A simple and low-cost alternating current (AC)-based method, without electrolyte correction, is proposed (Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS)-Zero Gap Cell) for the determination of ohmic contribution of diaphragms. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology was evaluated by using a commercial Alkaline Water Electrolysis (AWE) diaphragm (Zirfon^®). Furthermore, the results were compared with two conventional electrochemical methodologies for calculating the separator resistance, based on direct current (DC), and AC measurements, respectively. Compared with the previous techniques, the proposed approach reported more accurate and precise values of resistance for new and aged samples. Compared with the manufacturer reference, the obtained error values for new samples were 0.33%, 5.64%, and 41.7%, respectively for EIS-Zero gap cell, AC and DC methods, confirming the validity and convenience of the proposed technique.

In this work, hierarchical Au/TiO₂ nanostructures were studied as possible photoanodes for water splitting and bisphenol A (BPA) oxidation. TiO₂ samples were synthetized by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD), while Au nanoparticles (NPs) were differently dispersed (i.e., NPs at the bottom or at the top of the TiO₂, as well as integrated TiO₂/Au-NPs assemblies). Voltammetric scans and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy analysis were used to correlate the morphology of samples with their electrochemical properties; the working mechanism was investigated in the dark and in the presence of a light radiation, under neutral pH conditions towards the possible oxidation of both bisphenol A (BPA) and water molecules. Different behavior of the samples was observed, which may be attributed mainly to the distributions of Au NPs and to their dimension as well. In particular, the presence of NPs at the bottom seems to be the crucial point for the working mechanism of the structure, thanks to scattering effects that likely allow to better exploit the radiation.

The presence of microplastics (MPs) in the environment is becoming a problem for soils and seas, as well as for the food chain of animals and humans. The scientific community has been called upon to contribute to solving the problem and several papers have been published, especially in the last decade. The aim of this work is to carry out a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature dedicated to the problem of MPs, highlighting its course over the years, and to identify the sectors to which the research could be profitably addressed. The VOSviewer software has been used to perform the analysis of the data in which specific maps were used to represent the network of the relationships among countries, journals, organizations, authors, and keywords related to the investigated topic and subtopics. The results of the survey demonstrated that during the investigated range of time, most attention has been paid to the individuation of the MPs, and to marine pollution, while a gap seems to exist in the possible advanced oxidation processes specifically addressing the degradation of MPs and their derivates.

The Design of Experiment (DoE) technique has been used to investigate the photo-electrochemical removal of diuron (DRN) from wastewater. The process is carried out in a photo-electrochemical flow reactor, in which titania nanotubular electrode is irradiated with a simulated solar light. Different operative conditions have been investigated, in a planned 2³ full factorial design in which imposed current density, flow rate and initial concentration have been varied at two levels. The removal process of DRN was investigated in terms of specific removal rate (K) and cell voltage (E), which were assumed as objective functions: the results show that the applied current has a paramount effect on both of the objective functions. From the analyses of the intermediates, it appears that the investigated parameters may exert different effects on the distribution of the reaction products: the initial concentration of diuron and the electrode potential seem to play a more important role, in this case.