Rational design of novel and efficient hybrid photocatalysts has great significance today, as fossil energy demands urgent need to be replaced by green energy, such as the hydrogen energy. For this reason, as the youngest member of the carbon family, graphdiyne (GD) has attracted extensive attention. Herein, a new type of GD–CuI material was synthesized via a one-pot reaction. After combining GD–CuI with g-C₃N₄ by a simple calcination method, a step-scheme (S-scheme) heterojunction was formed between CuI–GD and g-C₃N₄ that substantially improved the hydrogen evolution performance of successfully synthesized CuI–GD/g-C₃N₄ nanocomposites. The hydrogen evolution activity of the CuI–GD/g-C₃N₄ photocatalyst was 9.8 times that of the pure g-C₃N₄ under visible-light irradiation. The introduction of CuI–GD composites prolonged the lifetime of photogenerated carriers, enhanced the electron density, and reduced the overpotential of hydrogen production, which played a positive role in enhancing the photocatalytic performance of nanocomposites. Through the in-depth analysis of the band structure of the catalyst, it could be observed that in the g-C₃N₄-based composite catalyst, the new materials with CuI–GD built a dual S-scheme heterojunction composite. Thus, the reasonable CuI–GD/g-C₃N₄ S-scheme heterojunction composite can simultaneously have the advantages of high charge separation efficiency and strong redox capacity. This work provides a new approach for the synthesis of new type of composite photocatalysts for solar energy conversion.

Two photo-active materials with opposite potential, NiTiO ₃ and CoAl LDH are rationally integrated into a combinant. It efficiently accelerates the separation and migration of photo-excited electrons and enhance thermodynamic hydrogen evolution.

Abundant biomass resources are a good choice for preparing electrode materials for supercapacitors, but developing a versatile and simple synthetic method to convert them into electrode materials remains a challenge. In the present research, our team reports a promising strategy and cost-efficient method to fabricate boron/sulfur-codoped porous carbon from biomass sources, mainly utilizing four biomass materials. Detailed material characterization showed that the samples produced by this approach possess rich B and S doping. Additionally, the original biomass materials treated by activation produce abundant pores. Therefore, owing to the synergetic effect of abundant atomic doping and microporous/mesoporous distribution, the obtained carbon as electrode material manifested excellent specific capacitances of 290 F g⁻¹ at a 0.5 A g⁻¹ current density. Moreover, the specific energy of the prepared samples of the as-assembled symmetric supercapacitor is as high as 16.65 Wh kg⁻¹ in 1 M Na₂SO₄, with a brilliant cyclical performance of only a 2.91% capacitance decay over 10,000 cycles. In addition, it has been verified universally that three other types of bio-wastes can also prepare electrode material using this method. This paper represents a significant attempt to turn waste biomass into treasure while also providing ideas for the design and preparation of supercapacitor electrode materials.

A novel hydrophobic and cationic cyclodextrin-based acrylamide flocculant (AM-β-CD-DMDAAC) was prepared by chemical oxidative polymerization to adsorb water-soluble dyes in dye wastewater. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope and thermogravimetric (TG) measurements results demonstrated that the AM-β-CD-DMDAAC was successfully synthesized. The effects of pH, contact time, initial dye concentration, temperature and adsorbent dose on dye removal efficiency for AM-β-CD-DMDAAC flocculants were investigated. The kinetic data were found to follow the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The equilibrium adsorption data were fitted to the Langmuir isotherm model, with the maximum adsorption capacity of 147.1 mg g⁻¹. The adsorbent retained about 60% of the adsorption efficiency after three adsorption/desorption cycles, which implied a promising application as the dye adsorbent.

Recently, superhydrophobic surfaces with self-cleaning ability have attracted broad research interest due to their huge potential in daily lives and industrial applications, but the use of fluorinate, toxic organic compounds, and expensive feedstocks make superhydrophobic materials a great challenge in practical application. In this study, we present a facile dip-coating strategy to prepare superhydrophobic coatings with self-cleaning properties based on a non-fluorine and non-toxic system by using eco-friendly corn straw as raw material. During this process, aromatic carbon particles with rough hierarchical structures were prepared firstly via a simple fast pyrolysis process, followed by modification with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) in absolute ethanol solvent to decrease the surface free energy. Research shows these natural straw-derived carbons display a microstructure of several protrusions which is similar to the lotus leave’s and the resulted coatings exhibit an outstanding superhydrophobic property with a static water contact angle (WCA) of 151.67 ± 1.36 degrees. In addition, the as-prepared coatings possessed excellent self-cleaning performance: no contaminations were observed on the surfaces after examining with sludge, calcimine, water, and common liquids such as tea, milk, soybean milk as well as ink, which have a broad range of potential application in the field of antifouling, waterproofing, and anticorrosive.