Salt-Rejection Solar Absorbers Based on Porous Ionic Polymers Nanowires for Desalination.

The construction of photothermal materials with ideal salt tolerance has been a major subject for efficient solar desalination. Herein, a novel photothermal material based on porous ionic polymers (PIPs) nanowires is synthesized by Sonogashira-Hagihara cross-coupling reaction using ionic salt and alkynylbenzene as building blocks. The PIPs nanowires monolith shows abundant porosity with low density, leading a superior thermal insulation. The intrinsic superhydrophilicity of PIPs nanowires endows it with desired water transportation ability. By facile spraying Chinese carbon-ink on the PIPs nanowires monolith, its light absorption can be enhanced to be 90%. Based on these merits, the PIPs nanowires based photothermal materials show high solar energy conversion efficiency (81% under 1 sun irradiation). More interestingly, its inherently ionic framework can result in an ion-ion interaction between the external ions in water and ionic groups in PIPs framework, thus leading to excellent desalination ability by combing its unique superhydrophilicity, for example, no salt accumulation is observed after 6 h duration at 1 sun irradiation. Compared with the existing salt-resistant photothermal materials, the method takes the advantage of the intrinsically ionic feature of PIPs without using any artificial process, thus may open a new way for design and fabrication of high-performance salt-rejection photothermal materials.

Thiocyanogen-modulated N, S Co-doped lignin hierarchical porous carbons for high-performance aqueous supercapacitors.

Constructing heteroatom-doped porous carbons with distinct charge storage properties is significant for high-energy-density supercapacitors, yet it remains a formidable challenge. Herein, we employed a thiocyanogen-modulated alkali activation strategy to synthesize N and S co-doped lignin hierarchical porous carbon (NSLHPC). In this process, thiocyanogen serves as a surface modulation mediator to substitute oxygen with nitrogen and sulfur species, while the combination of KOH activation and MgO template generates numerous nanopores within the carbon structure. The three-dimensional interconnected nanosheet architecture facilitates rapid ion transfer and enhances accessibility to active sites. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrate that introducing N and S heteroatoms through oxygen substitution reduces the adsorption energy barrier of Zn2+. Consequently, the optimized NSLHPC exhibits a remarkable specific capacitance of 438F/g at 0.5 A/g in 6 M KOH, delivering an energy density of 10.4 Wh/kg in the symmetric supercapacitor and an impressive energy density of 104.9 Wh/kg in the zinc-ion hybrid capacitor. The NSLHPC cathode also shows an excellent lifespan with capacitance retention of 99.0 % and Columbic efficiency of 100 % over 10,000 cycles. This study presents innovative strategies for engineering high-performance porous carbon electrode materials by emphasizing pore structure modulation and N, S co-doping as crucial approaches.

Boosting capacitive performance of N, S co-doped hierarchical porous lignin-derived carbon via self-assembly assisted template-coupled activation.

Heteroatom-doped porous carbon materials show promise for use as supercapacitor electrodes, but the tradeoff between surface area and the heteroatom dopant levels limits the supercapacitive performance. Here, we modulated the pore structure and surface dopants of N, S co-doped hierarchical porous lignin-derived carbon (NS-HPLC-K) via self-assembly assisted template-coupled activation. The ingenious assembly of lignin micelles and sulfomethylated melamine into a magnesium carbonate basic template greatly promoted the KOH activation process, which endowed the NS-HPLC-K with uniform distributions of activated N/S dopants and highly accessible nanosized pores. The optimized NS-HPLC-K exhibited a three-dimensional hierarchically porous architecture composed of wrinkled nanosheets and a high specific surface area of 2538.3 ± 9.5 m2/g with a rational N content of 3.19 ± 0.01 at.%, which boosted the electrical double-layer capacitance and pseudocapacitance. Consequently, the NS-HPLC-K supercapacitor electrode delivered a superior gravimetric capacitance of 393 F/g at 0.5 A/g. Furthermore, the assembled coin-type supercapacitor showed good energy-power characteristics and cycling stability. This work provides a novel idea for designing eco-friendly porous carbons for use in advanced supercapacitors.

Nitrogen-rich accordion-like lignin porous carbon via confined self-assembly template and in-situ mild activation strategy for high-performance supercapacitors.

Nitrogen-doped porous carbons have emerged as promising electrode materials for supercapacitors. However, the precise control of carbon geometry and the effective doping method remain challenging. Herein, a confined self-assembly template and in-situ mild activation strategy is proposed to prepare cubic lignin composite precursor, followed by co-pyrolysis with melamine at a high temperature for nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbons (N-HPLCs). The zinc oxalate template has the coupling effect of confinement and mild activation during carbonization, which not only prevents the restacking of the carbon matrix but also generates zinc cyanamide intermediate to avoid excessive loss of nitrogen species. The optimized N-HPLCs exhibit an accordion-like framework with interconnected porous sheets, ultrahigh edge-nitrogen doping level (up to 12.20 at.%), and a total nitrogen doping level of 14.09 at.%. Consequently, it shows a high gravimetric capacitance of 354 F/g at 0.2 A/g, an extraordinary surface-area-normalized capacitance of 82.1 ± 0.2 µF/cm2, and good rate capability in supercapacitor applications. Moreover, the fabricated coin-type symmetric supercapacitor displays a high energy density of 12.9 Wh/kg at 161.9 W/kg and superior cycling stability with a 99.5% capacitance retention after 16,000 cycles at 2.0 A/g. This work offers a novel method for preparing nitrogen-enriched lignin-derived carbon for high-performance supercapacitors.

Efficient capture of airborne PM by nanotubular conjugated microporous polymers based filters under harsh conditions.

The exploitation of high-performance filters which can capture and remove airborne particulate matter (PM) in harsh conditions is greatly important to limit the serious effect of PM on human health. Herein, we demonstrate a simple approach for the creation of robust and hierarchically porous filters based on conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) nanotubes for efficient PM capture. Taking advantage of their inherently superhydrophobic wettability, the CMPs-based filters possess high filtration efficiency of higher than 99.4% for PM0.3 and 99.9% for PM2.5 and PM10, respectively, even in high humidity environment (RH ≥ 94%). The CMPs-based filters show highly physicochemical and thermal stability, e.g., by calcination at 500 °C for 2 h, the filtration efficiency of the samples still reaches as great as 99.4% for both PM2.5 and PM10 with a low-pressure drop of only 10 Pa. In addition, these CMPs-based filters can be easily regenerated and their high PM filtration efficiency remains nearly unchanged by a simple methanol washing. More interestingly, the CMPs-based filters also exhibit superior antibacterial performance, which enables them to sterilize or eliminate the bacteria possibly loaded on PM pollutions, thus showing great potential for various applications such as PM removal, air purification and so on.

Intergenerational Support and the Emotional Well-being of Older Jews and Arabs in Israel.

This investigation examined the cultural context of intergenerational support among older Jewish and Arab parents living in Israel. The authors hypothesized that support from adult children would be more positively consequential for the psychological well-being of Arab parents than of Jewish parents. The data derived from 375 adults age 65 and older living in Israel. Psychological well-being was measured with positive and negative affect subscales of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Overall, positive affect was highest when filial expectations for support were congruent with whether or not instrumental support was received. Findings by cultural background revealed that, among older Jews, receiving instrumental support raised positive affect and stronger filial expectations lowered it. Among older Arabs, receiving financial support raised positive affect and receiving instrumental support lowered it. Culture appears to serve as a potent force in determining which types of intergenerational support functions are expected and accepted means of serving the everyday needs of older parents.