De Pham-Cong

Synergistically Enhanced Electrochemical Performance of Hierarchical MoS2/TiNb2O7 Hetero-nanostructures as Anode Materials for Li-Ion Batteries

As potential high-performance anodes for Li-ion batteries (LIBs), hierarchical heteronanostructures consisting of TiNb2O7 nanofibers and ultrathin MoS2 nanosheets (TNO@MS HRs) were synthesized by simple electrospinning/hydrothermal processes. With their growth mechanism revealed, the TNO@MS HRs exhibited an entangled structure both for their ionic and electronic conducting pathways, which enabled the synergetic combination of one- and two-dimensional structures to be realized. In the potential range of 0.001-3 V vs Li/Li+, the TNO@MS HR-based LIBs exhibited high capacities of 872 and 740 mAh g-1 after 42 and 200 cycles at a current density of 1 A g-1, respectively, and excellent rate performance of 611 mAh g-1 at 4 A g-1. We believe that the fabrication route of TNO@MS HRs will find visibility for the use of anode electrodes for high capacity LIBs at low cost.

Advanced removal of toluene in aerosol by adsorption and photocatalytic degradation of silver-doped TiO2/PU under visible light irradiation

We synthesized a novel Ag–TiO2/PU material for the effective removal of gaseous toluene by both adsorption and photocatalytic degradation. The Ag particles, which were distributed on the TiO2 surface, and the Ag dopants, which were incorporated into the TiO2 lattice, increased the electron–hole pair separation efficiency of TiO2. Therefore, Ag–TiO2/PU exhibited high photocatalytic degradation of toluene even under visible light. Porous polyurethane (PU) was used to immobilize the enhanced TiO2, to increase the adsorption capacity of the photocatalyst. The synthesized Ag–TiO2/PU removed gaseous toluene even under dark conditions via adsorption. The removal of gaseous toluene by Ag–TiO2/PU under visible light conditions was due to the combination of both adsorption and photocatalytic degradation. The oxygen content in the gas stream insignificantly affected the toluene adsorption by the Ag–TiO2/PU. However, the photocatalytic degradation of toluene by Ag–TiO2/PU increased with increasing oxygen content and stabilized when the oxygen content exceeded 15%. These results suggest that ambient air can be used economically as an oxygen source for the photocatalytic degradation of gaseous toluene by Ag–TiO2/PU under visible light conditions. Under visible light irradiation, 6% Ag–TiO2/PU, which was the Ag/TiO2 ratio that optimized the photocatalytic degradation activity of TiO2, removed 85.2% of the toluene in 100 ppm inlet gas, of which 90.3% was mineralized into CO2 and H2O.