Chonghe Xu

Characterization and adsorption mechanism of ZrO 2 mesoporous fibers for health-hazardous fluoride removal

One-dimension ZrO2 mesoporous fibers were successfully synthesized by utilizing the electrospinning device combining with the soft-template method. The morphology and composite of the fibers were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, FT-IR, TGA/DSC and XPS, and the pore structure and surface area were calculated according the BET measured results. The fluoride adsorption performance of the fibers was investigated and the adsorption capacity was upto 297.70u202fmgu202fg-1. Moreover, the equilibrium concentration could be reached to 1.41u202fmgu202fL-1 with the initial of 30u202fmgu202fL-1, and the removal rate could be reached to 95.3%. The adsorption data were well fitted with the Freundlich isotherm model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The fibers had a good reusability and long-term utilization for fluoride adsorption. All the results suggested that the as-prepared ZrO2 mesoporous fibers with high surface area could be an excellent adsorbent for the wastewater defluoridation treatment.

Zirconia fiber membranes based on PVDF as high-safety separators for lithium-ion batteries using a papermaking method

Lithium-ion batteries have been receiving more and more attention because of the energy crisis. As an important subassembly of lithium-ion batteries, the separator greatly affects the safety of the batteries. Herein, we report for the first time, a novel method fabricated separator by mixing zirconia fibers with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) via papermaking process. The separators possess abundant pores and uniform structure after the phase inversion process. The separator properties were systematically studied at different proportion of PVDF. We find that when the content of PVDF is 40%, the separator has high porosity (77.69%), high electrolyte uptake (523.3%), and excellent thermal stability (thermal shrinkage ratio is 0% at 500xa0°C). In addition, the rate capability, cycle performance, and ionic conductivity are also investigated. We anticipate that the papermaking method of zirconia fibers will provide a strategy to fabricate a promising separator for enhanced electrochemical performance and high safety of lithium-ion batteries.