A novel nanostructure of perpendicular ultrathin MoSe₂ nanosheets directly grown on graphene was produced by a facile hydrothermal method in the presence of CTAB. The vertically-oriented and ultrathin MoSe₂ nanosheets distribute uniformly on the surface of graphene, and the nanosheets are typically 2–3 layers, which is confirmed by TEM and red shift of the A_1g Raman peak. In comparison with pure MoSe₂ and MoSe₂ nanospheres on graphene, vertically oriented MoSe₂ nanosheets on graphene show enhanced organic dye adsorption ability and photocatalytic performance in the degradation of MB, RhB and MO under dark conditions and visible light irradiation. The excellent photocatalytic activity may be contributed by the unique perpendicular MoSe₂ nanosheets with fully exposed active edges and hybridized with graphene for reduced electron–hole pair recombination.

Herein, the SnO₂/g-C₃N₄ nanocomposite was rationally designed and successfully synthesized via a facile hydrothermal method.

Multicomponent ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) are promising candidates for thermal protection materials (TPMs) used in aerospace field. However, finding out desirable compositions from an enormous number of possible compositions remains challenging. Here, through elucidating the role of preferential oxidation in ablation behavior of multicomponent UHTCs via the thermodynamic analysis and experimental verification, the correlation between the composition and ablation performance of multicomponent UHTCs was revealed from the aspect of thermodynamics. We found that the metal components in UHTCs can be thermodynamically divided into preferentially oxidized component (denoted as M_P), which builds up a skeleton in oxide layer, and laggingly oxidized component (denoted as M_L), which fills the oxide skeleton. Meanwhile, a thermodynamically driven gradient in the concentration of M_P and M_L forms in the oxide layer. Based on these findings, a strategy for pre-evaluating the ablation performance of multicomponent UHTCs was developed, which provides a preliminary basis for the composition design of multicomponent UHTCs.

Rationally designed SnO₂@CdS nanowire-quantum dots (QDs) heterostructures were realized by a wet-chemical method via hydroxide cluster growth mechanism on high crystalline quality SnO₂ nanowires, which were synthesized by a vapor transport method. The heterostructures showed enhanced photon harvesting capability and photodetection sensitivity at visible regime than that of wide band gap homogeneous SnO₂ nanowires, as characterized by UV-Vis absorption and photoconductivity measurements. In addition, the SnO₂@CdS nanowire-QDs heterostructures showed enhanced photocatalytic activity by more than 109% in a conceptual demonstration of photodegradation of methylene blue solution. Our results suggest that the SnO₂@CdS nanowire-QDs heterostructures exhibit considerable promise for highly sensitive visible-light photodetectors and highly efficient photocatalysis.