Reproducibility of `COST Reference Microplasma Jets'

Atmospheric pressure plasmas have been ground-breaking for plasma science and technologies, due to their significant application potential in many fields, including medicinal, biological, and environmental applications. This is predominantly due to their efficient production and delivery of chemically reactive species under ambient conditions. One of the challenges in progressing the field is comparing plasma sources and results across the community and the literature. To address this a reference plasma source was established during the `Biomedical Applications of Atmospheric Pressure Plasmas' EU COST Action MP1101. It is crucial that reference sources are reproducible. Here, we present the reproducibility and variance across multiple sources through examining various characteristics, including: absolute atomic oxygen densities, absolute ozone densities, electrical characteristics, optical emission spectroscopy, temperature measurements, and bactericidal activity. The measurements demonstrate that the tested COST jets are mainly reproducible within the intrinsic uncertainty of each measurement technique

Low Overpotential Water Splitting Using Cobalt–Cobalt Phosphide Nanoparticles Supported on Nickel Foam

We report a simple, facile, and safe route for preparation of cobalt–cobalt phosphide (Co/Co2P) nanoparticles and demonstrate their application as efficient low-cost catalysts for electrochemical water splitting. The catalyst achieves good performance in catalyzing both the cathode and anode half-cell water-splitting reactions in 1.0 M KOH and the hydrogen evolution reaction in an acidic electrolyte, 0.5 M H2SO4. For the oxygen evolution reaction in 1.0 M KOH, a current of 10 mA cm–2 was attained at 0.39 V overpotential on a glassy carbon electrode, while an overpotential of 0.19 V was attained at 50 mA cm–2 when the catalyst was supported on nickel foam

Hierarchically nanostructured NiO-Co3O4 with rich interface defects for the electro-oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural

[[abstract]]Ni-based electrocatalysts with strong redox abilities are active for the electrochemical oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). Interface engineering is an efficient way to modulate the electronic structure, tune the intermediate adsorption, and expose more active sites. Herein, we increased the concentration of interfacial sites with rich defects in a 3D hierarchical nanostructured NiO-Co3O4 electrocatalyst and investigated its catalytic performance for HMF electro-oxidation. The interface effect created abundant cation vacancies, modulated the electronic properties of Co and Ni atoms, and raised the oxidation state of Ni species. The NiO-Co3O4 catalysts show superb HMF oxidation activities with a low onset potential of 1.28 VRHE. Meanwhile, in-situ surface-selective vibrational spectroscopy of sum-frequency generation was performed to study the reaction pathway during the oxidation process on the electrocatalysts. The current study offers an efficient way to create cation vacancies and proves the decisive role of cation vacancies in catalyzing the HMF electro-oxidation.[[notice]]補正完