Safe, green and efficient industrial production has always been the pursuit of the chemical industry. Since thermal energy is the driving force for most of chemical reactions, an ideal reaction tank would have the capacity to automatically regulate heat conduction rate. In detail, this reaction tank should endow an ability that resists the heat loss when the reaction temperature is lower than the target, while accelerating the heat dissipation when the system is overheated. In this case, this smart reactor can not only minimize energy consumption but also reduce safety risks. Hollow structures are known to reduce heat conductivity. Particularly, the hollow structure with multishells can provide more interfaces and thus further inhibit heat transmission, which would be more favorable for heat isolation. Step forward, by coupling HoMSs with temperature-sensitive polymer, a smart heat isolation material has been fabricated in this work. It performs as a good heat isolator at a relatively lower temperature. A heat insulation effect of 6.5 & DEG;C can be achieved for the TSPU/3S-TiO2 HoMSs with a thickness of 1 mm under the temperature field of 50 & DEG;C. The thermal conductivity of composite material would be raised under overheating conditions. Furthermore, this composite displays an unusual two-stage phase transformation during heating. Benefiting from the unique multishelled structure, energy is found to be gradually guided into the hollow structure and stored inside. This localized heat accumulation enables the composite to be a potential coating material for intelligent thermal-regulator and site-defined micro-reactor.& COPY; 2022 Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Solar thermal interfacial water evaporation is proposed as a promising route to address freshwater scarcity, which can reduce energy consumption and have unlimited application scenarios. The large semiconductor family with controllable bandgap and good chemo-physical stability are considered as good candidates for photo-evaporation. However, the evaporation rate is not satisfactory because the rational control of nano/micro structure and composition is still in its infancy stage. Herein, by systemically analyzing the photo-thermal evaporation processes, we applied the hollow multishelled structure (HoMS) into this application. Benefiting from the multishelled and hierarchical porous structure, the light absorption, thermal regulation, and water transport are simultaneously optimized, resulting in a water evaporation rate of 3.2 kg·m−2·h−1, which is among the best performance in solar-vapour generation. The collected water from different water resources meets the World Health Organization standard for drinkable water. Interestingly, by using the CuO/Cu2O system, reactive oxygen species were generated for water disinfection, showing a new route for efficient solar-vapour generation and a green way to obtain safe drinking water.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have fallen short of expectation in terms of energy density compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries, and the theoretical energy density of the anode material plays a crucial role. Materials with high equilibrium effective specific surface area and mass transport could be promising to solve the dilemma. Herein, we develop a tactic to synthesize carbonaceous microspheres (CMSs, 13 mu m) utilizing cobalt acetate tetrahydrate as the catalyst. Six-shelled NiCo2O4 hollow multishelled structures (6S-NiCo2O4-HoMSs) have been realized for the first time based on the alkali-treated CMS (ATCMS) template with nanoporous structures. Precisely, low-dimensional nanostructures enable more electroactive sites, smaller local current density, and shorter diffusion paths for both multishelled structure serves to buffer the volume expansion, reduce the stress and strain to permit more uniform lithium deposition, and improve the cycle stability of the battery.

The exploitation of two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials for applications in different fields is desired. Bismuthene (Bi-ene), as a 2D material, holds the promise of being used in photoelectric, electro-catalytic, and spintronic devices with multifunction. Bismuth nano-particles have been successfully utilized in the solution-liquid-solid (SLS) mechanism to obtain one-dimensional nanowires (NWs) over the decades. However, to the best of our knowledge, Bi-ene has never been attempted to be utilized as seeds in the SLS mechanism. Impressively, "Flammulina Velutipes" CdSe NWs and CuInSe2 nanosheets are synthesized for the first time by Bi-ene as seeds. Transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive spectrometry, X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and high-angle annular dark-field imaging-scanning transmission electron microscopy are employed to characterize synthetic materials. Interestingly, uniform CdSe NWs with an average diameter -8.8 nm are obtained, which self-assembled to form a "Flammulina Velutipes" morphology. Meanwhile, by the similar SLS experiment process, high crystallinity thin CuInSe2 nanosheets with -12.5 nm in thickness and few micrometers in length are pioneeringly obtained through one-step reaction. Furthermore, preliminary HER performance exploration was carried out for this synthesized-CuInSe2 nanosheets, which exhibits a certain hydrogen evolution capacity in 1 M potassium hydroxide solution. The clarification of growth processes paves the way for further study, which provides a general strategy utilizing Bi-ene to synthesize semiconducting nanomaterials in diverse fields and promotes the synthesis of II-VI semiconductors with new morphology and properties in the SLS mechanism.

