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Design, Synthesis and Applications of Advanced Materials towards “Low-Carbon” Goals

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A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2023) | Viewed by 8966

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Peng Ge

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Guest Editor

School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, China
Interests: battery; mineral materials; electrodes; high-rate; prussia white; coal-based materials

Dr. Qingjun Guan

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Guest Editor

School of Resource Environment and Safety Engineering, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan, China
Interests: solid waste recycling; crystal control; rare earth extraction; solvent extraction; flotation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Yueheng Qi

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Guest Editor

College of Food and Drug, Luoyang Normal University, Luoyang, China
Interests: multifunctional nanomaterials; multifunctional carbon nanomaterials; multifunctional silica nanomaterials

Dr. Li Wang

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Guest Editor

School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha 410017, China
Interests: mineral processing and flotation; lithium recovery from brines; aluminium recovery from bauxite; process scale-up and industrial development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Triggered by serious CO₂ pollution, a series of active investigations have been carried out on reaching the “Low-Carbon” goals. Of course, by only limiting the emissions of CO₂, the ambitious goals have hardly been realized. Recently, there have been many promising proposals, mainly consisting of reducing the application of fossil fuels with the development of clean energy, improving the processing efficiency whilst decreasing energy consumption and so on. Therefore, the combination of short materials processing and optimized advanced materials is highly desirable to achieve the “Low-Carbon” goals.

This Special Issue will focus on the design, synthesis and application of advanced materials towards the “Low-Carbon” goal in mineral processing and advanced energy materials. We welcome all contributions that report on experimental and/or theoretical studies aiming for a greater understanding and the improvement of advanced materials with considerable “Low-Carbon” advantages. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

Shorting Mineral Process: about magnetic/electric/gravitational/floatation separations for improving the utilization of new-type minerals for reducing the production of CO_2;
Designing Flotations Agents: capturing/precipitating/dispersing agents with relative theoretical calculations for reducing energy consumption with CO₂ emissions;
High-Treating Solid Waste: red mud, coal ash, waste residues for the neutralization of CO₂;
Advanced Energy-Storage Materials: electrodes, electrolytes and separators for metal-ions battery (LIBs, SIBs, KIBs and capacitors) for the utilization of clear energy;
Recycling High-Value Elements: the cycling of waste batteries (about metal elements and graphite) for the protection of the ecological environment.

Prof. Dr. Peng Ge
Dr. Qingjun Guan
Dr. Yueheng Qi
Prof. Dr. Li Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

theoretical calculation
flotation reagents
short processing
mineral engineering
energy materials

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 17418 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Elucidating the Role of Surface Ce⁴⁺ and Oxygen Vacancies of CeO₂ in the Direct Synthesis of Dimethyl Carbonate from CO₂ and Methanol

by Guoqiang Zhang, Yuan Zhou, Yanlin Yang, Tiantian Kong, Ya Song, Song Zhang and Huayan Zheng

Molecules 2023, 28(9), 3785; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28093785 - 28 Apr 2023

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 1503

Abstract

Cerium dioxide (CeO₂) was pretreated with reduction and reoxidation under different conditions in order to elucidate the role of surface Ce⁴⁺ and oxygen vacancies in the catalytic activity for direct synthesis of dimethyl carbonate (DMC) from CO₂ and methanol. The corresponding catalysts were comprehensively characterized using N₂ physisorption, XRD, TEM, XPS, TPD, and CO₂-FTIR. The results indicated that reduction treatment promotes the conversion of Ce⁴⁺ to Ce³⁺ and improves the concentration of surface oxygen vacancies, while reoxidation treatment facilitates the conversion of Ce³⁺ to Ce⁴⁺ and decreases the concentration of surface oxygen vacancies. The catalytic activity was linear with the number of moderate acidic/basic sites. The surface Ce⁴⁺ rather than oxygen vacancies, as Lewis acid sites, promoted the adsorption of CO₂ and the formation of active bidentate carbonates. The number of moderate basic sites and the catalytic activity were positively correlated with the surface concentration of Ce⁴⁺ but negatively correlated with the surface concentration of oxygen vacancies. The surface Ce⁴⁺ and lattice oxygen were active Lewis acid and base sites respectively for CeO₂ catalyst, while surface oxygen vacancy and lattice oxygen were active Lewis acid and base sites, respectively, for metal-doped CeO₂ catalysts. This may result from the different natures of oxygen vacancies in CeO₂ and metal-doped CeO₂ catalysts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design, Synthesis and Applications of Advanced Materials towards “Low-Carbon” Goals)

