Flexible Polyester Cellulose Paper Supercapacitor with a Gel Electrolyte

A low-cost polyester cellulose paper has been used as a substrate for a flexible supercapacitor device that contains aqueous carbon nanotube ink as the electrodes and a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based gel as the electrolyte. Gel electrolytes have attracted much interest due to their solvent-holding capacity and good film-forming capability. The electrodes are characterized for their conductivity and morphology. Because of its high conductivity, the conductive paper is studied in supercapacitor applications as active electrodes and as separators after coating with polyvinylidene fluoride. Carbon nanotubes deposited on porous paper are more accessible to ions in the electrolyte than those on flat substrates, which results in higher power density. A simple fabrication process is achieved and paper supercapacitors are tested for their performance in both aqueous and PVA gel electrolytes by using galvanostatic and cyclic voltammetry methods. A high specific capacitance of 270 F g⁻¹ and an energy density value of 37 W h kg⁻¹ are achieved for devices with PVA gel electrolytes. Furthermore, this device can maintain excellent specific capacitance even under high currents. This is also confirmed by another counter experiment with aqueous sulfuric acid as the electrolyte. The cycle life, one of the most critical parameters in supercapacitor operations, is found to be excellent (6000 cycles) and less than 0.5 % capacitance loss is observed. Moreover, the supercapacitor device is flexible and even after twisting does not show any cracks or evidence of breakage, and shows almost the same specific capacitance of 267 F g⁻¹and energy density of 37 W h kg⁻¹. This work suggests that a paper substrate can be a highly scalable and low-cost solution for high-performance supercapacitors.     

Integrated Devices to Realize Energy Conversion and Storage Simultaneously

Other forms of energy are generally converted to electric energy and then transported to electrochemical devices, where the energy is stored, by external electric wires. To further improve total energy conversion and storage efficiency, interest in simultaneously realize the energy conversion and storage in a single device has increased. This Concept describes recent progress in developing such novel integrated energy devices. Both planar and wire architectures are carefully illustrated with an emphasis on the “energy wire” which has been the focus of past developments due to its unique and promising applications, such as being woven into clothes or other complex structures by conventional textile technology. The current challenges and future directions of the integrated devices, particularly in the wire architecture, are summarized.     

New Tools for Investigating Electromagnetic Hot Spots in Single‐Molecule Surface‐Enhanced Raman Scattering

Surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is quickly growing as an analytical technique, because it offers both molecular specificity and excellent sensitivity. For select substrates, SERS can even be observed from single molecules, which is the ultimate limit of detection. This review describes recent developments in the field of single‐molecule SERS (SM‐SERS) with a focus on new tools for characterizing SM‐SERS‐active substrates and how they interact with single molecules on their surface. In particular, techniques that combine optical spectroscopy and microscopy with electron microscopy are described, including correlated optical and transmission electron microscopy, correlated super‐resolution imaging and scanning electron microscopy, and correlated optical microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy.     

Characterizing the Role of Iodine Doping in Improving Photovoltaic Performance of Dye‐Sensitized Hierarchically Structured ZnO Solar Cells

We report two novel types of hierarchically structured iodine‐doped ZnO (I? ZnO)‐based dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSCs) using indoline D205 and the ruthenium complex N719 as sensitizers. It was found that iodine doping boosts the efficiencies of D205 I? ZnO and N719 I? ZnO DSCs with an enhancement of 20.3 and 17.9 %, respectively, compared to the undoped versions. Transient absorption spectra demonstrated that iodine doping impels an increase in the decay time of I? ZnO, favoring enhanced exciton life. Mott–Schottky analysis results indicated a negative shift of the flat‐band potential (V_fb) of ZnO, caused by iodine doping, and this shift correlated with the enhancement of the open circuit voltage (V_oc). To reveal the effect of iodine doping on the effective separation of e^?‐h⁺ pairs which is responsible for cell efficiency, direct visualization of light‐induced changes in the surface potential between I? ZnO particles and dye molecules were traced by Kelvin probe force microscopy. We found that potential changes of iodine‐doped ZnO films by irradiation were above one hundred millivolts and thus significantly greater. In order to correlate enhanced cell performance with iodine doping, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, incident‐photon‐current efficiency, and cyclic voltammetry investigations on I? ZnO cells were carried out. The results revealed several favorable features of I? ZnO cells, that is, longer electron lifetime, lower charge‐transfer resistance, stronger peak current, and extended visible light harvest, all of which serve to promote cell performance.     

Theoretical Design of Strong Neutral Radical–Boron Adducts: Trisubstituted Boranes as Potential Radical Scavengers

The conditions of formation of strong two‐center one‐electron bonds in neutral compounds are discussed. Both molecular orbital and valence bond analyses show that good candidates are adducts of radicals ^.AR₃ (A=C, Si, Ge) of low ionization energy (IE) with boranes BX₃ of high electron affinity (EA). This is confirmed by ab initio calculations. The bond energy of adducts of B(CF₃)₃ with various radicals ranges from 18 kcal mol^?1 for ^.CH₃ to approximately 40 kcal mol^?1 for Me₃Si^., and a clear correlation with IE–EA difference is found. This allows one to expect B(CF₃)₃, among other fluoroboranes, to be an efficient radical scavenger.     