CdSe/Cu core/shell nanowires (NWs) are successfully synthesized by a wet chemical method for the first time. By utilizing the solution-liquid-solid (SLS) mechanism, CdSe NWs are fabricated by Bi seeds, which act as catalysts. In the subsequent radial overcoating of the Cu shell on the CdSe NWs, Fe ions have been proven to be an indispensable and efficient catalyzer. The thickness of the Cu shell could be well controlled in the range of 3 to 6 nm by varying the growth temperature (from 300 to 360 °C). Our synthetic strategy pioneers a new possibility for the controlled synthesis of semiconductor-metal heterostructure NWs (especially for II-VI semiconductors), such as CdS/Cu, ZnS/Au, and ZnO/Ag, which had broad application prospects in photoconductors, thin-film transistors, and light-emitting diodes. Theoretically, electrons flow from a higher Fermi-level material to the bottom Fermi-level at the metal-semiconductor heterojunction interface, which aligns the Fermi level and establishes the Schottky barrier. It leads to excess negative charges in metals and excess positive charges in semiconductors. Therefore, those effective electron traps reduce the probability of photogenerated electron-hole pair recombination efficiently, which has been widely applied in solar cells, sensors, photocatalysis, and energy storage. The breakthrough and innovation of this synthesis method have opened up a new synthetic route with a mild reaction environment, low energy consumption, and convenience.

To make p-type diluted magnetic semiconductor (DMS), Ni1−xFexO nanofibers with different Fe doping concentrations have been successfully synthesized by electrospinning method using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and Ni(CH3COO)2·4H2O as starting materials. The nanofibers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, superconductivity quantum interference device (SQUID) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) test. The results show that Fe doping has no influence on the diameter and surface morphology of NiO nanofibers, and the nanofibers are polycrystalline with NaCl structure. All Fe-doped samples show obvious ferromagnetic properties and the saturation magnetization is enhanced with increase of the doping concentration of Fe, which indicates that the doped Fe has been incorporated into the NiO host and results in room-temperature ferromagnetism in the Ni1−xFexO nanofibers.

Polycrystalline α-Al2O3 materials were prepared by cold crucible method.The effects of the ignition agents,the withdrawal velocity,the feeding rate and other process parameters on the quality of crystallization were investigated.The results showed that the optimum conditions for preparing high-density,high-purity polycrystalline α-Al2O3 materials as followed: high-purity aluminum flakes as ignition agents,withdrawal velocity rate in 10 mm/h and feeding rate in 1 kg/min.The density of samples is tested by draining method,the impurities concentrations of Ca,Fe,Na,Mg,K,Ti,Si and Cr in raw powder and polycrystalline α-Al2O3 materials prepared by cold crucible are analyzed by ICP-OES.The concentrations of impurities in polycrystalline α-Al2O3 materials can be decreased comparison with in raw powder,which shows that it is an effective method for the removal of impurities.The bulk density of polycrystalline α-Al2O3 is 2.6-2.8 g/cm3.Polycrystalline α-Al2O3 materials prepared by cold crucible meet the current growth of large-size sapphire for raw materials requirements.

Ni1−xLixO (x=0, 0.03, 0.06, 0.09) powders were prepared by sol–gel method combined with sintering procedure using Ni(CH3COO)2·4H2O and citric acid as the raw materials and alcohol as solvent. The crystal structures of the samples were investigated by X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. The thermoelectric properties, such as the electrical conductivity, the Seebeck coefficient and the thermal conductivity were measured. The results showed that all the samples are p-type semiconductors. The electrical conductivity increases with the increase of the temperature, which indicates that the substitution of Li+ for Ni2+ can increase the concentrations and mobility of the carriers. The thermal conductivity decreases remarkably with the increase of the Li doping content, which indicates that Li doping can enhance the scattering of phonon. However, the Seebeck coefficient will decline with the increase of the Li doping content. As results of the increase of electrical conductivity and reduction of thermal conductivity, Li doping can increase the figure of merit (ZT) of NiO, the ZT value reach 0.049 at 770K for Ni1−xLixO with x=0.06.