石墨基液流电池复合双极板

液流电池是一种安全性高、使用寿命长、可扩展的大规模储能系统,可以协助电网调峰储能,提高能源利用率,发展前景广阔。双极板是液流电池的重要组成部分。功能上起到了分隔、串联电池、传导电流、为电堆提供结构支撑等作用。从成本构成角度看,双极板的价格占电堆成本的比重也较大。开发高性能、低成本的双极板对加快液流电池的商业化应用具有重要意义,也是目前业界的迫切需求。虽然文献上报道了许多针对液流电池双极板开发的工作,但是目前高性能、低成本的液流电池双极板产品仍无法充分满足市场需求。本文着重介绍了石墨基复合双极板的研究现状,介绍了材料选择、工艺流程对关键性能的影响,对相关工作进行了评述,并为液流电池双极板的开发提出了建议。     

Efficient Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting from a Discrete Hybrid Bismuth Bromide Ferroelectric Templated by Phosphonium Cation

Bismuth containing hybrid molecular ferroelectrics are receiving tremendous attention in recent years owing to their stable and non-toxic composition. However, these perovskite-like structures are primarily limited to ammonium cations. Herein, we report a new phosphonium based discrete perovskite-like hybrid ferroelectric with a formula [Me(Ph)₃P]₃[Bi₂Br₉] ( MTPBB ) and its mechanical energy harvesting capability. The Polarization-Electric field (P-E) measurements resulted in a well-defined ferroelectric hysteresis loop with a remnant polarization value of 2.1 μC cm⁻². Piezoresponse force microscopy experiments enabled visualization of the ferroelectric domain structure and evaluation of the piezoelectric strain coefficient (d₃₃) for an MTPBB single crystal and thin film sample. Furthermore, flexible devices incorporating MTPBB in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix at various concentrations were fabricated and explored for their mechanical energy harvesting properties. The champion device with 20 wt % of MTPBB in PDMS rendered a maximum peak-to-peak open-circuit voltage of 22.9 V and a maximum power density of 7 μW cm⁻² at an optimal load of 4 MΩ. Moreover, the potential of MTPBB -based devices in low power electronics was demonstrated by storing the harvested energy in various electrolytic capacitors.     

自掺杂SnO2微球的水热合成及其可见光催化性能

本研究采用水热法,以柠檬酸为螯合剂,通过控制n(Sn⁴⁺)/n(Sn²⁺)的数值,合成了由具有丰富氧空位的SnO₂纳米晶体组装成的微球。通过X射线衍射(XRD)、扫描电子显微镜(SEM)、透射电子显微镜(TEM)、傅里叶红外光谱(FT-IR)、X射线光电子能谱(XPS)及UV-Vis漫反射光谱对SnO₂纳米微球进行表征分析,结果表明:在酸性水热条件和柠檬酸的螯合作用下,二氧化锡纳米晶体聚集形成微球;在Sn⁴⁺/Sn²⁺摩尔比例为3:7时,其微球尺寸最小,整体分散性较好;同时适量二价锡离子的掺杂使得该样品氧空位浓度达到最佳,氧空位的存在将使得样品光吸收范围拓展至可见光,因而该样品显示出较强的可见光催化效率,在8 min内完全降解甲基橙。     

Collective Strategy Condensation: When Envy Splits Societies

Human societies are characterized by three constituent features, besides others. (A) Options, as for jobs and societal positions, differ with respect to their associated monetary and non-monetary payoffs. (B) Competition leads to reduced payoffs when individuals compete for the same option as others. (C) People care about how they are doing relatively to others. The latter trait—the propensity to compare one’s own success with that of others—expresses itself as envy. It is shown that the combination of (A)–(C) leads to spontaneous class stratification. Societies of agents split endogenously into two social classes, an upper and a lower class, when envy becomes relevant. A comprehensive analysis of the Nash equilibria characterizing a basic reference game is presented. Class separation is due to the condensation of the strategies of lower-class agents, which play an identical mixed strategy. Upper-class agents do not condense, following individualist pure strategies. The model and results are size-consistent, holding for arbitrary large numbers of agents and options. Analytic results are confirmed by extensive numerical simulations. An analogy to interacting confined classical particles is discussed.     

