The discovery of graphene oxide liquid crystal (GOLC) has enabled a broad spectrum of novel graphene-based functional materials and triggered the development of other 2D-based liquid crystal systems.

Graphene-fiber (GF) supercapacitors have attracted significant research attention in the field of wearable devices. However, there is still a need for active materials with high energy density. Transition Metal Nitrides (TMNs) are promising candidates for this purpose compared with conventional Transition Metal Oxides (TMOs) or conducting polymers (CPs) owing to their higher electrical conductivity, stability and relevant electrochemical properties. We have successfully integrated Tungsten Nitride (WN) with reduced graphene oxide fibers (rGOF) and developed high-performance hybrid fiber (WN–rGOF) supercapacitors. These hybrid supercapacitors attained a high capacitance of 16.29 F cm⁻³ at 0.05 A cm⁻³ and an energy density of 1.448 mW h cm⁻³, which is 7.5 and 1.75 times higher than those of the pure rGOF supercapacitor and the Tungsten Oxide/rGO hybrid fiber (WO₃–rGOF) supercapacitor, respectively. The energy density readily increased up to 2.896 mW h cm⁻³ when three WN–rGOF supercapacitors were connected in series. The WN–rGOF supercapacitor also showed high capacitance retention of 84.7% after 10 000 cycles along with appreciable performance under severe mechanical deformation.

This study reports the activity difference of zinc oxide modified bentonite clay (Photo-Zn-Bent) photocatalyst when in contact with different environmentally toxic pollutants in a single component and bi-component pollutant systems. The layered structure of purified and swollen nano-bentonite clay (Bent) has tunable interlayer spacing to grow zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles, thereby integrating the adsorbing nature of clay and semiconductor property of ZnO in one hierarchical structure. Initial adsorption studies using methylene blue (MB) showed that the adsorption capacity of Photo-Zn Bent is greater than Bent and ZnO. The photocatalytic pollutant degradation activity of Photo-Zn Bent is compared with ZnO using both single component and bi-component pollutant systems (MB, phenol, mixture of MB and phenol, mixture of phenol and Cr(VI)). We found that Photo-Zn Bent displayed 33% greater MB degradation rate compared to ZnO. Photodegradation efficiency of Photo-Zn-Bent considerably differs for inorganic-organic and organic-organic bicomponent pollutant systems. In bicomponent systems, photodegradation rate of phenol decreased to an extent of 88% in the presence of MB, and increased to 31% in the presence of Cr(VI). On the other hand, photodegradation rate of MB remains unaffected in the presence of phenol, but increased to 56% in the presence of Cr(VI). However, if used in bicomponent pollutant systems for simultaneous cycles, Photo-Zn Bent showed lesser activity after 3 cycles, which in turn gave further insight on to the decay of catalyst with respect to the nature of pollutants.

Unzipping of the basal plane offers a valuable pathway to uniquely control the material chemistry of 2D structures. Nonetheless, reliable unzipping has been reported only for graphene and phosphorene thus far. The single elemental nature of those materials allows a straightforward understanding of the chemical reaction and property modulation involved with such geometric transformations. Here we report spontaneous linear ordered unzipping of bi-elemental 2D MX₂ transition metal chalcogenides as a general route to synthesize 1D nanoribbon structures. The strained metallic phase (1T′) of MX₂ undergoes highly specific longitudinal unzipping owing to the self-linearized oxygenation at chalcogenides. Stable dispersions of 1T′ MoS₂ nanoribbons with widths of 10–120 nm and lengths up to ~4 µm are produced in water. Edge abundant 1T′ MoS₂ nanoribbons reveal the hidden potential of idealized electrocatalysis for hydrogen evolution reactions at a competitive level with the precious Pt catalyst.