Mango fruit seed shells were used as starting materials to produce activated carbons for the capture of acetone, a typical volatile organic compound (VOC), from gaseous streams. This fruit waste presents high volatiles and low ashes contents, as expected for the lignocelulosic materials commonly used for the preparation of activated carbons. The starting material was hydrothermally treated at 180 or 250 °C for 5 h and the obtained hydrochars were activated with KOH solutions. The carbon samples were characterized by SEM, EDX, TG/DTA, Raman spectroscopy and textural analysis by physisorption. The adsorption capacity and adsorption cycles were investigated by TG. The hydrochars presented spherical morphology and the activated carbons derived from them presented heterogeneous micropore structures allowing to high capacity of acetone vapor removal, namely 472 mg/g, at 30 °C and 363 mg/g, at 50 °C. The results indicate that the adsorption capacity of the activated carbons is directly related to their Dubinin-Astakhov micropore surface areas and microporous volumes determined by NLDFT. The adsorption of acetone vapor showed a pseudo-first order kinetics and both external and intraparticle transport contributed for the overall process. Highly efficient and stable acetone vapor removal was observed over the activated carbons after five cycles.
The preparation of graphene oxide and the modification of its surface directly with copper pentacyanonitrosylferrate (III) nanoparticles are presented in this work, as well as the characterization of the materials using Fourier-transform infrared spectra, X-ray diffractometry and scanning electron microscopy techniques. Beyond that, the study on the electrochemical behavior of the dispersed bimetallic complex on the graphene oxide, as known as GOCuNP, surface was carried out by the cyclic voltammetry technique. The graphite paste electrode modified with GOCuNP was successfully applied in the detection of hydrazine, presenting limit of detection of 1.58 × 10–6 mol L−1 at concentration range of 1.00 × 10–5 to 5.00 × 10–3 mol L−1 of hydrazine, being so the proposed bimetallic complex formed can be considered as a potential candidate for the manufacturing of electrochemical sensors for hydrazine detection.
In this study, Fe–Mo–MgO catalysts for the synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were prepared using the combustion method and CNTs were synthesized through catalytic chemical vapor deposition. The combustion time was controlled to 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, and 24 h in the catalyst preparation stage. The residual carbon contents after the combustion stage and the morphologies of synthesized CNTs were also analyzed. The diameter, yield, and crystallinity of the synthesized CNTs were found to remarkably vary according to the combustion time in the catalyst preparation process. The amount of residual carbon in the catalyst considerably affects the purity, crystallinity, diameter and its distribution, and wall number of CNTs. Based on the yield and crystallinity, CNTs synthesized using the catalyst with a combustion time of 3 h were determined to be the most appropriate for application in field emitters
Highly luminescent carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are developed as fluorescent probes for selective detection of the heavy-ion Fe3+, where the CQDs exhibit excellent nontoxicity, functionalizability, sensitivity, and selectivity. Biomass-based CQDs and nitrogen-doped CQDs (N-CQDs) are synthesized for the selective detection of Fe3+ by using H2O2 as an oxidant and polyetherimide (PEI) as a nitrogen precursor by a green hydrothermal synthesis method. The prepared CQDs and N-CQDs exhibit an elliptical morphology and with an average particle size of 7 and 4 nm, respectively, and emit blue photoluminescence at 445 and 468 nm under excitation at 367 and 343 nm, respectively. The CQDs and N-CQDs exhibit good water solubility because of the abundant hydroxyl and carboxyl/carbonyl groups and graphic/pyrrolic/pyridinic nitrogen on the surfaces, giving rise to a quantum yield of about 24.2% and 30.7%, respectively. Notably, the Matrimony vine-PEI-based CQDs exhibit excellent Fe3+ selectivity and sensitivity relative to the Matrimony vine-based CQDs due to complexation of the numerous phenolic hydroxyl groups and nitrogen-containing groups with Fe3+, leading to increased fluorescence quenching, which greatly improves the sensitivity of detection. The minimum detection limit was 2.22 μmol L− 1 with a complexation constant of 44.7.
In this study, the MoS2 nanoparticles grown on crumpled 3D graphene microball (3D GM–MoS2) was synthesized using a microfluidic droplet generator with thermal evaporation-driven capillary compression and hydrothermal reaction. The morphology and size of 3D GM–MoS2 are controlled by the concentration of nano-sized graphene oxide (GO) and the flow rate of oil phase on the droplet generator. The 3D GM–MoS2 with fully sphere-shape and uniform size (~ 5 μm), and homogeneous growth of MoS2 nanoparticles could be synthesized at the flow rate of the oil phase of 60 μL/min with the optimized GO concentration of 1.0 mg/mL, and ( NH4)2MoS4 concentration of 2.0 mg/mL.