The optical properties of carbon nanowall (CNW) films in the visible range have been studied and reported for the first time. Depending on the film structure, ultra-low total reflectance up to 0.13% can be reached, which makes the CNW films a promising candidate for the black body-like coating, and thus for a wide range of applications as a light absorber. We have estimated important trends in the optical property variation from sample to sample, and identified the presence of edge states and domain boundaries in carbon nanowalls as well as the film mass density variation as the key factors. Also we demonstrated that at much lower film thickness and density than for a carbon nanotube forest the CNWs yield one order higher specific light absorption.

The production of activated carbon (AC) from lignocellulosic biomass through chemical activation is gaining global attention due to its scalability, economic viability, and environmental advantages. Chemical activation offers several benefits, including energy efficiency, reduced carbonization time, and lower temperature requirements. In this study, potassium hydroxide (KOH) was employed for chemical activation, resulting in activated carbon with a high specific surface area of ~3050 m²/g. The structural analysis revealed the presence of graphitized carbon in the activated carbon matrix, accounting for over 15%. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique was employed to investigate the activated carbon derived from rice husk (RH). The potential applications of activated carbon obtained from rice husks through chemical activation were explored, including its use for heavy metal removal, elimination of organic pollutants, and as an active material in hybrid energy storage devices. Furthermore, a scaling methodology for the production of activated carbon was proposed, facilitating its industrial implementation.

We report an approach to stabilize the electrochemical performance of silicon- and germanium-based thin film anodes by using carbon nanowall matrices. Silicon and germanium layers were deposited onto vertically oriented carbon nanowall scaffolds and this procedure has been repeated multiple times producing multilayered structures with increased silicon and germanium areal mass loading. It was demonstrated that the areal specific capacity of multilayered anodes achieves up to 2 mA h cm⁻² without sacrificing cycling stability. Based on post-mortem SEM analysis of the electrodes we speculate that the reason for the improved cycling stability of multilayered highly loaded silicon/graphene composites is the ability to relax the mechanical stresses in the films.

In this paper we propose a new and simple method to tune the carbon nanowall microstructure by sharp variation of CH₄/H₂ plasma conditions.

The effect of the degree of doping polycrystalline diamond films by boron on their Raman and absorption spectra has been studied in the visible region (from 200 to 1000 nm). As the boron...