Ternary metal-metalloid-nonmetal alloy nanowires:a novel electrocatalyst for highly efficient ethanol oxidation electrocatalysis

We report rational design and syntheses of ternary noble metal-metalloid-nonmetal alloy nanowires(NWs)as a novel electrocatalyst for electrochemical ethanol oxidation reaction(EOR).This novel electrocatalyst is formed in an aqueous solution via anisotropic nucleation and growth of ternary PdBP alloy NWs along assembled cylinder template of Plurolic F127 on a nitrogen-functionalized graphene support(denoted as PdBP NWs@N-G).We find that uniformly alloying B and P intrinsically modulates the electronic states of Pd catalyst and also introduces new functions into the catalyst,while NW structure supported on the N-G exposes more electrocatalytic active sites and accelerates electron/mass transfers.Such add-in synergies of PdBP NWs@N-G kinetically facilitate the removal and/or further oxidation of CO-based poisoning intermediates,thus remarkably enhancing the electrocatalytic EOR performance.They exhibit a high mass activity of 4.15 A mgPd^-1 and superior cycling and chronoamperometric stability for electrocatalytic EOR,much better than previously reported monometallic Pd-based nanocatalysts.More interestingly,this design strategy can be easily extended to develop more sophisticated NWs catalysts with more compositions(for example quaternary PdCuBP NWs@N-G)that further tunes the electronic and bifuntional effects for various desired catalysis and electrocatalysis.

Synthesis, characterization and photoactivity of bi-crystalline mesoporous TiO2

Mesoporous titania （meso-TiO2） has received extensive attention owing to its versatile potential applications. This paper reports a low-temperature templating approach for the fabrication of meso-TiO2 using the peroxo titanic acid （PTA） sol as precursor and Pluronic P123 as nonionic template. The TGA, XRD, N2 sorption, FE-SEM and HRTEM were used to characterize the obtained samples. The results showed that meso-TiO2 with high surface area up to 163 m2.g^-1 and large pore volume of 0.65 cm3.^-1 can be obtained. The mesopore sizes can be varied between 13 and 20 nm via this synthesis approach. The amount of P123 and the calcination conditions were found to have great influence on the mesoporous and crystalline structures of meso-TiO2. The photocatalytic activity testing clearly shows that the high surface area and bi-crystallinity phases of meso-TiO2 play important roles in enhancing photocatalytic properties of meso-TiO2 in photo-decomposing Rhodamine B in water.

Molecularly imprinted open porous membranes made from Pickering W/O HIPEs for selective adsorption and separation of methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate

In this study, novel molecularly imprinted open porous membranes（MIOPMs） were prepared using the Pickering HIPEs template method and molecular imprinting technology for selective adsorption and separation of methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate（M4HB）. The template M4 HB, functional monomers,crosslinker and plastifier 2-ethylhexyl acrylate（2-EHA） were contained in the oil phase. Hydrophobic silica nanoparticles（HNP-SiO2） were employed as a stabilizer to establish stable W/O Pickering HIPEs with nonionic surfactant sorbitantrioleate（Span 85）. The results of SEM and FTIR indicated that the optimal MIOPMs were prepared successfully and possessed open and interconnecting pores. Then, the MIOPMs were used as sorbents for M4 HB. The correlation coefficient（R^2） values for the Langmuir–Freundlich isotherm model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model fitting to the adsorption equilibrium and kinetic data respectively were all higher than 0.95. The maximum adsorption capacity and the time of rapid adsorption for MIOPM4 were 4.146 mg g^-1 and 100 min, respectively. In addition, the permeability separation factor of MIOPMs for M4 HB compared to a structurally related analog methyl2-hydroxybenzoate（M2HB） could reach 3.122.