Regulation of the elastic modulus of polyurethane microarrays and its influence on gecko-inspired dry adhesion

We studied the influence of the elastic modulus on the gecko-inspired dry adhesion by regulating the elastic modulus of bulk polyurethane combined with changing the size of microarrays. Segmented polyurethane (PU) was utilized to fabricate micro arrays by the porous polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) membrane molding method. The properties of the micro arrays, such as the elastic modulus and adhesion, were investigated by Triboindenter. The study demonstrates that bulk surfaces show the highest elastic modulus, with similar values at around 175 MPa and decreasing the arrays radius causes a significant decrease in E, down to 0.62 MPa. The corresponding adhesion experiments show that decrease of the elastic modulus can enhance the adhesion which is consistent with the recent theoretical models.     

痕量挥发性有机物的高场不对称波形离子迁移谱研究

高场不对称波形离子迁移谱(high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry,FAIMS)技术是一种快速、高灵敏的痕量物质检测技术.利用自制的高场不对称波形离子迁移谱仪分别对丙酮、苯和甲苯样品进行了检测,结果表明三种挥发性物质在谱图中的分离效果优于传统离子迁...     

A mended hybrid learning algorithm for radial basis function neural networks to improve generalization capability

A two-step learning scheme for radial basis function neural networks, which combines the genetic algorithm (GA) with the hybrid learning algorithm (HLA), is proposed in this paper. It is compared with the methods of the GA, the recursive orthogonal least square algorithm (ROLSA) and another two-step learning scheme for RBF neural networks, which combines the K-means clustering with the HLA (K-means + HLA). Our proposed method has the best generalization performance.     

Effect of Fe doping on the structural and gas sensing properties of ZnO porous microspheres

Fe-doped ZnO porous microspheres composed of nanosheets were prepared by a simple hydrothermal method combined with post-annealing, and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller N₂ adsorption–desorption measurements and photoluminescence (PL) spectra. In this paper we report Fe doping induced modifications in the structural, photoluminescence and gas sensing behavior of ZnO porous microspheres. Our results show that the crystallite size decreases and specific surface area increases with the increase of Fe doping concentration. The PL spectra indicate that the 4 mol% Fe-doped ZnO has higher ratio of donor (V_O and Zn_i) to acceptor (V_Zn) than undoped ZnO. The 4 mol% Fe-doped ZnO sample shows the highest response value to ppb-level n-butanol at 300 °C, and the detected limit of n-butanol is below 10 ppb. In addition, the 4 mol% Fe -doped ZnO sample exhibits good selectivity to n-butanol. The superior sensing properties of the Fe-doped porous ZnO microspheres are contributed to higher donor defects contents combined with larger specific surface area.     

Highly-sensitive colorimetric detection of H2O2 based on the Pt@Te nanorods

Te nanorods (NRs) were prepared from TeO₂ in the presence of hydrazine hydrate without using any surfactants under ambient conditions. Te NRs were then used as sacrificial templates to prepare Pt@Te NRs by spontaneous redox galvanic replacement between Te and Pt ions. The as-synthesized Pt@Te NRs exhibit a strong catalytic activity for the colorimetric detection of H₂O₂ using 2, 2′-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzo-thiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt (ABTS) as an indicator.     

氟化改性TiO2空心微球的制备及光催化性能

以钛酸四丁酯为钛源、氢氟酸为氟源、乙醇为溶剂,采用溶剂热法合成了氟化改性的TiO2空心微球,并利用XRD、FESEM、FTIR、XPS等手段对氟化TiO2微球的晶体结构、形貌、分子基团以及元素形态等性质进行了表征,同时将TiO2微球应用于光催化降解甲基橙溶液。结果表明:氟化TiO2空心微球由奥斯瓦尔德熟化过程获得,其中TiO2以锐钛矿存在,氟以化学吸附态存在于TiO2的表面,形成≡Ti-F基团。相比纯TiO2,氟化TiO2空心微球光催化活性有很大提高,对初始浓度为20 mg·L-1的甲基橙溶液进行光催化降解30 min,其降解率达到98%。氟化改性TiO2空心微球光催化活性的提高是源于TiO2独特的空心微球结构以及TiO2表面≡Ti-F基团的存在。TiO2表面≡Ti-F基团有很强的吸电子能力,抑制了光生电子与空穴的复合,同时有利于羟基自由基的产生。     

A novel ultrathin single-crystalline Bi2O3 nanosheet wrapped by reduced graphene oxide with improved electron transfer for Li storage

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - Two-dimensional (2D) metal oxides have been of great interest owning to their particular properties such as rapid electron transfer capability. Herein, we...     

