Scalable Multifunctional Ultra-thin Graphite Sponge: Free-standing, Superporous, Superhydrophobic, Oleophilic Architecture with Ferromagnetic Properties for Environmental Cleaning.

Water decontamination and oil/water separation are principal motives in the surge to develop novel means for sustainability. In this prospect, supplying clean water for the ecosystems is as important as the recovery of the oil spills since the supplies are scarce. Inspired to design an engineering material which not only serves this purpose, but can also be altered for other applications to preserve natural resources, a facile template-free process is suggested to fabricate a superporous, superhydrophobic ultra-thin graphite sponge. Moreover, the process is designed to be inexpensive and scalable. The fabricated sponge can be used to clean up different types of oil, organic solvents, toxic and corrosive contaminants. This versatile microstructure can retain its functionality even when pulverized. The sponge is applicable for targeted sorption and collection due to its ferromagnetic properties. We hope that such a cost-effective process can be embraced and implemented widely

Silicon Derived from Glass Bottles as Anode Materials for Lithium Ion Full Cell Batteries.

Every year many tons of waste glass end up in landfills without proper recycling, which aggravates the burden of waste disposal in landfill. The conversion from un-recycled glass to favorable materials is of great significance for sustainable strategies. Recently, silicon has been an exceptional anode material towards large-scale energy storage applications, due to its extraordinary lithiation capacity of 3579 mAh g-1 at ambient temperature. Compared with other quartz sources obtained from pre-leaching processes which apply toxic acids and high energy-consuming annealing, an interconnected silicon network is directly derived from glass bottles via magnesiothermic reduction. Carbon-coated glass derived-silicon (gSi@C) electrodes demonstrate excellent electrochemical performance with a capacity of ~1420 mAh g-1 at C/2 after 400 cycles. Full cells consisting of gSi@C anodes and LiCoO2 cathodes are assembled and achieve good initial cycling stability with high energy density

Superporous nanocarbon materials upcycled from polyethylene terephthalate waste for scalable energy storage

Plastic pollution is becoming a universal threat affecting wildlife, marines, the atmosphere, soil, and human wellbeing. The insufficient waste management traditions, along with a growth in the "throw-away" and "single -use" culture, exacerbate the problem. Meanwhile, the fast-growing energy storage industry, such as the lithium -ion battery (LIB), requires renewable resources to provide a steady and reliable production supply chain. This work introduces a scalable industrial mature route to transform polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic waste into a superporous activated carbon material for rechargeable LIBs. We characterized the analytical properties of the waste-derived carbon material and used it to develop LIB anodes. Then, we generated carbon-silicon com-posite anodes by impregnating silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) into the superporous connected architecture network. We conducted density functional-based tight-binding (DFTB+) quantum chemical calculations to elucidate the binding interactions between PET and SiNPs. By implementing electrochemical impedance spec-troscopy (EIS), galvanostatic intermittent titration technique (GITT), and differential capacity analysis (DCA), we investigated the root causes of the degradation mechanisms of the material. Finally, our techno-economical study highlights the merits of a sustainable approach for transferring waste materials into valuable products such as energy storage. This work can create further research and development for recycling plastic wastes towards scalable stationary battery storage with the benefits of environmental sustainability and circular economics

Structural and Compositional Characterization of Fungus-Derived Pyrolytic Carbon Architectures

Three distinctive pyrolytic carbon structures, derived from three specific tissues of Agaricus bisporus mushroom, were studied and characterized. The three structures discovered within the stalk, cap, and cap skin tissues were found to contain unique microarchitectures, which were preserved upon anoxic carbonization. Experiments also revealed the formation of salt pockets and deposits within each microarchitecture, leading to a potential natural hard-template method for porous carbon structures

Electrokinetic Assembly of Microsphere and Cellular Arrays

ABSTRACT We have developed a novel electrochemical system for field assisted, fluidic assembly of objects on a microfabricated silicon substrate by means of electrical addressing. The principle of our technique is based on the movement of charged species in solution to oppositely charged electrodes, as seen commonly in electrophoresis. Here, charged species such as beads and cells are moved electrokinetically through an aqueous solution towards a charged electrode. Micro patterning of the electrodes allows localization of charged species. We present a theoretical framework to predict the electric potential for assembly and disassembly of spherical objects. We correlate theoretical predictions with the motion of negatively charged polystyrene beads of 20 µm diameter on 100 µm feature micro patterned substrates. In addition, we extended these results to arraying of 20-30 µm diameter live mammalian cells by means of electrical addressing. This technique has applications in creation of 'active' cellular arrays for cell biology research, drug discovery and tissue engineering

Scalable Synthesis of Nano-Silicon from Beach Sand for Long Cycle Life Li-ion Batteries

This find is registered at Portable Antiquities of the Netherlands with number PAN-0006983