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Coupling appropriate semiconductor nanoparticles with massive surface-area support has become a promising but challenging strategy to photocatalyst design for enhanced photocatalytic activity in environmental cleaning applications, owing to the severe aggregation issues of nanoparticles. Herein, the atomic layer deposition (ALD) approach was applied to uniformly disperse ultrafine Cu 2 O nanoparticles (5–10 nm) on metal-organic frameworks without aggregation, forming NH 2 -MIL-101(Fe)/Cu 2 O nanocomposite photocatalysts. The Cu 2 O mass within the nanocomposites can be well controlled by merely adjusting the ALD cycles. The optimal NH 2 -MIL-101(Fe)/Cu 2 O displays a high photodegradation efficiency of 92% for RhB and excellent stability under visible light. The reaction kinetics and photocurrent response experimental results reveal that the optimal NH 2 -MIL-101(Fe)/Cu 2 O photocatalyst exhibits effective charge separation/transfer and suppressed recombination rate of charge carriers, which will significantly increase the solar light utilization efficiency and photocatalytic activity. We believe the presented photocatalyst synthesis strategy here can be generalized to construct other photocatalysts for various photocatalytic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electronic properties of low-dimensional nanomaterials have attracted intense attention. The electronic properties of SnCH3 monolayer nanosheets and nanoribbons hydrogenated along the zigzag and armchair borders are investigated with density functional theory. Energy gap is an important aspect of electronic properties. The elastic strain and width are introduced to research the variation of energy gap. The computation results show that the energy gap can be easily tuned under strain and width. Moreover, the band gap decreases when increasing the stretch strain or decreasing the compress strain. Therefore, the SnCH3 nanomaterials are anticipated to play an important role in strain sensors, electronics, and optical electronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SiCH3 nanomaterials have been studied using the density functional theory. When the nanosheets and nanoribbons (armchair and zigzag) are introduced, their energy gap is modulated under elastic strain and width. The results show that the band gap of SiCH3 nanomaterials can be easily tuned using elastic strains and widths. Surprisingly, the band gap can be modulated along two directions, namely, compressing and stretching. The band gap decreases when increasing stretching strain or decreasing compressing strain. In addition, the band gap decreases when increasing the nanoribbon width. For energy gap engineering, the band gap can be tuned by strains and widths. Therefore, the SiCH3 nanomaterials play important roles in potential applications for strain sensors, electronics, and optical electronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel CdS/CaFe 2 O 4 (CS/CFO) heterogeneous p-n junction was created by thermal deposition of CaFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles on CdS rods. The CS/CFO hetero-structured photocatalysts exhibited increasingly efficient visible light harvesting compared to the bare CdS. The CS/CFO composites also presented higher photocurrent and slower decay of photoluminescence, suggesting a better separation of the photo-generated electrons and holes. The photocatalytic H 2 evolution quantity on the optimized CS/CFO composite from water in the presence of ethanol was up to 2200 μmol after 3-h visible light illumination, which is more than twice that of the pristine CdS. The chemical interaction between CdS and CaFe 2 O 4 was confirmed by the shifts in the XPS peaks, which made it possible for the charge carriers to transfer across the p-n junction interface. This research highlights the importance of forming an interfacial p-n heterojunction between two semiconductors for efficient charge separation and improved photocatalytic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]