Theoretical Study on the Hydrogen Bonding Interactions in Complexes of 5‐Hydroxytryptamine with Water

The energies, geometries and harmonic vibrational frequencies of 1:1 5‐hydroxytryptamine‐water (5‐HT‐H₂O) complexes are studied at the MP2/6‐311++G(d,p) level. Natural bond orbital (NBO), quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM) analyses and the localized molecular orbital energy decomposition analysis (LMO‐EDA) were performed to explore the nature of the hydrogen‐bonding interactions in these complexes. Various types of hydrogen bonds (H‐bonds) are formed in these 5‐HT‐H₂O complexes. The intermolecular C4H5^5‐HT···O^w H‐bond in HTW3 is strengthened due to the cooperativity, whereas no such cooperativity is found in the other 5‐HT‐H₂O complexes. H‐bond in which nitrogen atom of amino in 5‐HT acted as proton donors was stronger than other H‐bonds. Our researches show that the hydrogen bonding interaction plays a vital role on the relative stabilities of 5‐HT‐H₂O complexes.     

介孔碳纳米纤维-硫作为锂硫电池正极材料

锂硫电池的商用化受到硫和多硫化锂低的电导率、多硫化锂在有机电解液中的溶解、放电过程中硫的体积膨胀等因素的制约。我们通过自模板法制备了具有石墨化孔壁结构的介孔碳纳米纤维（MCNF）,并利用这种结构将硫和多硫化锂封装在碳骨架内。具有石墨化孔壁结构的一维MCNF能够在循环中为硫和多硫化锂提供良好的导电网络。MCNF中小的介孔能够抑制长链多硫化锂的扩散。另外,MCNF大的孔容能够负载比较多的硫,并且能够为硫的放电膨胀提供足够的纳米空间。本工作制备的MCNF-硫纳米复合材料在0.8A·g^-1的电流密度下,经过100次循环后仍有820mAh·g^-1的比容量。     

钙钛矿ABX3型材料的结构与性质调控

近年来,钙钛矿太阳能电池由于其效率高、制造成本低、工艺简单等特点受到广泛关注,成为目前太阳能电池领域的研究热点。在钙钛矿太阳能电池中,无机-有机杂化ABX₃材料非常重要。它既作为光吸收材料,同时又作为载流子传输材料,因此它的光电性质直接影响到太阳能电池的效率。本文综述了调控钙钛矿型无机有机金属卤化物ABX₃结构和性质的几种途径。     

改进型溶胶-凝胶法制备粒径可调高染料吸附量TiO2微球及其在染敏电池光散射层中的应用

利用改进型的溶胶-凝胶法, 制得了由锐钛矿相纳米颗粒组成的TiO₂多孔微纳小球。通过调节前驱物浓度, 合成出粒径可控的尺寸分别为100, 175, 225, 475 nm的TiO₂微纳小球, 并通过电泳沉积法将合成出的小球作为光散射层引入到染料敏化太阳电池(DSSC)中。由于这种微纳小球在具备良好的光散射性能的同时也具备较高的染料吸附量, 因此相较于基于纳米颗粒的单层结构的DSSC拥有更高的光电转换效率。通过比较分析, 粒径尺寸为475 nm的微球作为光散射层的DSSC光电转换效率可以达到6.3%, 较之于基于纳米颗粒的DSSC提高了30%。     

染料敏化太阳能电池对电极La2Mo2O7复合MWCNTs非Pt催化剂的制备与性能

通过高温固相法对醋酸镧（C₆H₉O₆La·xH₂O）与高钼酸铵（（NH₄）₆Mo₇O₂₄·4H₂O）在一定条件下热解制备非Pt催化剂La₂Mo₂O₇（La₂O₃-2MoO₂）。进一步采用2种方法将La₂Mo₂O₇与多壁碳纳米管（MWCNTs）进行复合,一种是将La₂Mo₂O₇喷涂到MWCNTs表层之上得到La₂Mo₂O₇/MWCNTs,另一种是将两者均匀混合掺杂得到La₂Mo₂O₇@MWCNTs,再将上述2种复合材料应用于染料敏化太阳能电池对电极进行相应研究。通过扫描电子显微镜（SEM）表征了复合催化材料的微观形貌,X射线衍射（XRD）确定了微观结构。采用电流密度-光电压曲线、循环伏安,交流阻抗以及塔菲尔极化分析了材料的光电性能。实验结果表明在电解液I₃^-/I^-中,基于La₂Mo₂O₇/MWCNTs与La₂Mo₂O₇@MWCNTs的对电极,相同的条件下在光电池中获得的光电转换效率分别为6.09%和4.84%,明显高于MWCNTs的3.94%和La₂Mo₂O₇的0.87%。电极性能的提高可归因于La₂Mo₂O₇复合催化剂相对大的比表面积和高导电性。