Large‐Area Aminated‐Graphdiyne Thin Films for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

A two‐dimensional (2D) carbon nanofilm with uniform artificial nanopores is an ideal material to ultimately suppress the fuel permeation in the proton exchange membrane fuel cells. Graphdiyne has great mechanical strength, high dimensional stability, and controllable nanopores, and has good prospects to play this crucial role. It is found that graphdiyne nanofilm with amino groups and natural nanopores can be easily prepared with high integrity. The aminated graphdiyne has good compatibility with the Nafion matrix owing to the acid–base interaction between them. The excellent comprehensive properties of graphdiyne in selectivity, dimensional stability, and integrity effectively improve the power performance and stability of fuel cells at wide temperature. Our results can be developed into a universal method that can easily realize the selective separation of ions and small molecules, and open a new way for the emerging applications in green energy.     

Ion-Functionalized Silver(I) Carboxylates: Synthesis and Application in Ru-Catalyzed Olefin Metathesis Reaction

Russian Journal of General Chemistry - The Grubbs–Hoveyda catalysts have a wide range of applications in catalyzed formation of the carbon-carbon double bonds. In this study, several...     

Fe3O4@C Nanotubes Grown on Carbon Fabric as a Free-Standing Anode for High-Performance Li-Ion Batteries

Recently, Li-ion batteries (LIBs) have attracted extensive attention owing to their wide applications in portable and flexible electronic devices. Such a huge market for LIBs has caused an ever-increasing demand for excellent mechanical flexibility, outstanding cycling life, and electrodes with superior rate capability. Herein, an anode of self-supported Fe₃O₄@C nanotubes grown on carbon fabric cloth (CFC) is designed rationally and fabricated through an in situ etching and deposition route combined with an annealing process. These carbon-coated nanotube structured Fe₃O₄ arrays with large surface area and enough void space can not only moderate the volume variation during repeated Li⁺ insertion/extraction, but also facilitate Li⁺/electrons transportation and electrolyte penetration. This novel structure endows the Fe₃O₄@C nanotube arrays stable cycle performance (a large reversible capacity of 900 mA h g⁻¹ up to 100 cycles at 0.5 A g⁻¹) and outstanding rate capability (reversible capacities of 1030, 985, 908, and 755 mA h g⁻¹ at 0.15, 0.3, 0.75, and 1.5 A g⁻¹, respectively). Fe₃O₄@C nanotube arrays still achieve a capacity of 665 mA h g⁻¹ after 50 cycles at 0.1 A g⁻¹ in Fe₃O₄@C//LiCoO₂ full cells.     

N-Doped Graphdiyne Coating for Dendrite-Free Lithium Metal Batteries

Nonuniform nucleation is one of the major reasons for the dendric growth of metallic lithium, which leads to intractable problems in the efficiency, reversibility, and safety in Li-based batteries. To improve the deposition of metallic Li on Cu substrates, herein, a freestanding current collector (NGDY@CuNW) is formed by coating pyridinic nitrogen-doped graphdiyne (NGDY) nanofilms on 3D Cu nanowires (CuNWs). Theoretical predictions reveal that the introduction of nitrogen atoms in the 2D GDY can enhance the binding energy between the Li atom and GDY, therefore improving the lithiophilicity on the surface for uniform lithium nucleation and deposition. Accordingly, the deposited metallic Li on the NGDY@CuNW electrode exhibits a dendrite-free morphology, resulting in significant improvements in terms of the reversibility with a high coulombic efficiency (CE) and a long lifespan at high current density. Our research provides an efficient method to control the surface property of Cu, which also will be instructive for other metal batteries.     

Biomimetic design of amphiphilic polycations and surface grafting onto polycarbonate urethane film as effective antibacterial agents with controlled hemocompatibility

The synthetic polycations are ideal candidates as antimicrobial agents, because they resemble natural antimicrobial peptides, but to render hemocompatibility to these materials is a great challenge. Herein, we used 2‐(tert‐butyl‐aminoethyl) methacrylate (TBAEMA), to synthesize its homopolymer and pegylated random and diblock copolymers with polyethyleneglycol methacrylate (PEGMA, M_n = 360 Da) by single‐electron transfer–living radical polymerization (SET‐LRP). In the second step, the secondary amino groups in the precursor polymers were quaternized with iodomethane and bromohexane, to obtain three series of quaternized polymers. The antimicrobial properties of these quaternized polymers were evaluated against Escherichia coli (E. coli), by studying the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) which ranged between 32 and 200 mg L^?1 and showed higher values for the quaternized random than the diblock copolymers. In addition to, we have also demonstrated the grafting of these polycations onto polycarbonate urethane film surfaces, which showed good killing efficacy against E. coli. Furthermore, the hemolysis of these materials was investigated against human red blood cells, which indicated that except the quaternized homopolymers that showed highest hemolysis, all other amphiphilic polycations exhibited very low hemolytic activity. Therefore, our designed materials with controlled structures and functionality, synthesized from cheaply available resources could serve as useful agents in the field of biomedicines and implantable materials. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2013, 51, 3166–3176     

水在二维g-C_3N_4纳米分离膜片层间的超快传输

正无机膜分离是环境、能源等领域的一项关键技术,对于解决人类可持续发展相关的许多重大问题都有重要意义,而提高膜分离效率则是该技术的关键所在。原则上,降低膜厚可提高通量,但同时会引起膜的机械性能和选择性变差等一系列问题。纳米材料制备技术及功能调控为构筑新型高