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Unconventional deposits such as extra heavy oil and bitumen represent a steadily increasing proportion of extracted fuels. The rheological properties of viscous crude oil represents a formidable impediment to their extraction, transportation, and processing and have necessitated considerable retooling and changes to process design. In this work, we demonstrate that highly textured inorganic substrates generated by depositing ZnO nanotetrapods onto periodically ordered stainless steel mesh substrates exhibit viscous oil contact angles exceeding 150° as well as enable the facile gliding of viscous oil. Such functionality is derived as a result of multiscale texturation and porosity achieved within these substrates, which are characterized by trapping of plastronic air pockets at the solid/liquid interface. Further reduction of the surface energy has been achieved by constituting a helical highly ordered self-assembled monolayer of a perfluorinated phosphonic acid on the ZnO surfaces. Such structures are str...

Endemic fluorosis disease has become a major geo-environmental health care issue caused by fluoride ion. High-efficiency and low-cost materials to uptake fluoride from water have been a chal-lenge for scientists and engineers. Here, we report a low-cost process by utilising low-cost starting materials to develop nanocomposite adsorbents for fluoride uptake from water. Bermuda grass as a starting source material converted into nanocomposite carbon fibers upon heat treatment at 800°C for one hour in Nitrogen atmosphere in the presence of metal oxides. Iron oxide-based nanocomposite (IBNC) is performing high (≈97%) removal of fluoride ion at a contact time of 60 minutes (pH 4) followed by titania-based nanocomposite (TBNC) (≈92%) and micro carbon fiber (≈88%) respectively. The phenomenon of fluoride ion uptake is realised by Freundlich adsorption model, and both adsorption capacity and adsorption intensity for IBNC are higher than those for TBNC and micro carbon fiber.

The classical orthorhombic layered phase of V2O5 has long been regarded as the thermodynamic sink for binary vanadium oxides and has found great practical utility as a result of its open framework and easily accessible redox states. Herein, we exploit a cation-exchange mechanism to synthesize a new stable tunnel-structured polymorph of V2O5 (ζ-V2O5) and demonstrate the subsequent ability of this framework to accommodate Li and Mg ions. The facile extraction and insertion of cations and stabilization of the novel tunnel framework is facilitated by the nanometer-sized dimensions of the materials, which leads to accommodation of strain without amorphization. The topotactic approach demonstrated here indicates not just novel intercalation chemistry accessible at nanoscale dimensions but also suggests a facile synthetic route to ternary vanadium oxide bronzes (MxV2O5) exhibiting intriguing physical properties that range from electronic phase transitions to charge ordering and superconductivity.

The oxidative chemistry of graphite has been investigated for over 150 years and has attracted renewed interest given the importance of exfoliated graphene oxide as a precursor to chemically derived graphene. However, the bond connectivities, steric orientations, and spatial distribution of functional groups remain to be unequivocally determined for this highly inhomogeneous nonstoichiometric material. Here, we demonstrate the application of principal component analysis to scanning transmission X-ray microscopy data for the construction of detailed real space chemical maps of graphene oxide. These chemical maps indicate very distinct functionalization motifs at the edges and interiors and, in conjunction with angle-resolved near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy, enable determination of the spatial location and orientations of functional groups. Chemical imaging of graphene oxide provides experimental validation of the modified Lerf-Klinowski structural model. Specifically, we note increased contributions from carboxylic acid moieties at edge sites with epoxide and hydroxyl species dominant within the interior domains.

Interfacing graphene with metal oxides is of considerable technological importance for modulating carrier density through electrostatic gating as well as for the design of earth-abundant electrocatalysts. Herein, we probe the early stages of the atomic layer deposition (ALD) of HfO2 on graphene oxide using a combination of C and O K-edge near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopies and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Dosing with water is observed to promote defunctionalization of graphene oxide as a result of the reaction between water and hydroxyl/epoxide species, which yields carbonyl groups that further react with migratory epoxide species to release CO2. The carboxylates formed by the reaction of carbonyl and epoxide species facilitate binding of Hf precursors to graphene oxide surfaces. The ALD process is accompanied by recovery of the π-conjugated framework of graphene. The delineation of binding modes provides a means to rationally assemble 2D heterostructures.

In this topical review article, we attempt to capture recent advances in the development of sustainable hybrid nanocomposite coatings for the corrosion inhibition of structural metals. Spurred primarily by the urgent imperative of replacing hexavalent chromium but also driven by concerns regarding the environmental impact of organic solvents, materials criticality considerations, the need to maintain structural integrity and function under extreme environments, and a renewed impetus towards lightweighting, the design of new coating concepts has seen an explosion of activity. We discuss varying modes of corrosion inhibition and the drive towards multicomponent nanostructured coatings that synergistically unite multiple modes of corrosion inhibition within a single coating system. Nanocomposite coatings in which nanoparticles of one phase are dispersed within a continuous phase, usually a polymeric matrix, provide a modular design approach to multifunctional coatings provided fundamental challenges such as dispersion and compatibility can be resolved. By dint of their high surface-to-volume ratios, the incorporation of nanoparticles profoundly modifies the adjacent polymeric matrix, giving rise to an 'interphase' region with modified properties, at relatively low filler loadings. The implications of incorporating metallic, porous metal oxide, and carbon nanomaterials (graphene and carbon nanotubes) within polymeric matrices are explored with an emphasis on active corrosion inhibition. The availability of high-quality nanoparticles that are either electroactive (e.g., metals, graphene, carbon nanotubes, etc.) or are capable of serving as reservoirs for active corrosion inhibitors (e.g., porous silicon oxide, layered double hydroxides, halloysite) provides unprecedented functionality and opportunities for multifunctional coatings. The review emphasizes mechanistic considerations where these have been elucidated with a view towards developing systematic design principles for corrosion inhibition. The outlook for the future design of multimodal coatings is presented with an emphasis on the emergence of rational design of nanoparticles, advances in nanoparticle surface chemistry, high-throughput testing, materials informatics, multiscale modeling, and integrated computational materials engineering approaches.