All conventional piston-driven combustion engines emit metal oxide particles. The main sources are the abrasion between piston-ring and cylinder, abrasion in the bearings, catalyst coating, lube-oil additives, and fuel additives for promoting the exhaust-gas after-treatment. Metal oxides, especially from transition metals, are very toxic when they are very fine. These particles have a high BET ...

Reduction of SO, by CO to elemental sulfur on fluorite oxide and transition metal/fluorite oxide composite catalysts is discussed within the redox framework. The oxygen vacancies on the fluorite oxide are active catalyst sites and their creation is a key step to initiate the redox reaction. Transition metal/fluorite oxide composites demonstrate a strong synergism for the reaction. A reduction k...

Sodium and barium metal cation templation has been used to construct a novel pyridine N-oxide containing [2]rotaxane. Upon addition and removal of metal cations, the macrocyclic component is observed to undergo a pirouetting motion around the pyridine N-oxide axle.

We demonstrate a tunable electron-blocking layer to enhance the performance of an Earth-abundant metal-oxide solar-cell material. A 5 nm thick amorphous ternary metal-oxide buffer layer reduces interface recombination, resulting in sizable open-circuit voltage and efficiency enhancements. This work emphasizes the importance of interface engineering in improving the performance of Earth-abundant...

Niobium and antimony doped tin oxide loose-tubes decorated with Pt nanoparticles present outstanding mass activity and stability, exceeding those of a reference carbon-based electrocatalyst. Physico-chemical characterisation and in particular X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy demonstrate that this observation can be ascribed to the strong metal-support interaction promoting electroactivity and P...

Metal exsolution reactions enable the preparation of metal-oxide nano-composites from oxide parent materials in a single thermal reduction step. In this process, reducible metals are released doped oxide...

The development of an efficient photoanode remains the primary materials challenge in the establishment of a scalable technology for solar water splitting. The typical photoanode architecture consists of a semiconductor light absorber coated with a metal oxide that serves a combination of functions, including corrosion protection, electrocatalysis, light trapping, hole transport, and eliminatio...

In recent years, electrochemical supercapacitors have received considerable attention from many researchers. Metal oxides such as chromium oxide with high redox activity, high specific capacity, and excellent reversibility are suitable alternatives to ruthenium oxide in supercapacitor applications. In this study, first, graphene oxide (GO) was synthesized by the modified Hummers method. The syn...

In this paper, we bring forward an effective strategy, solvothermal postsynthesis, to prepare ordered mesoporous silica materials with highly branched channels. Structural characterizations indicate that the titled mesoporous materials basically have the cubic double gyroidal (space group Ia-3d) structure with small fraction of distortions. The mesopore sizes and surface areas can be up to 8.8 ...