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Alkali sludge (AS) is waste abundantly generated from solar photovoltaic (PV) solar cell industries. Since this potential basic material is still underutilized, a combination with NiO catalyst might greatly influence coke resentence, especially in high-temperature thermochemical reactions (Arora and Prasad, RSC Adv. 6:108,668-108688, 2016). This paper investigated alkaline sludge containing 3CaO-2SiO 2 doped with well-known NiO to enhance the dry reforming of methane (DRM) reaction. The wet-impregnation method was used to prepare the xNiO/AS (x = 5-15%) catalysts. Subsequently, all catalysts were tested by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption/desorption (BET), temperature-programmed reduction of hydrogen (H 2 -TPR), temperature-programmed desorption of carbon dioxide (TPD-CO 2 ), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM-EDX), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The spent catalysts were analyzed by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA/DTG), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO). The catalytic performance of xNiO/AS catalysts was investigated in a fixed bed reactor connected with gas chromatography thermal conductivity detector (GC-TCD) at a CH 4 :CO 2 flow rate of 30 mL -1 during a 10-h reaction by following (Shamsuddin et al., Int. J. Energy Res. 45:15,463-15,480, 2021d). For optimization parameters, the effects of NiO concentration (5, 10, and 15%), reaction temperature (700, 750, 800, 850, and 900 °C), catalyst loading (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 g), and gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) range from 3000, 6000, 9000, 12,000, and 15,000 h -1 were evaluated. The results showed that physical characteristics such as BET surface area and porosity do not significantly impact NiO percentages of dispersion, whereas chemical characteristics like reducibility are crucial for the catalysts' efficient catalytic activity. Due to the active sites on the catalyst surface being more accessible, increased NiO dispersion resulted in higher reactant conversion. The catalytic performance on various parameters that showed 15%NiO/AS exhibited high reactant conversion up to 98% and 40-60% product selectivity in 700 °C, 0.2 g catalyst loading, and 12,000 h -1 GHSV. According to spent catalyst analyses, the catalyst was stable even after the DRM reaction. Meanwhile, increased reducibility resulted in more and better active site formation on the catalyst. Synergetic effect of efficient NiO as active metal and medium basic sites from AS enhanced DRM catalytic activity and stability with low coke formation., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In recent years, previously reported studies revealed a high efficiency of pollutant degradation by coupling photocatalysis and electrochemical processes (PECs) using titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) photoelectrode rather than using photocatalysis or electrocatalysis alone. However, some of the TiO 2 photoelectrodes that have been reported were not cost-effective. This is due to the use of expensive chemicals and certain expensive equipment in the fabrication process, other than involving complicated preparation steps. Therefore, this study is aimed at investigating the PEC performance and stability of low-cost TiO 2 -polyvinyl chloride (TiO 2 -PVC) composite photoelectrode for Reactive Orange 16 (RO16) degradation. The materials characterisation using the ATR-FTIR, XRD and UV-Vis DRS proved that TiO 2 and TiO 2 -PVC were successfully synthesised. The micrograph obtained for the surface characterisation using the FESEM showed that the smooth surface of freshly prepared photoelectrodes turned slightly rough with tiny pits formation after five continuous PEC processes. Nevertheless, the photoelectrode retained its original shape in good condition for further PEC processes. By PEC process, the fabricated photoelectrode showed 99.4% and 51.1% of colour and total organic carbon (TOC) removal, respectively, at optimised PEC parameters (1.0 mol L -1 NaCl concentration, 10 V applied voltage, 120 min degradation time and initial pH 2). Moreover, the fabricated photoelectrode demonstrated sufficient reusability potential (~ 96.3%) after five cycles of PEC processes. In summary, a low-cost and stable composite photoelectrode with high efficiency in RO16 degradation was successfully fabricated and could be potentially applied for other emerging pollutants degradation via the PEC degradation technique., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Various metal oxides of CeO2, ZnO, and Co3O4 impregnated on activated carbon (AC) were synthesized to determine the CO2 capture efficiency and analyse with adsorption kinetics model. Batch kinetic studies showed that CeO2/AC is the most efficient adsorbent with an equilibrium time of 10 minutes that was needed to obtain adsorption capacity of 52.68 mg/g. CO2 adsorption at 30 °C exhibits the optimum temperature with only 6.53% loss in adsorption capacity after 5 cycles of CO2 adsorption-desorption. The CeO2 on AC was detected through X-ray diffraction and the scanning electron microscope image shows well-distributed CeO2 particles on AC surfaces. CO2 adsorption at 30 °C is best fitted with the pseudo-second-order kinetics with R2 = 0.9994 and the relative error between calculated and experimental adsorption capacity only 1.32%. The adsorption considering chemisorption is responsible for improving adsorption capacity. The addition of CeO2 on AC enhanced the adsorption capacity by providing active sites to attract CO2.