Carbon nanobelts are milestones in the bottom-up approach to challenging chirality-specific synthesis of carbon nanotubes. This study puts forth an unprecedented armchair carbon nanobelt and the first chiral carbon nanobelt, which represent sidewall segments of (12,12)CNT and (18,12)CNT, respectively. These carbon nanobelts were efficiently synthesized by p-expansion of the corresponding polyarylated carbon nanorings through Scholl reactions, which are accompanied by either a small increase or even a decrease in strain energy, as found from the theoretical calculations.

In this work, MnO(2)/GO (graphene oxide) composites with novel multilayer nanoflake structure, and a carbon material derived from Artemia cyst shell with genetic 3D hierarchical porous structure (HPC), are prepared. An asymmetric supercapacitor has been fabricated using MnO(2)/GO as positive electrode and HPC as negative electrode material. Because of their unique structures, both MnO(2)/GO composites and HPC exhibit excellent electrochemical performances. The optimized asymmetric supercapacitor could be cycled reversibly in the high voltage range of 0-2 V in aqueous electrolyte, which exhibits maximum energy density of 46.7 Wh kg(-1) at a power density of 100 W kg(-1) and remains 18.9 Wh kg(-1) at 2000 W kg(-1). Additionally, such device also shows superior long cycle life along with ∼100% capacitance retention after 1000 cycles and ∼93% after 4000 cycles.

A new single elemental heterostructure of black–red phosphorus was prepared, which exhibited high visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity comparable to that of CdS.

Recent progress of MXene QDs, including their synthesis, properties, applications, and their future perspectives and challenges.