(Press-News.org)
Photocatalytic water splitting, a sustainable energy strategy, utilizes solar energy to produce clean hydrogen fuel. While it offers a promising solution to the global energy crisis and environmental pollution, the slow kinetics of photogenerated electron-hole pairs result in low activity for most semiconductor materials, even with sacrificial agents. To that end, integrating electron traps and reactive centers could be a feasible strategy to enhance charge separation and catalytic performance.
In a new study, researchers at Jiangsu University of Science and Technology and Zhejiang Ocean University synthesized high-crystallinity nitrogen-rich carbon nitride nanosheet photocatalysts via an alkali potassium salt-assisted molten salt method, promoting photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.
“We elucidated the role of bound-state electrons in broadening the absorption spectrum and generating photogenerated charges and verified the electron migration pathway induced by cyanide groups, coordinating the transition of photoexcited electrons from an unbound to a bound state,” shares co-corresponding author Shijie Li.
The team synthesized the exceptional performance of highly crystalline C3N5 (HC–C3N5) nanosheet as a photocatalyst, demonstrating a e hydrogen evolution rate of 3.01 mmol h−1 g−1, which surpasses that of bulk C3N5 (B– C3N5) by a factor of 3.27.
“Experimental and theoretical analyses reveal that HC-C3N5 nanosheets exhibit macroscopic photoinduced color changes, effectively broadening the absorption spectrum and significantly enhancing the generation of excitons,” explains Weilong Shi.
Notably, the team discovered potential electron capture sites, which contributed to understanding complex reaction kinetics, strengthening charge separation dynamics during photocatalytic hydrogen production.
The researchers published their findings in the KeAi journal Advanced Powder Materials.
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Contact the author: Shijie Li, Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan, P.R. China, lishijie@zjou.edu.cn; Weilong Shi, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, PR. China, shiwl@just.edu.cn
The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 100 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
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Osaka, Japan - A research group at Osaka University has uncovered how the view of other people and groups changes when individuals feel that they are understood by others by conducting an experimental study on the relationship between Japanese and Chinese people. The study shows that the role of felt understanding largely derives from a reduction in prejudice toward the other person.
Feeling understood by other people is a crucial determinant for positive interpersonal and intergroup relationships; however, the psychology behind this determinant was not well understood.
In ...
A global study on the prevalence of sexual extortion among adults has found the issue to be more widespread than initially thought.
Sexual extortion, or sextortion, is a form of image-based sexual abuse which includes making threats to share intimate photos or videos of a victim unless they comply with the perpetrator’s behavioral or financial demands.
The research, led by RMIT University in partnership with Google, surveyed over 16,000 adults across Australia, North and Central America, Europe and Asia and found 14.5% of respondents reported being victims of sextortion, while 4.8% admitted to being perpetrators.
LGBTQ+ ...
Researchers from Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan have successfully treated the skin diseases epidermolytic ichthyosis (EI) and ichthyosis with confetti (IWC) by transplanting genetically healthy skin to inflamed areas. Transplanting healthy skin to inflamed areas has been used as a treatment option for severe burn injuries. They applied this technique from a common disease to rare diseases. Their research could pave the way for a new and effective treatment strategy for these challenging skin disorders. The study was published in the British Journal of Dermatology.
EI and IWC are rare genetic skin disorders caused by mutations in one of the two genes ...
Opioid giant Mallinckrodt, selling more than Purdue Pharma in the US, was forced by the courts to publish more than 1.3 million internal documents.
In The BMJ today, researchers Sergio Sismondo and Maud Bernisson sift through nearly 900 contracts which together reveal a carefully coordinated effort to shape medical attitudes toward pain medicine.
Pharmaceutical companies have a long history of managing physician and public opinion, explain the authors. For example, by recruiting physicians to serve as influencers, planting articles in scientific journals, coordinating conference presentations, and developing continuing medical education (CME) courses.
Amid surging ...
Cambridge scientists have grown ‘mini-guts’ in the lab to help understand Crohn’s disease, showing that ‘switches’ that modify DNA in gut cells play an important role in the disease and how it presents in patients.
The researchers say these mini-guts could in future be used to identify the best treatment for an individual patient, allowing for more precise and personalised treatments.
Crohn’s disease is a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). It is a life-long condition characterised by inflammation of the digestive tract that affects around one in 350 people in the UK, with one in four presenting before the age of 18. Even at its mildest, it ...
The genetic disease Huntington’s not only affects nerve cells in the brain but also has widespread effects on microscopic blood vessels according to research.
These changes to the vasculature were also observed in the pre-symptomatic stages of the disease, demonstrating the potential for this research for predicting brain health and evaluating the beneficial effects of lifestyle changes or treatments.
Huntington’s disease is an inherited genetic condition leading to dementia, with a progressive decline in a person’s movement, memory, and cognition. There is currently no ...
NEWPORT NEWS – The U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility is moving forward on a project to gain new insight into the interactions of electrons. The MOLLER experiment will make an extremely precise measurement of the electron’s force field to learn about specific and rare interactions with other subatomic particles. On May 28, the experiment received approvals of both Critical Decision 2 and Critical Decision 3 from the DOE.
The MOLLER research program was established at Jefferson Lab as a DOE Major Item of Equipment (MIE) project to build the equipment required to support the experiment.
These ...
PHILADELPHIA (June 10, 2024) – Researchers and patient advocates from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Smell and Taste Association of North America (STANA), and Thomas Jefferson University came together during the COVID-19 pandemic to incorporate patient voices in efforts to prioritize research areas focused on improving care for people with smell and taste disorders.
To this end, in 2022 these collaborators conducted a survey and listening sessions with patients, caregivers, and family members affected by impaired smell or taste. They asked about their individual perceptions of the effectiveness of treatments, among other topics. Using an online questionnaire, ...
Research suggests that males and females differ in their experience of pain, but up until now, no one knew why. In a recent study published in BRAIN, University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers became the first to identify functional sex differences in nociceptors, the specialized nerve cells that produce pain.
The findings support the implementation of a precision medicine-based approach that considers patient sex as fundamental to the choice of treatment for managing pain.
“Conceptually, this paper is a big advance in our ...
Astronomers have used new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the retired SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) as well as archival data from other missions to revisit one of the strangest binary star systems in our galaxy – 40 years after it burst onto the scene as a bright and long-lived nova. A nova is a star that suddenly increases its brightness tremendously and then fades away to its former obscurity, usually in a few months or years.
Between April and September 1975, the binary system HM Sagittae (HM Sge) grew 250 times brighter. Even more unusual, it did not rapidly fade away as novae commonly do, but has ...
