Yancheng Institute of Technology

Abstract Various studies have established that feedstock choice, pyrolysis temperature, and pyrolysis type influence final biochar physicochemical characteristics. However, overarching analyses of pre-biochar creation choices and correlations to biochar characteristics are severely lacking. Thus, the objective of this work was to help researchers, biochar-stakeholders, and practitioners make more well-informed choices in terms of how these three major parameters influence the final biochar product. Utilizing approximately 5400 peer-reviewed journal articles and over 50,800 individual data points, herein we elucidate the selections that influence final biochar physical and chemical properties, total nutrient content, and perhaps more importantly tools one can use to predict biochar’s nutrient availability. Based on the large dataset collected, it appears that pyrolysis type (fast or slow) plays a minor role in biochar physico- (inorganic) chemical characteristics; few differences were evident between production styles. Pyrolysis temperature, however, affects biochar’s longevity, with pyrolysis temperatures > 500 °C generally leading to longer-term (i.e., > 1000 years) half-lives. Greater pyrolysis temperatures also led to biochars containing greater overall C and specific surface area (SSA), which could promote soil physico-chemical improvements. However, based on the collected data, it appears that feedstock selection has the largest influence on biochar properties. Specific surface area is greatest in wood-based biochars, which in combination with pyrolysis temperature could likely promote greater changes in soil physical characteristics over other feedstock-based biochars. Crop- and other grass-based biochars appear to have cation exchange capacities greater than other biochars, which in combination with pyrolysis temperature could potentially lead to longer-term changes in soil nutrient retention. The collected data also suggest that one can reasonably predict the availability of various biochar nutrients (e.g., N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, and Cu) based on feedstock choice and total nutrient content. Results can be used to create designer biochars to help solve environmental issues and supply a variety of plant-available nutrients for crop growth.

In this paper, we propose the design of a family of hydrogel electrolytes that featuring freezing resistance, flexibility, safety, superior ionic conductivity and long-term stability to realize anti-freezing flexible aqueous batteries.

The review offers a comprehensive overview on the synthesis strategies and fundamental understandings of hierarchical porous carbons as supercapacitor electrodes.

Nanotechnology has become more and more potentially used in diagnosis or treatment of diseases. Advances in nanotechnology have led to new and improved nanomaterials in biomedical applications. Common nanomaterials applicable in biomedical applications include liposomes, polymeric micelles, graphene, carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, ferroferric oxide nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles (Au NPs), and so on. Among them, Au NPs have been considered as the most interesting nanomaterial because of its unique optical, electronic, sensing and biochemical properties. Au NPs have been potentially applied for medical imaging, drug delivery, and tumor therapy in the early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases. This review focuses on some recent advances in the use of Au NPs as drug carriers for the intracellular delivery of therapeutics and as molecular nanoprobes for the detection and monitoring of target molecules.

With the expansion of industry, the emission of greenhouse gases is increasing, and its impact on climate is becoming more and more serious. CO2 is the main culprit of the greenhouse effect, and how to effectively solve the climate problem caused by CO2 has attracted more and more attention. In recent years, there have been continuous attempts to reduce CO2 emissions from the source, but no obvious results have been achieved. In fact, CO2 is not only a greenhouse gas, but also a potential carbon resource. Therefore, how to capture and effectively use CO2 is also the research direction that many scholars have been exploring recently. In this paper, the current situations of CO2 capture technologies are reviewed from the aspects of chemical absorption, solid-phase porous materials adsorption, membrane separation, cryogenic separation, hydrate method and microbiological method in the first part. Then, the CO2 utilization technologies are systematically introduced from the aspect of physical utilization, chemical utilization, biological utilization and mineralization utilization. Furthermore, several representative frontier technologies of CO2 resource utilization are reported. On this basis, the advantages and disadvantages of different methods are summarized to provide some ideas and references for alleviating the CO2 issue.

Lightweight and high-efficiency microwave attenuation are two major challenges in the exploration of carbon-based absorbers, which can be achieved simultaneously by manipulating their chemical composition, microstructure, or impedance matching. In this work, core–shell CoNi@graphitic carbon decorated on B,N-codoped hollow carbon polyhedrons has been constructed by a facile pyrolysis process using metal–organic frameworks as precursors. The B,N-codoped hollow carbon polyhedrons, originated from the calcination of Co-Ni-ZIF-67, are composed of carbon nanocages and BN domains, and CoNi alloy is encapsulated by graphitic carbon layers. With a filling loading of 30 wt %, the absorber exhibits a maximum RL of −62.8 dB at 7.2 GHz with 3 mm and the effective absorption bandwidth below −10 dB remarkably reaches as strong as 8 GHz when the thickness is only 2 mm. The outstanding microwave absorption performance stems from the hollow carbon polyhedrons and carbon nanocages with interior cavities, the synergistic coupling effect between the abundant B–C–N heteroatoms, the strong dipolar/interfacial polarizations, the multiple scatterings, and the improved impedance matching. This study demonstrates that the codoped strategy provides a new way for the rational design of carbon-based absorbers with lightweight and superior microwave attenuation.

