Electrochemical, top-down nanostructured pseudocapacitive electrodes for enhanced specific capacitance and cycling efficiency

MnMoO4-S nanosheets with rich oxygen vacancies for high-performance supercapacitors

The structure of materials is closely related to their electrochemical properties. MnMoO₄ materials have good stability as supercapacitors but their specific capacitance performance is not excellent. To improve electrochemical performance of MnMoO₄, this study conducts secondary hydrothermal treatment in thiourea solution on MnMoO₄ electrode material grown on nickel foam synthesized by traditional hydrothermal method. A more compact S-doped MnMoO₄ electrode material with more oxygen vacancies and higher specific capacitance was obtained. At the current density of 1 A g^-1, the specific capacitance of the composite material reached 2526.7 F g^-1, which increased by 140.9% compared with that of ordinary MnMoO₄ material. The capacitance retention rate of the composite material was 95.56% after 2000 cycles at 10 A g^-1. An asymmetric supercapacitor was fabricated using S-doped MnMoO₄ as the positive electrode, activated carbon as the negative electrode, and 6 mol L^-1 KOH solution as the electrolyte. The specific capacitance of the assembled supercapacitor was 117.50 F g^-1 at 1 A g^-1, and a high energy density of 47.16 W h kg^-1 at the power density of 849.98 W kg^-1 was recorded. This method greatly improves the specific capacitance of MnMoO₄ through simple processing, which makes it have great application potential.

Electric-Field-Induced Solid-Gas Interfacial Chemical Reaction in Carbon Nanotube Ensembles: Route toward Ultra-sensitive Gas Detectors

The electric field at the sharp pointed tips of single wall carbon nanotube ensembles has been utilized to kinetically accelerate hitherto unobserved chemical reactions at the heterogeneous solid-gas interfaces. The principle of ″action-of-points″ drives specific chemical reactions between the defect sites of single wall carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and ppb levels of gaseous hydrogen sulfide. This is manifested as changes in the electrical conductivity of the conductive CNT-ensemble (cCNT) and visually tracked as enthalpic modulations at the site of the reaction through infrared thermometry. Importantly, the principle has been observed for a variety of analytes such as NH₃, H₂O, and H₂S, leading to distinctly correlatable changes in reactivity and conductivity changes. Theoretical calculations based on the density functional theory in the presence and absence of applied electric field reveal that the applied electric field activates the H₂S gas molecules by charge polarization, yielding favorable energetics. These results imply the possibility of carrying out site-specific chemical modifications for nanomaterials and also provide transformative opportunities for the development of miniaturized e-nose-based gas analyzers.

Improving Electrochemical Properties of Polypyrrole Coatings by Graphene Oxide and Carbon Nanotubes

Nanostructured polypyrrole coating was applied on carbon paper via simple dip-coating and electrochemical approach. Hybridization with nanocarbon materials (graphene oxide (GO) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)) and their effect as an anchoring hybrid layer for the growth of polypyrrole towards improving electrochemical properties are studied. The loading of each component and their w/w ratio were evaluated. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy were employed to characterize the properties of the coatings. The electrochemical properties were investigated by cyclic voltammetry. The results indicated the electrodeposition of polypyrrole is enhanced by the addition of MWCNTs to the GO layer due to the formation of a hierarchical network. The electrochemical performance of the modified electrode was shown to be highly dependent on the employed w/w ratio, reaching a capacitance value of about 40 mF cm⁻² for a carbon paper substrate modified with GO:MWCNT in a w/w ratio of 1:2.5 and PPy layer deposited by cyclic voltammetry for 30 cycles. The contribution to total stored charge was found to be primary from the inner capacitance component of about 95.5% contribution.

Photo-induced synthesis of molybdenum oxide quantum dots for surface-enhanced Raman scattering and photothermal therapy

By means of a simple and photo-induced method, four colors of molybdenum oxide quantum dots (MoO_x QDs) have been synthesized, using Mo(CO)₆ as the structural guiding agent and molybdenum source. The as-prepared MoO_x QDs display diverse optical properties due to the different configurations of oxygen vacancies in various nanostructures. Among them, crystalline molybdenum dioxide (MoO₂) with a deep blue color shows the most intense localized surface plasmon resonance effect in the near-infrared (NIR) region. The strong NIR absorption endows MoO₂ QDs with a high photothermal conversion efficiency of 66.3%, enabling broad prospects as a photo-responsive nanoagent for photothermal therapy of cancer. Moreover, MoO₂ QDs can also serve as a novel semiconductor substrate for ultrasensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) analysis of aromatic molecules, amino acids and antibiotics, with SERS performance comparable to that of noble metal-based substrates. The therapeutic applications of MoO₂ QDs open up a new avenue for tumor nanomedicine.