Wuhan University of Technology

About: Wuhan University of Technology is a education organization based out in Wuhan, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Microstructure & Catalysis. The organization has 40384 authors who have published 36724 publications receiving 575695 citations. The organization is also known as: WUT.

In Situ Fabrication of Ni–Mo Bimetal Sulfide Hybrid as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution over a Wide pH Range

Abstract: Electrochemical water splitting to produce hydrogen bears a great commitment for future renewable energy conversion and storage. By employing an in situ chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process, we prepared a bimetal (Ni and Mo) sulfide-based hybrid nanowire (NiS2/MoS2 HNW), which was composed of NiS2 nanoparticles and MoS2 nanoplates, and revealed that it is an efficient electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) over a wide pH range due to the collective effects of rational morphological design and synergistic heterointerfaces. On a simple glassy carbon (GC) electrode, NiS2/MoS2 HNW displays overpotentials at −10 mA cm–2 catalytic current density (η10) of 204, 235, and 284 mV with small Tafel slopes of 65, 58, and 83 mV dec–1 in alkaline, acidic, and neutral electrolyte, respectively, exhibiting pH-universal-efficient electrocatalytic HER performance, which is comparable to the recently reported state-of-the-art sulfide-based HER electrocatalysts. Theoretical calculations further confirm t...

S‐Scheme Heterojunction TiO2/CdS Nanocomposite Nanofiber as H2‐Production Photocatalyst

Abstract: One‐dimensional (1D) nanostructured photocatalyst is a promising candidate for hydrogen (H2) generation, which can be used to deal with the energy crisis. Herein, novel 1D TiO2/CdS well‐hybridized nanofibers (NFs) were synthesized via in situ electrospinning method. These 1D hybrid NFs showed a high H2‐production rate of 2.32 mmol h−1 g−1 with an apparent quantum efficiency of 10.14 %, which was 35‐fold higher than that of pristine TiO2 NFs. X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis and density functional theory calculation implied that the electrons transferred from CdS to TiO2 upon hybridization and created an internal electric field (IEF) pointing from CdS to TiO2. This IEF drove the photoexcited electrons in TiO2 to transfer toward CdS upon light irradiation as revealed by in situ irradiated XPS analysis, suggesting that a step‐scheme (S‐scheme) heterojunction was formed in the TiO2/CdS nanohybrids and greatly promoted the separation of electron‐hole pairs to foster efficient H2 photogeneration. The significant enhancement of photocatalytic activity was also benefited from the easy transfer for electrons in the 1D well‐distributed nanostructure of nanohybrids. This work presents a method for in situ preparing well‐distributed 1D NFs with high photocatalytic activity for H2 production via the S‐scheme pathways.

Enhanced photocatalytic conversion of greenhouse gas CO2 into solar fuels over g-C3N4 nanotubes with decorated transparent ZIF-8 nanoclusters

Abstract: The atmospheric concentration of CO2 as the dominant greenhouse gas continues to rise and has become a global environmental issue. Photocatalytic CO2 reduction into solar fuels has been regarded as an ideal solution to reduce CO2 emissions and to use solar energy. Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is one of the most promising visible-light-driven photocatalysts for CO2 reduction. Unfortunately, the CO2 reduction performance of g-C3N4 based photocatalyst is normally limited by the inferior charge separation ability and limited CO2 adsorption capacity. In this study, two cooperative strategies, that is, combined host nanostructural design and surface guest grafting, are adopted to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks. Specifically, holey graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanotubes were firstly fabricated to modify the light-harvesting ability, the redox potential as well as the charge separation efficiency. And then, the as-prepared tubular g-C3N4 was decorated with suitable amount of transparent zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) nanoclusters to further increase CO2 capture capacity without sacrifice of light absorption capacity. Because of the cooperative effects of nanostructural design and surface grafting, the optimized ZIF-8 modified tubular g-C3N4 photocatalysts exhibit a great enhancement in photocatalytic CH3OH production efficiency by more than 3 times, relative to the bulk g-C3N4 (BCN) photocatalyst synthesized by conventional pyrolysis of melamine. This work will enlighten a promising strategy to construct efficient photocatalyst for greenhouse gas CO2 resourcing, by taking advantage of the cooperative effects of semiconductor nanostructures and surface metal-organic framework grafters.

Inkjet-bioprinted acrylated peptides and PEG hydrogel with human mesenchymal stem cells promote robust bone and cartilage formation with minimal printhead clogging.

Abstract: Inkjet bioprinting is one of the most promising additive manufacturing approaches for tissue fabrication with the advantages of high speed, high resolution, and low cost. The limitation of this technology is the potential damage to the printed cells and frequent clogging of the printhead. Here we developed acrylated peptides and co-printed with acrylated poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogel with simultaneous photopolymerization. At the same time, the bone marrow-derived human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) were precisely printed during the scaffold fabrication process so the cells were delivered simultaneously with minimal UV exposure. The multiple steps of scaffold synthesis and cell encapsulation were successfully combined into one single step using bioprinting. The resulted peptide-conjugated PEG scaffold demonstrated excellent biocompatibility, with a cell viability of 87.9 ± 5.3%. Nozzle clogging was minimized due to the low viscosity of the PEG polymer. With osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation, the bioprinted bone and cartilage tissue demonstrated excellent mineral and cartilage matrix deposition, as well as significantly increased mechanical properties. Strikingly, the bioprinted PEG-peptide scaffold dramatically inhibited hMSC hypertrophy during chondrogenic differentiation. Collectively, bioprinted PEG-peptide scaffold and hMSCs significantly enhanced osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation for robust bone and cartilage formation with minimal printhead clogging.