Hydrogen energy is a promising source of renewable and clean energy for various industries, such as chemical, automobile, and energy industries. Electrolysis of water is one of the basic methods for the production of hydrogen energy. However, the high overpotential of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in water electrolysis has hindered the effective production of hydrogen using this method. Thus, the development of high-efficiency non-precious metal-based electrocatalysts for OER is extremely significant. In this study, we adopted a one-step hydrothermal method to fabricate Ni-based catalysts with N/Sdual doped graphene oxide/carbon nanotube (GO/CNT) supports using thiourea ( CH4N2S) and urea as the S source and the N source. It was observed that the amount of thiourea utilized in the synthesis of the catalyst affected the morphology, composition, and the electrochemical properties of the catalyst. For a GO/CNT-to-thiourea mass ratio of 1:10, the catalyst exhibited the highest activity, where the OER overpotential was 320 mV at a current density of 10 mA/cm2. This was attributed to the high specific surface area, high conductivity, and fast electron transport channels of the N/S-dual doped GO/ CNT composite. Furthermore, sulfurization of the Ni particles to form nickel sulfide played a significant role in enhancing the catalytic performance.

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.

Nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-CDs), derived from the biomass (anthocyanin), are the novel additive to the nanocarbon materials, which is expected to bring a wide spectrum of novel applications. Moreover, metallic oxides are emerging for their unique potential for electrocatalysis. Herein, we report the synthesis of N-CDs for the selective detection of Fe3+ with a limit of detection of 2.57 μM in the range of 5–60 μM using ethylenediamine and H2O2 by a hydrothermal method. The obtained N-CDs displayed a spherical morphology with a particle size range of 2–7 nm and emitted blue luminescence at 394 nm under excitation at 319 nm. Meanwhile, we have demonstrated the fabrication of cost-efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in an alkaline medium, employing N-CDs. Owing to the successful incorporation of N-CDs into NiO nanospheres, the resulting N-CDs/NiO with large surface areas, fast charge transfer, and increased conductivity vastly improved the catalytic activity. Remarkably, the optimal of N-CDs/NiO composite requires the overpotential of only 380 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm− 2 and a relatively low Tafel slope of 57.96 mV dec− 1 compared with pure NiO. These results open up a facile route for the application of N-CDs and offer prospects for CD-metal hybrids as high OER catalysts in electrochemical energy devices.

Hierarchical porous carbons (HPCs) have been successfully prepared by a facile carbonization and subsequent CO2 activation process using corncob as a natural carbon precursor and Mg(C2H3O2)2 as a MgO nano-template precursor. The prepared corncob-based hierarchical porous carbons (C-HPCs) with desirable micropores and mesopores feature the excellent absorbency of gas (i.e., CO2 and CH4) and solution (i.e., methylene blue (MB)). Increasing the ratio of Mg(C2H3O2)2/corncob enlarged the specific surface area up to 1004 m2/ g, micropore and mesopore volumes, CO2, CH4, and MB adsorption capacities (112, 31 and 230 mg/g after 325 min, respectively). The results indicated that the pore structures of C-HPCs can be easily and suitably controlled by the amount of the template precursor and CO2 activation effecting concurrently, which leads to fascinating adsorption capacity for CO2, CH4, and MB.