Hierarchically porous carbon monoliths with high specific surface areas have been fabricated by removing nano-sized silica phase from carbon/silica composites pyrolyzed from bridged polysilsesquioxane. This activation method improves the homogeneity between inner and outer parts of the monoliths compared to the conventional thermal activation methods.

A novel TiO(2) nano-thorn membrane was assembled for concurrent filtration and photocatalytic oxidization to remove pollutants in water. This membrane has hierarchical porous and multifunctional properties, which provide these advantages: (1) producing water with high quality; (2) increasing water flux; and (3) eliminating membrane fouling.

A novel 3D hierarchical nanocomposite of vertically aligned porous FeP nano-wires on reduced graphene oxide is prepared as a demonstration of constructing an efficient hydrogen evolution catalyst. Extension of this nanostructuring strategy to other functional nanocomposites by combining different dimensional nanomaterials is attractive.

A multi-scale investigation of nanostructured carbon films has been performed by means of inelastic light scattering (Raman and Brillouin scattering). Carbon films with different nanoand mesostructure have been deposited from supersonic cluster beams in a low energy deposition regime by exploiting aerodynamic focusing effects. Acoustic phonon propagation in the porous amorphous structure, where...

This paper proposes non-fragile compliant humidity sensors that can be fabricated inexpensively on various types of nano-porous polymer membranes such as polycarbonate, cellulose acetate, and nylon membranes. The sensor contains a pair of interdigitated electrodes deposited on the nano-porous polymer membranes. The resistance and/or capacitance between these electrodes vary at different humidit...

Super-hydrophobic surfaces are bio-inspired interfaces with a superficial texture that, in its most common evolution, is formed by a periodic lattice of silicon micro-pillars. Similar surfaces reveal superior properties compared to conventional flat surfaces, including very low friction coefficients. In this work, we modified meso-porous silicon micro-pillars to incorporate networks of metal na...

Porous yttria-stabilised zirconia ceramics have been gaining popularity throughout the years in various fields, such as energy, environment, medicine, etc. Although yttria-stabilised zirconia is a well-studied material, voided yttria-stabilised zirconia powder particles have not been demonstrated yet, and might play an important role in future technology developments. A sol-gel synthesis accomp...

A new class of multimetallic hierarchical aerogels composed entirely of interconnected Ni-Pdx Pty nano-building-blocks with in situ engineered morphologies and compositions is demonstrated. The underlying mechanism of the galvanic shape-engineering is elucidated in terms of nanowelding of intermediate nanoparticles. The hierarchical aerogels integrate two levels of porous structures, leading to...

A wet-chemical etching method is reported for the scale-up preparation of carbon-coated hierarchical micro/nano porous silicon powders as a Li-ion battery anode, which shows no capacity fading at 1500 mA h g(-1) in 50 charge/discharge cycles.

The work is based on the drying of PVDF-HFP gels with a procedure assisted by supercritical CO2 to obtain nano-sized porous membranes at high quality/low cost ratio. Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) as homopolymer or copolymer with hexafluoropropylene (PVDF-HFP) is a very interesting material largely used in catalytic membrane reactors, chemical and biomedical applications and various filtratio...