Taiyuan University of Technology

About: Taiyuan University of Technology is a education organization based out in Taiyuan, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Adsorption. The organization has 19027 authors who have published 16996 publications receiving 194715 citations. The organization is also known as: TUT & TYUT.

One step N-doping and activation of biomass carbon at low temperature through NaNH2: An effective approach to CO2 adsorbents

Abstract: This study offers a simple, environmentally friendly, and low-cost method to prepare N-doped adsorbents with outstanding CO2 adsorption property under 1 bar. Utilizing waste walnut shell as adsorbents precursor and NaNH2 as chemical activator and nitrogen source, porous adsorbents containing nitrogen are prepared at low temperature zone 400–500 °C. Also, by adjusting the activation temperature of the adsorbent and the ratio of NaNH2/AC, the pore structure and nitrogen content of the adsorbent are regulated to affect CO2 adsorption performance. The specific surface area of the prepared series of nitrogen-containing porous adsorbents is from70 m2/g to 419–1721 m2/g. The result indicates that the optimal adsorbent has the highest 5.22 mmol/g of CO2 adsorption capacity. A systematic study on the prepared series of adsorbents demonstrates that the narrow pore volume, pore structure and nitrogen content of the adsorbent jointly affected adsorption performance of CO2. Besides, these walnut shell-derived N-doped adsorbents show appropriate CO2/N2 selectivity and Qst. The numerous advantages of the cheap waste walnut shell adsorbents enjoy simple and low-temperature synthesis process indicating that they are outstanding substitution to CO2 adsorbents. The study hopes to further understand the synthesis of N-doped carbon and its carbon dioxide adsorption mechanism.

WO3/BiVO4 Type-II Heterojunction Arrays Decorated with Oxygen-Deficient ZnO Passivation Layer: A Highly Efficient and Stable Photoanode

Abstract: In the present work, we report a ternary WO3/BiVO4/ZnO photoanode with boosted PEC efficiency and stability toward highly efficient water splitting. The type-II WO3/BiVO4 heterojunction arrays are firstly prepared by hydrothermal growth of WO3 nanoplate arrays onto the substrates of fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO)-coated glass, followed by spin-coating of BiVO4 layers onto the WO3 nanoplate surfaces. After that, thin ZnO layers are further introduced onto the WO3/BiVO4 heterojunction arrays via atomic layer deposition (ALD), leading to the construction of ternary WO3/BiVO4/ZnO photoanodes. It is verified that the ZnO thin layer in the WO3/BiVO4/ZnO photoanode contains abundant oxygen vacancies, which could act as an effective passivation layer to enhance the charge separation and surface water oxidation kinetics of photogenerated carriers. The as-prepared WO3/BiVO4/ZnO photoanode produces a photocurrent of 2.96 mA cm-2 under simulated sunlight with an incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) of ∼72.8% at 380 nm at a potential of 1.23 V versus RHE without cocatalysts, both of which are comparable to the state-of-the-art WO3/BiVO4 counterparts. Moreover, the photocurrent of the WO3/BiVO4/ZnO photoanode shows only 9% decay after 6 h, suggesting its high photoelectrochemical (PEC) stability.