This paper developed an effective health indicator to indicate lithium-ion battery state of health and moving-window-based method to predict battery remaining useful life. The health indicator was extracted based on the partial charge voltage curve of cells. Battery remaining useful life was predicted using a linear aging model constructed based on the capacity data within a moving window, combined with Monte Carlo simulation to generate prediction uncertainties. Both the developed capacity estimation and remaining useful life prediction methods were implemented based on a real battery management system used in electric vehicles. Experimental data for cells tested at different current rates, including 1 and 2 C, and different temperatures, including 25 and 40 °C, were collected and used. The implementation results show that the capacity estimation errors were within 1.5%. During the last 20% of battery lifetime, the root-mean-square errors of remaining useful life predictions were within 20 cycles, and the 95% confidence intervals mainly cover about 20 cycles.

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) have garnered significant attention in the realm of large-scale and sustainable energy storage, primarily owing to their high safety, low cost, and eco-friendliness. Aqueous electrolytes, serving as an indispensable constituent, exert a direct influence on the electrochemical performance and longevity of AZIBs. Nonetheless, conventional aqueous electrolytes often encounter formidable challenges in AZIB applications, such as the limited electrochemical stability window and the zinc dendrite growth. In response to these hurdles, a series of advanced aqueous electrolytes have been proposed, such as "water-in-salt" electrolytes, aqueous eutectic electrolytes, molecular crowding electrolytes, and hydrogel electrolytes. This comprehensive review commences by presenting an in-depth overview of the fundamental compositions, principles, and distinctive characteristics of various advanced aqueous electrolytes for AZIBs. Subsequently, we systematically scrutinizes the recent research progress achieved with these advanced aqueous electrolytes. Furthermore, we summarizes the challenges and bottlenecks associated with these advanced aqueous electrolytes, along with offering recommendations. Based on the optimization of advanced aqueous electrolytes, this review outlines future directions and potential strategies for the development of high-performance AZIBs. This review is anticipated to provide valuable insights into the development of advanced electrolyte systems for the next generation of stable and sustainable multi-valent secondary batteries.

This review focuses on the morphology control, enhancement strategies of photocatalytic activity and applications of WO₃-based photocatalysts.

It is of great importance to explore and achieve a more effective approach toward the controllable synthesis of single-atom-based photocatalysts with high metal content and long-term durability. Herein, single-atom platinum (Pt) with high loading content anchored on the pore walls of two-dimensional β-ketoenamine-linked covalent organic frameworks (TpPa-1-COF) is presented. Aided by advanced characterization techniques of aberration-corrected high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (AC HAADF-STEM) and X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy, it has been demonstrated that atomically dispersed Pt is formed on the TpPa-1-COF support through a six-coordinated C3N–Pt–Cl2 species. The optimized Pt1@TpPa-1 catalyst exhibits a high photocatalytic H2 evolution rate of 719 μmol g–1 h–1 under visible-light irradiation, a high actual Pt loading content of 0.72 wt %, and a large turnover frequency (TOF) of 19.5 h–1, with activity equivalent to 3.9 and 48 times higher than those of Pt nanoparticles/TpPa-1 and bare TpPa-1, respectively. The improved photocatalytic performance for H2 evolution is ascribed to the effective photogenerated charge separation and migration and well-dispersed active sites of single-atom Pt. Moreover, density functional theory (DFT) calculations further reveal the role of Pt single atoms in the enhanced photocatalytic activity for H2 evolution. Overall, this work provides some inspiration for designing single-atom-based photocatalysts with outstanding stability and efficiency using COFs as the support.

With exceptional physicochemical properties, carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) have been widely applied in various energy and environmental applications including energy conversion, energy storage, and environmental remediation. Recent efforts have been made to prepare modified CNMs with improved electrical and chemical properties, hence broadening their potential applications. It is highly desirable to produce high-quality CNMs at a low cost and large scale, which remains a challenging task. Ball-milled CNMs (BM-CNMs) are a novel class of engineered materials that may provide new opportunities to satisfy the need. To promote the research on BM-CNMs, this work provides a comprehensive review on recent research development in (1) synthesis of various types of BM-CNMs, (2) effects of ball milling on physicochemical properties of BM-CNMs, and (3) energy and environmental applications of BM-CNMs. Different ball-milling processes for preparing BM-CNMs and modified BM-CNMs with desired particle size, structure, and surface properties are summarized and discussed. The physicochemical properties of pristine CNMs and BM-CNMs are compared. Because of BM-CNM’s unique properties, such as excellent catalytic, electrochemical, and sorptive properties, their potential applications in energy conversion, energy storage, and environmental remediation are also discussed. Key challenges and further research needs are proposed at the end.

