Electrochemical reduction of CO2 into carbon-based products using excess clean electricity is a compelling method for producing sustainable fuels while lowering CO2 emissions. Previous electrolytic CO2 reduction studies all involve dioxygen production at the anode, yet this anodic reaction requires a large overpotential and yields a product bearing no economic value. We report here that the cat...

AMoO3–carbon nanocomposite was synthesized from amixture ofMoO3 and graphite by a controlled ball milling procedure. The as-prepared product consists of nanosized MoO3 particles (2–180 nm) homogeneously distributed in carbon matrix. The nanocomposite acts as a high capacity anode material for lithium-ion batteries and exhibits good cyclic behavior. Its initial capacity exceeds the theoretical c...

The fate of used electronic products (e-waste) is of increasing concern because of their toxicity and the growing volume of e-waste. Addressing these concerns requires developing the recycling infrastructure, but good estimates of the volume of e-waste stored by US households are still unavailable. In this context, we make two contributions based on a national random survey of 2136 US household...

When surveying the trends and criteria for the design for recycling (DfR) of bio-based polymers, priorities appear to lie in energy recovery at the end of the product life of durable products, such as bio-based thermosets. Non-durable products made of thermoplastic polymers exhibit good properties for material recycling. The latter commonly enjoy growing material recycling quotas in countries t...

Potassium tribromide wrapped around polyethylene glycol ({K+PEG400}Br3-) was easily prepared by two step reaction of PEG400 with KBr followed by the addition of molecular bromine to give PEG embedded potassium tribromide as a dark viscous oil. The synthesized material was found to be an efficient, cost effective, environmentally benign and recyclable catalyst for the library synthesis of nitrog...

High-yield bamboo-shaped carbon nanotubes (BCNTs) have been produced by using cresol as the precursor, for the first time and there are almost no straight CNTs or amorphous carbon found in the product: the role of cresol in promoting the growth of BCNTs is discussed; improved cycle stability and electric conductivity of the BCNTs as an anode additive in a lithium ion battery are achieved.

The implementation of a novel cell recycling technology based on a special disk centrifuge during microbial fermentation process can continuously separate the product and harmful intermediates, while maintaining the cell viability owing to the installed cooling system. Acetate accumulation is an often encountered problem in L-tryptophan fermentation by Escherichia coli. To extend our previous s...

In this paper, rutile TiO2 nanorod arrays are fabricated by a template-free method and proposed as a promising anode for aqueous Li-ion battery. The as-prepared TiO2 nanorod arrays exhibited reversible Li-ion insertion/extraction ability in aqueous LiOH electrolyte. Moreover, galvanostatic charge/discharge test results demonstrated that the reversible capacity of TiO2 nanorods could reach about...

Topological state of matter and lithium batteries are currently two hot topics in science and technology. Here we combine these two by exploring the possibility of using all-carbon-based porous topological semimetal for lithium battery anode material. Based on density-functional theory and the cluster-expansion method, we find that the recently identified topological semimetal bco-C16 is a prom...

Na-ion batteries are emerging as one of the most promising energy storage technologies, particularly for grid-level applications. Among anode candidate materials, hard carbon is very attractive due to its high capacity and low cost. However, hard carbon anodes often suffer a low first-cycle Coulombic efficiency and fast capacity fading. In this study, we discover that doping graphene oxide into...