structure can resist many volume changes in the circulation process. Moreover, the ultrafine Sb2S3 particles are well-distributed in the composite material, which increases the utilization of the active substance and is promising for the storage of Na+. Based on its unique structure, the Sb2S3/CZM composite shows a specific capacity of 550 mA h g-1 at 100 mA g-1 and an excellent cycling stability of 88.9% retention after 1000 cycles at 3 A g-1. The excellent electrochemical performance provides enlightenment for the rational design of hierarchical heterostructures for energy storage applications.

Investigation of antimony adsorption on a zirconium-porphyrin-based metal-organic framework.

A zirconium-porphyrin based organic framework PCN-222 was employed for investigating the adsorption performance of Sb(III) in aqueous solution. It is proved that the adsorbent has the advantages of rapid adsorption and high capacity. Interestingly, we discover that PCN-222 shows pH-dependent adsorption performance, with higher capacity at pH = 2 and 8 than at pH = 5. According to XPS and FT-IR analyses, an adsorption model of PCN-222 with pH = 2, 5, and 8 is proposed, that is, zirconium clusters combine with antimony at different pH values with bidentate complexes, monodentate complexes, and alkaline monodentate complexes, thus producing an excellent adsorption effect. Moreover, the porphyrin ring is also beneficial for the adsorption of antimony. In addition, PCN-222 shows good regeneration and recycling performance, and it is a promising adsorbent as well as a platform for investigating the removal of Sb(III) in water treatment.