In situ confinement of iron-based active sites within high porosity carbon frameworks with enhanced activity for rechargeable Zn–air battery

Non-noble bifunctional electrocatalysts with robust activity and stability toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are greatly significant but challenging for Zn-air batteries. Here, in situ confinement of FeN_x active sites in high porosity carbon framework (FeN_x/CMCC) derived from chelate of carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and iron ions were synthesized. Particularly, construction of FeN_x within porous carbon framework accelerates the electron transfer and the sufficient utilization of active centers, and then expedites the reaction kinetics of ORR and OER. As expected, the optimized FeN_x/CMCC exhibits superior ORR activity with a larger half-wave potential of 0.869 V. The rechargeable Zn-air battery delivers a higher power density of 99.6 mW/cm² and a special capacity of 781.9 mA h/g_Zn at 10 mA/cm², together with excellent durability of over 335 h. Remarkably, the as-assembled solid-state battery exhibits a higher open circuit voltage (OCV) of 1.5 V, a special capacity of 709.7 mA h/g_Zn, as well as prolonged cycling stability (90 h). Moreover, the flexible solid-state battery displays negligible loss of electrochemical performance under various bending angles, illustrating its potential application in flexible electronic devices.     

FeOOH Nanocubes Anchored on Carbon Ribbons for Use in Li/O2 Batteries

A composite of FeOOH nanocubes anchored on carbon ribbons has been synthesized and used as a cathode material for Li/O₂ batteries. Fe²⁺ ion-exchanged resin serves as a precursor for both FeOOH nanocubes and carbon ribbons, which are formed simultaneously. The as-prepared FeOOH cubes are proposed to have a core–shell structure, with FeOOH as the shell and Prussian blue as the core, based on information from XPS, TEM, and EDS mapping. As a cathode material for Li/O₂ batteries, FeOOH delivers a specific capacity of 14816 mA h g⁻¹_cathode with a cycling stability of 67 cycles over 400 h. The high performance is related to the low overpotential of the oxygen reduction/evolution reaction on FeOOH. The cube structure, the supporting carbon ribbons, and the -OOH moieties all contribute to the low overpotential. The discharge product Li₂O₂ can be efficiently decomposed in the FeOOH cathode after a charging process, leading to higher cycling stability. Its high activity and stability make FeOOH a good candidate for use in non-aqueous Li/O₂ batteries.     

Comprehensive Profiling by Non-targeted Stable Isotope Tracing Capillary Electrophoresis-Mass Spectrometry: A New Tool Complementing Metabolomic Analyses of Polar Metabolites

Mass spectrometry (MS) driven metabolomics is a frequently used tool in various areas of life sciences; however, the analysis of polar metabolites is less commonly included. In general, metabolomic analyses lead to the detection of the total amount of all covered metabolites. This is currently a major limitation with respect to metabolites showing high turnover rates, but no changes in their concentration. Such metabolites and pathways could be crucial metabolic nodes (e.g., potential drug targets in cancer metabolism). A stable-isotope tracing capillary electrophoresis–mass spectrometry (CE-MS) metabolomic approach was developed to cover both polar metabolites and isotopologues in a non-targeted way. An in-house developed software enables high throughput processing of complex multidimensional data. The practicability is demonstrated analyzing [U-¹³C]-glucose exposed prostate cancer and non-cancer cells. This CE-MS-driven analytical strategy complements polar metabolite profiles through isotopologue labeling patterns, thereby improving not only the metabolomic coverage, but also the understanding of metabolism.     

Printed Circuit Board-Based Electrolyte Regulator for Laminar Microfluidics

The trench on a printed circuit board was reconstructed to fabricate a microfluidic framework that allows low-cost production for small quantities and integration with multifunctional elements. An on-chip electrolyte regulator was thus proposed on this platform to analyze diffusion properties in laminar flow. A numerical model was developed, highlighting the interplay between the electrolyte migration and hydrodynamic properties. Solutions with dissolved sodium chloride were simulated and experimentally tested for the regulation of electrical conductivity under the guidance of the normalized Nernst-Planck equation. The diffusion mechanism and the resulting concentration field were demonstrated in detail. This approach provides a satisfactory manufacturing method and a useful tool for integrated microfluidic systems.     

Flatness,plateau limit and limit length of single-plateau functions

In this paper we consider iteration of single-plateau functions, an important class of continuous functions with infinitely many forts, and investigate changes of number and length of plateaux under iteration.We use the indices flatness, plateau limit and limit length to formulate those changes. Furthermore, we compute the flatness, plateau limit and limit length for all the nine types of single-plateau functions.     

Novel local smoothness indicators for improving the third‐order WENO scheme

The local smoothness indicators play an important role in the performance of a weighted essentially nonoscillatory (WENO) scheme. Due to having only 2 points available on each substencil, the local smoothness indicators calculated by conventional methods make the third‐order WENO scheme too dissipative. In this paper, we propose a different method to calculate the indicators by using all the 3 points on the global stencil of the third‐order WENO scheme. The numerical results demonstrate that the WENO scheme with the new indicators has less dissipation and better resolution than the conventional third‐order WENO scheme of Jiang and Shu for both smooth and discontinuous solutions.     

The self-assemblies of a newly designed star-shaped molecule end-capped with bromine atoms studied by scanning tunneling microscopy

A new star-shaped molecule StOF-Br_3 containing oligofluorenes and halogen atoms(Bromine) has been synthesized and studied by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy(STM) at the highly oriented pyrolytic graphite(HOPG) surface.We have obtained the high-resolution self-assembled STM images,from which the highly ordered and closely packed non-porous arrangements of the StOF-Br_3 molecular selfassemblies at the heptanoic acid/HOPG surface could be observed.The molecular models and selfassembled StOF-Br_3 architectures have been given in the following text.Besides,we have also figured out the surface free energy by the density functional theory(DFT) calculation,which proved that the halogen...halogen interaction was strong enough to stabilize the ordered molecular self-assemblies.This work verifies the existence of bromine...bromine interactions,and meanwhile provides a kind of effective approach for quickly building ordered molecular nanoarchitectures with large areas and different geometries.     

Enhancing optomechanical force sensing via precooling and quantum noise cancellation

We theoretically investigate optomechanical force sensing via precooling and quantum noise cancellation in two coupled cavity optomechanical systems.We show that force sensing based on the reduction of noise can be used to dramatically enhance the force sensing and that the precooling process can eifectively improve the quantum noise cancellation.Specifically,we examine the effect of optomechanical cooling and noise reduction on the spectral density of the noise of the force measurement;these processes can significantly enhance the performance of optomechanical force sensing,and setting up the system in the resolved sideband regime can lead to an optimization of the cooling processes in a hybrid system.Such a scheme serves as a promising platform for quantum back-action-evading measurements of the motion and a framework for an optomechanical force sensor.