In Situ Self-Assembly of Nitrogen-Doped 3D Flower-like Hierarchical Porous Carbon and Its Application for Supercapacitors

The hierarchical porous carbon-based materials derived from biomass are beneficial for the enhancement of electrochemical performances in supercapacitors. Herein, we report the fabrication of nitrogen-doped 3D flower-like hierarchical porous carbon (NPC) assembled by nanosheets using a mixture of urea, ZnCl2, and starch via a low-temperature hydrothermal reaction and high-temperature carbonization process. As a consequence, the optimized mass ratio for the mixture is 2:2:2 and the temperature is 700 °C. The NPC structures are capable of electron transport and ion diffusion owing to their high specific surface area (1498.4 m2 g-1) and rich heteroatoms. Thereby, the resultant NPC electrodes display excellent capacitive performance, with a high specific capacitance of 249.7 F g-1 at 1.0 A g-1 and good cycling stability. Remarkably, this implies a superior energy density of 42.98 Wh kg-1 with a power density of 7500 W kg-1 in organic electrolyte for the symmetrical supercapacitor. This result verifies the good performance of as-synthesized carbon materials in capacitive energy storage applications, which is inseparable from the hierarchical porous features of the materials.

Fabrication of Highly Ordered Ag/TiO2 Nanopore Array as a Self-Cleaning and Recycling SERS Substrate

Silver nanoparticles deposited on a titania nanopore array (Ag/TiO2 NPA) has been designed as a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate for sensitive and recycling application of organic molecule detection. A TiO2 NPA was fabricated by a surface oxidization reaction of a titanium sheet by a double anodization process. A Ag/TiO2 NPA was then formed by depositing silver nanoparticles onto the TiO2 NPA by a cycling chemical reduction deposition process. The Ag/TiO2 NPA has a uniform mono-layer dispersion of Ag nanoparticles with a size of 30–50 nm on TiO2 nanopores with a diameter of 100–110 nm. The Ag/TiO2 NPA SERS substrate could facilitate interfacial adsorption of Rhodamine 6G (R6G), which achieves a sensitive detection limit of 10−8 M R6G through SERS spectrum measurement. The Ag/TiO2 NPA SERS substrate achieves an analytical enhancement factor value of 2.6 × 105. The Ag/TiO2 NRA could promote the UV light-excited photocatalytic degradation reaction of R6G adsorbed on its surface which gives rise to a refreshed Ag/TiO2 NRA under UV irradiation for 60 min and accordingly behave as a self-cleaning and recycling SERS substrate. The Ag/TiO2 NPA exhibits a much higher R6G degradation reaction rate constant (0.05764 min−1) than the TiO2 NPA (0.02600 min−1), indicating its superior photocatalytic activity and self-cleaning activity. The refreshed Ag/TiO2 NPA was able to be recycled for the Raman detection of R6G, maintaining a high stability, reproducibility, and cyclability. The highly ordered Ag/TiO2 NPA with well controlled Ag nanoparticle dispersion and TiO2 nanopore shape could act as a suitable SERS substrate for recycling and self-cleaning application for stable and sensitive molecule detection.