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15 pages, 4243 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Designing Hollow Carbon Sphere with Hierarchal Porous for Na-S Systems with Ultra-Long Cycling Stabilities

by Gongke Wang, Yumeng Chen, Shaohui Yuan and Peng Ge

Molecules 2022, 27(18), 5880; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27185880 - 10 Sep 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1527

Abstract

Captured by the low-cost and high theoretical specific capacity, Na-S systems have garnered much attention. However, their intermediate products (dissolved polysulfide) are always out of control. Considering the excellent space confinements and conductivity, they have been regarded as promising candidates. Herein, the hollow spheres with suitable thickness shell (~20 nm) are designed as hosting materials, accompanied by in-depth complexing. Benefitting from the abundant micro-pores (mainly about conical-type and slits-type pores < 1.0 nm), the active S4 molecules are successfully filled in the pores through vacuum tube sealing technology, effectively avoiding the process from solid S₈ to liquid Na₂S₆. As cathode for Na-S systems, their capacity could remain at 920 mAh g⁻¹ at 0.1 C after 100 cycles. Even at 10.0 C, the capacity still remained at about 310 mAh g⁻¹ after 7000 cycles. Supported by the detailed kinetic behaviors, the improvement of ions diffusion behaviors is noted, bringing about the effective thorough redox reactions. Moreover, the enhanced surface-controlling behaviors further induces the evolution of rate properties. Therefore, their stable phase changing is further confirmed through in situ resistances. Thus, the work is anticipated to offer significant design for hosting carbon materials and complexing manners. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design, Synthesis and Applications of Advanced Materials towards “Low-Carbon” Goals)

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Review

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16 pages, 2397 KiB

Open AccessReview

Isolating Fe-O₂ Intermediates in Dioxygen Activation by Iron Porphyrin Complexes

by Xiaoyan Lu, Shuang Wang and Jian-Hua Qin

Molecules 2022, 27(15), 4690; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27154690 - 22 Jul 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2300

Abstract

Dioxygen (O₂) is an environmentally benign and abundant oxidant whose utilization is of great interest in the design of bioinspired synthetic catalytic oxidation systems to reduce energy consumption. However, it is unfortunate that utilization of O₂ is a significant challenge because of the thermodynamic stability of O₂ in its triplet ground state. Nevertheless, nature is able to overcome the spin state barrier using enzymes, which contain transition metals with unpaired d-electrons facilitating the activation of O₂ by metal coordination. This inspires bioinorganic chemists to synthesize biomimetic small-molecule iron porphyrin complexes to carry out the O₂ activation, wherein Fe-O₂ species have been implicated as the key reactive intermediates. In recent years, a number of Fe-O₂ intermediates have been synthesized by activating O₂ at iron centers supported on porphyrin ligands. In this review, we focus on a few examples of these advances with emphasis in each case on the particular design of iron porphyrin complexes and particular reaction environments to stabilize and isolate metal-O₂ intermediates in dioxygen activation, which will provide clues to elucidate structures of reactive intermediates and mechanistic insights in biological processes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design, Synthesis and Applications of Advanced Materials towards “Low-Carbon” Goals)

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Graphical abstract

16 pages, 33811 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Review on Regenerating Materials from Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries

by Rui Xu, Wei Xu, Jinggang Wang, Fengmei Liu, Wei Sun and Yue Yang

Molecules 2022, 27(7), 2285; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27072285 - 31 Mar 2022

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3148

Abstract

Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have attracted increasing attention for their great significance in environmental protection and cyclic resources utilization. Numerous studies focus on developing technologies for the treatment of spent LIBs. Among them, the regeneration of functional materials from spent LIBs has received great attention due to its short process route and high value-added product. This paper briefly summarizes the current status of spent LIBs recycling and details the existing processes and technologies for preparing various materials from spent LIBs. In addition, the benefits of material preparation from spent LIBs, compared with metals recovery only, are analyzed from both environmental and economic aspects. Lastly, the existing challenges and suggestions for the regeneration process are proposed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design, Synthesis and Applications of Advanced Materials towards “Low-Carbon” Goals)

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