Raman spectroscopic study of dye adsorption on TiO2 electrodes of dye-sensitized solar cells

The state of dye adsorption on TiO₂ electrodes in dye-sensitized solar-cell (DSSC) systems is important for its power-conversion efficiency (PCE). We propose a non-destructive and quantitative method to evaluate the amount of adsorbed dye on TiO₂ electrodes by using micro-Raman spectroscopy. The Raman peak intensity ratio of adsorbed dye to TiO₂, I_d/I_t, is defined as a dye adsorption parameter. Based on a comparison between I_d/I_t and the amount of dye evaluated from UV–vis absorption, the quantitativity and reproducibility of our method are verified.We investigated the change of I_d/I_t spatial distribution of TiO₂ electrodes immersed in a dye solution for different time scales. The statistical analysis of I_d/I_t distribution suggests that dyes adsorbed on TiO₂ electrodes with chemical coordination increase at first, and after their saturation, dye aggregations are formed over the chemisorption layer. We also describe the effect of the I_d/I_t distribution on PCE. From a comparison of PCE and I_d/I_t distribution obtained from various immersion processes, it was considered that the PCE of DSSCs can be optimized by minimizing the I_d/I_t dispersion.     

Non-conductive nanomaterial enhanced electrochemical response in stripping voltammetry: The use of nanostructured magnesium silicate hollow spheres for heavy metal ions detection

Nanostructured magnesium silicate hollow spheres, one kind of non-conductive nanomaterials, were used in heavy metal ions (HMIs) detection with enhanced performance for the first time. The detailed study of the enhancing electrochemical response in stripping voltammetry for simultaneous detection of ultratrace Cd²⁺, Pb²⁺, Cu²⁺ and Hg²⁺ was described. Electrochemical properties of modified electrodes were characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The operational parameters which have influence on the deposition and stripping of metal ions, such as supporting electrolytes, pH value, and deposition time were carefully studied. The anodic stripping voltammetric performance toward HMIs was evaluated using square wave anodic stripping voltammetry (SWASV) analysis. The detection limits achieved (0.186 nM, 0.247 nM, 0.169 nM and 0.375 nM for Cd²⁺, Pb²⁺, Cu²⁺ and Hg²⁺) are much lower than the guideline values in drinking water given by the World Health Organization (WHO). In addition, the interference and stability of the modified electrode were also investigated under the optimized conditions. An interesting phenomenon of mutual interference between different metal ions was observed. Most importantly, the sensitivity of Pb²⁺ increased in the presence of certain concentrations of other metal ions, such as Cd²⁺, Cu²⁺ and Hg²⁺ both individually and simultaneously. The proposed electrochemical sensing method is thus expected to open new opportunities to broaden the use of SWASV in analysis for detecting HMIs in the environment.     

An efficient linear model and optimisation algorithm for multi-site combined heat and power production

Combined heat and power (CHP) production is an important energy production technology which can help to improve the efficiency of energy production and to reduce the emission of CO₂. Cost-efficient operation of a CHP system can be planned using an optimisation model based on hourly load forecasts. A long-term planning model decomposes into hourly models, which can be formulated as linear programming (LP) problems. Such problems can be solved efficiently using the specialized Power Simplex algorithm. However, Power Simplex can only manage one heat and one power balance. Since heat cannot be transported over long distances, Power Simplex applies only for local CHP planning.In this paper we formulate the hourly multi-site CHP planning problem with multiple heat balances as an LP model with a special structure. We then develop the Extended Power Simplex (EPS) algorithm for solving such models efficiently. Even though the problem can be quite large as the number of demand sites increases, EPS demonstrates very good efficiency. In test runs with realistic models, EPS is from 29 to 85 times faster than an efficient sparse Simplex code using the product form of inverse (PFI). Furthermore, the relative efficiency of EPS improves as the problem size grows.