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AbstractSelective oxidation of amines to imines through electrocatalysis is an attractive and efficient way for the chemical industry to produce nitrile compounds, but it is limited by the difficulty of designing efficient catalysts and lack of understanding the mechanism of catalysis. Herein, we demonstrate a novel strategy by generation of oxyhydroxide layers on two‐dimensional iron‐doped layered nickel phosphorus trisulfides (Ni1−xFexPS3) during the oxidation of benzylamine (BA). In‐depth structural and surface chemical characterizations during the electrocatalytic process combined with theoretical calculations reveal that Ni(1−x)FexPS3 undergoes surface reconstruction under alkaline conditions to form the metal oxyhydroxide/phosphorus trichalcogenide (NiFeOOH/Ni1−xFexPS3) heterostructure. Interestingly, the generated heterointerface facilitates BA oxidation with a low onset potential of 1.39 V and Faradaic efficiency of 53% for benzonitrile (BN) synthesis. Theoretical calculations further indicate that the as‐formed NiFeOOH/Ni1−xFexPS3 heterostructure could offer optimum free energy for BA adsorption and BN desorption, resulting in promising BN synthesis.

AbstractMixed ionic‐electronic conducting (MIEC) membranes have gained growing interest recently for various promising environmental and energy applications, such as H2and O2production, CO2reduction, O2and H2separation, CO2separation, membrane reactors for production of chemicals, cathode development for solid oxide fuel cells, solar‐driven evaporation and energy‐saving regeneration as well as electrolyzer cells for power‐to‐X technologies. The purpose of this roadmap, written by international specialists in their fields, is to present a snapshot of the state‐of‐the‐art, and provide opinions on the future challenges and opportunities in this complex multidisciplinary research field. As the fundamentals of using MIEC membranes for various applications become increasingly challenging tasks, particularly in view of the growing interdisciplinary nature of this field, a better understanding of the underlying physical and chemical processes is also crucial to enable the career advancement of the next generation of researchers. As an integrated and combined article, it is hoped that this roadmap, covering all these aspects, will be informative to support further progress in academics as well as in the industry‐oriented research toward commercialization of MIEC membranes for different applications.

In China, Rapid economic growth has stimulated fast urban expansion and rural household income and consumption expenditure. In current paper, an input output method is used to determine the impact of China's increased urban and rural household consumption on carbon emissions. The results shows that the direct and indirect CO(2) emission from household consumption accounted for more than 40% of total carbon emissions from primary energy utilization in China in 1992-2007. The population increase, expansion of urbanization and the increase of household consumption per capita all contribute to an increase of indirect carbon emissions, while carbon intensity decline mitigates the growth of carbon emissions. Therefore, at the domestic level, household consumption is of great significance for CO(2) emission, which could be mitigated through changing the composition of goods and services consumed by households, and switching to consumption pattern of less carbon-intensive products. The government must consider the substantial contribution of household consumption to carbon emissions when China is encouraging consumption in order to address the current global financial crisis. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

AbstractQuantifying the responses of the coupled carbon and water cycles to current global warming and rising atmospheric CO2 concentration is crucial for predicting and adapting to climate changes. Here we show that terrestrial carbon uptake (i.e. gross primary production) increased significantly from 1982 to 2011 using a combination of ground-based and remotely sensed land and atmospheric observations. Importantly, we find that the terrestrial carbon uptake increase is not accompanied by a proportional increase in water use (i.e. evapotranspiration) but is largely (about 90%) driven by increased carbon uptake per unit of water use, i.e. water use efficiency. The increased water use efficiency is positively related to rising CO2 concentration and increased canopy leaf area index, and negatively influenced by increased vapour pressure deficits. Our findings suggest that rising atmospheric CO2 concentration has caused a shift in terrestrial water economics of carbon uptake.

Abstract Vegetation biomass is a key and active component of the carbon cycle. Though China’s vegetation biomass in recent decades has been widely investigated, only two studies have quantitatively assessed its century-scale changes so far and reported totally opposite trends. This study provided the first multi-model estimates of China’s vegetation biomass change for the 20th century and its responses to historical changes in environmental and anthropogenic factors, based on simulations evaluated with the field observations from 3757 inventory plots in China and bias-corrected using machine learning (Gaussian process regression). A significant decline in vegetation biomass over the 20th century was shown by bias-corrected simulations from the six Dynamic Global Vegetation models (DGVMs) with trends ranging from −32.48 to −11.10 Tg C yr–1 and a mean trend of −17.74 Tg C yr–1. Land use and land cover change (LULCC) was primarily responsible for the simulated downward trend (−50.71 to −24.28 Tg C yr–1), while increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration lead to increased vegetation biomass (+9.27 to + 13.37 Tg C yr–1). Climate change had limited impacts on the long-term trend (−3.75 to + 5.06 Tg C yr–1). This study highlights the importance of LULCC for historical reconstruction and future projection of vegetation biomass over China. It also suggests that the incorrect change in China’s forest area for 1980–2000 in the LULCC dataset used as model input data of many existing and ongoing model intercomparison projects (MIPs) has likely led to inaccurate estimations of historical vegetation biomass changes in China.

We report the synthesis and photocatalytic and magnetic characterization of colloidal nanoheterostructures formed by combining a Pt-based magnetic metal alloy (PtCo, PtNi) with CuZnSnS (CZTS). While CZTS is one of the main candidate materials for solar energy conversion, the introduction of a Pt-based alloy on its surface strongly influences its chemical and electronic properties, ultimately determining its functionality. In this regard, up to a 15-fold increase of the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity was obtained with CZTS-PtCo when compared with CZTS. Furthermore, two times higher hydrogen evolution rates were obtained for CZTS-PtCo when compared with CZTS-Pt, in spite of the lower precious metal loading of the former. Besides, the magnetic properties of the PtCo nanoparticles attached to the CZTS nanocrystals were retained in the heterostructures, which could facilitate catalyst purification and recovery for its posterior recycling and/or reutilization.