, as around 88% of the electric charges are stored via electrical double layer. Significantly, electrochemical analyses show that the hierarchical porous structure containing macro-, meso-, and micropores allows efficient ion diffusion and charge transfer, resulting in the excellent rate capability. The findings pave the way for improving rate capability of supercapacitors and enhancing their capacitances at ultrahigh current densities.

Due to their abundant resources and potential price advantage, potassium-ion batteries (KIBs) have recently drawn increasing attention as a promising alternative to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for their applications in electrochemical energy storage applications.

This study investigated the effect of temperature (5 °C–50 °C) on the carbonation process, compressive strength and microstructure of CO2-cured cement paste. Results showed that the carbonation process and rate were significantly affected by temperature and time. When the curing temperature increased, the rate of improvement of cement paste's properties was accelerated. The carbonation reaction was mainly kinetically controlled by product layer diffusion with an activation energy of about 10.8 kJ/mol. Temperature had greatly affected the structural transformation, morphological changes, size and amounts of calcium carbonate polymorphs (calcite, aragonite and vaterite) as well as their degree of crystallinity and decomposition temperature. Alongside calcite, vaterite and aragonite were formed at low and high curing temperatures, respectively. Apart from microstructure, the compressive strength was also found to be very sensitive to temperature and carbonation products. The relationship between the amount of different carbonate polymorphs and the compressive strength was also provided.

This paper presents a novel seamless transfer of single-phase grid-interactive inverters between grid-connected and stand-alone modes. The grid-connected inverter should operate in grid-tied and off-grid modes in order to provide power to the emergency load during system outages. However, the grid current controller and the output voltage controller are switched between the two modes, so the outputs of both controllers may not be equal during the transfer instant, which will cause the current or voltage spikes during the switching process. The transfer between the two controllers does not exist in the proposed method. In grid-tied mode, the voltage controller is used for compensating the filter capacitor current, and the current controller is used to control the grid current. In stand-alone mode, the voltage controller is used to regulate the output voltage, whereas the output of the current controller is zero. With the proposed control method, the seamless transfer can be achieved between both modes, even in polluted grid voltage. The principle and realization conditions of the control methods at both modes are analyzed. The detailed process of the seamless transfer between the two modes is illustrated. Finally, the simulation and experimental results verify the theoretical analysis.

In the fabrication and processing of silicene monolayers, structural defects are almost inevitable. Using ab initio calculations, we systemically investigated the structures, formation energies, migration behaviors and electronic/magnetic properties of typical point defects in silicene, including the Stone-Wales (SW) defect, single and double vacancies (SVs and DVs), and adatoms. We found that SW can be effectively recovered by thermal annealing. SVs have much higher mobility than DVs and two SVs are very likely to coalesce into one DV to lower the energy. Existence of SW and DVs may induce small gaps in silicene, while the SV defect may transform semimetallic silicene into metallic. Adatoms are unexpectedly stable and can affect the electronic properties of silicene dramatically. Especially, Si adatoms as self-dopants in silicene sheets can induce long-range spin polarization as well as a remarkable band gap, thus achieving an all-silicon magnetic semiconductor. The present theoretical results provide valuable insights into identification of these defects in experiments and understanding their effects on the physical properties of silicene.

at 180 °C among reported cells assembled from crystalline solid electrolytes, as well as a direct methanol fuel cell for the first time to demonstrate real applications. These cells were tested for over 15 h without notable power loss.

Strontium ferrite nanoparticles were prepared by a coprecipitation method, and reduced graphene oxide/strontium ferrite/polyaniline (R-GO/SF/PANI) ternary nanocomposites were prepared by in situ polymerization method. The morphology, structure, and magnetic properties of the ternary nanocomposites were investigated by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), TEM, Raman, and VSM. The microwave-absorbing properties of the composites were measured by a vector network analyzer. The XRD patterns show the single phase of strontium hexaferrite without other intermediate phases. TEM photographs reveal that strontium ferrite nanoparticles are uniformly dispersed on the surfaces of R-GO sheets. The R-GO/SF/PANI nanocomposite exhibited the best absorption property with the optimum matching thickness of 1.5 mm in the frequency of 2-18 GHz. The value of the maximum RL was -45.00 dB at 16.08 GHz with the 5.48-GHz bandwidth. The excellent absorption properties of R-GO/SF/PANI nanocomposites indicated their great potential as microwave-absorbing materials.

A scalable enantioselective nickel-catalyzed electrochemical reductive homocoupling of aryl bromides has been developed, affording enantioenriched axially chiral biaryls in good yield under mild conditions using electricity as a reductant in an undivided cell. Common metal reductants such as Mn or Zn powder resulted in significantly lower yields in the absence of electric current under otherwise identical conditions, underscoring the enhanced reactivity provided by the combination of transition metal catalysis and electrochemistry.

A highly regioselective Ni-catalyzed electrochemical reductive relay cross-coupling between an aryl halide and an alkyl halide has been developed in an undivided cell. Various functional groups are tolerated under these mild reaction conditions, which provides an alternative approach for the synthesis of 1,1-diarylalkanes.