Design and fabrication of self-suspending aluminum-plastic/semiconductor photocatalyst devices for solar energy conversion

The design and synthesis of self-suspending photocatalyst device with easy recyclability is important for practical application.Here,this work utilizes aluminum-plastic package waste as raw material to prepare an aluminum-plastic supported TiO_(2)(AP-TiO_(2))photocatalyst device through 3D printing design and surface deposition method.A series of characterizations were carried out to explore the structure,morphology and performance of the AP-TiO_(2)device.Under UV light illumination,the AP-TiO_(2)-50 efficiently degrade 93.6%tetracycline hydrochloride(THC)after 4 hr,which increases by 8.3%compared with that of TiO_(2)powder suspension system with the same catalyst amount.Based on it,AP-ZnO,AP-CdS,AP-g-C_3N_4and AP-Pt-TiO_(2)are also fabricated,and applied in photocatalytic degradation and hydrogen evolution,which all exhibit higher photoactivities than powder suspension systems.This work provides a new avenue for the fabrication of advanced recyclable photocatalyst device.Moreover,the work offers a novel sight for the high-value utilization of aluminum-plastic package waste,which has positive implications for environmental protection.

Self‐suspended rare‐earth doped up‐conversion luminescent waveguide:propagating and directional radiation

Near-infrared excited rare-earth(RE)-doped up-conversion(UC)-luminescent materials have attracted enormous attention because of their unique emission properties,such as narrow emission bands,long luminescence lifetimes,and multiple colors.However,current development of RE-doped luminescent material is hindered by weak and narrowband absorption problems and low photon-conversion quantum efficiencies.In addition to conventional approaches to enhance fluorescence intensity,controlling emission directivity to improve detection efficiency has become a promising approach to obtain higher luminescence brightnesses.In this paper,a self-suspended RE-doped UC luminescent waveguide is designed to realize directional emissions.Benefitting from the special morphology of the crown-like NaYF4:Yb3+/Er3+microparticle,the points contact between the waveguide and substrate can be obtained to decrease energy loss.An attractive UC luminescent pattern accompanied by powerful and controllable directional emissions is observed,and the spatial emission angle and intensity distribution are explored and analyzed in detail by introducing Fourier imaging detection and simulation.This work provides a new method for achieving controllable directional fluorescence emissions and obtaining improved detection efficiency by narrowing emission directivity,which has potential applications in 3-dimensional displays and micro-optoelectronic devices,especially when fabricating self-fluorescence micron lasers.