Design,synthesis and evaluation of novel dehydroabietic acid-dithiocarbamate hybrids as potential multi-targeted compounds for tumor cytotoxicity

In the present study, novel representatives of the important group of biologically-active, dehydroabietic acid-bearing dithiocarbamate moiety, were synthesized and characterized by ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, HR-MS. The in vitro antiproliferative activity evaluation (MTT) indicated that these compounds exhibited potent inhibitory activities in various cancer cell lines (HepG-2, MCF-7, HeLa, T-24, MGC-803). Particularly, compound III-b possessed extraordinary cytotoxicity with low micromolar IC₅₀ values ranging from 4.07 to 38.84 µM against tested cancer cell lines, while displayed weak cytotoxicity on two normal cell lines (LO-2 and HEK 293 T). Subsequently, the potential mechanisms of representative compound III-b were elementarily investigated by Transwell experiment, which showed III-b can inhibit cancer cells migration. Annexin-V/PI dual staining showed that the compound can induce HepG-2 cells apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. Meanwhile this apoptosis may be related to the upregulated protein expression of cleaved-caspase 3, cleaved-caspase 9, Bax and downregulated of Bcl-2 indicated by Western Blot. Later study further confirmed that ROS levels in HepG-2 cells increased significantly with the rise of concentrations. In addition, through the network pharmacology data analyzing, the core targets and signaling pathways of compound III-b for treatment of liver neoplasms were forecasted. Molecular docking model showed that compound III-b had high affinity with hub targets (CASP3, EGFR, HSP90AA1, MAPK1, ERBB2, MDM2), suggesting that compound III-b might target the hub protein to modulate signaling activity. Taken together, these data indicated that dehydroabietic acid structural modification following the “Molecular hybridization” principle is a feasible way to discover the potential multi-targeted antitumor compounds.     

Pressure-induced novel structure with graphene-like boron-layer in titanium monoboride

The recent discovery of the novel boron-framework in boron-rich metal borides with complex structures and intriguing features under high pressure has stimulated the search into the unique boron-network in the metal monoborides or boron-deficient metal borides at high pressure. Herein, based on the particle swarm optimization algorithm combined with first-principles calculations, we thoroughly explored the structural evolution and properties of TiB up to 200 GPa. This material undergoes a pressure-induced phase transition of $Pnma$ $\to $ $Cmcm$ $\to $ $Pmmm$. Besides of two known phases $Pnma$ and $Cmcm$, an unexpected orthorhombic $Pmmm$ structure was predicted to be energetically favored in the pressure range of 110.88-200 GPa. Intriguingly, the B covalent network eventually evolved from a one-dimensional zigzag chain in $Pnma$-TiB and $Cmcm$-TiB to a graphene-like B-sheet in $Pmmm$-TiB. On the basis of the microscopic hardness model, the calculated hardness ($H_{\rm v}$) values of $Pnma$ at 1 atm, $Cmcm$ at 100 GPa, and $Pmmm$ at 140 GPa are 36.81 GPa, 25.17 GPa, and 15.36 GPa, respectively. Remarkably, analyses of the density of states, electron localization function and the crystal orbital Hamilton population (COHP) exhibit that the bonding nature in the three TiB structures can be considered as a combination of the B-B and Ti-B covalent interactions. Moreover, the high hardness and excellent mechanical properties of the three TiB polymorphs can be ascribed to the strong B-B and Ti-B covalent bonds.     

单层MXene纳米片Ti2N电磁特性的过渡金属(Sc、V、Zr)掺杂效应

二维材料MXene纳米片由于具有较大的比表面积和较高的电子迁移率而受到广泛的关注。本文采用基于密度泛函理论的第一性原理计算,对单层MXene纳米片Ti₂N电磁特性的过渡金属(Sc、V、Zr)掺杂效应进行了系统研究。结果表明,所有过渡金属掺杂体系结合能均为负值,结构均稳定;其中Ti₂N-Sc体系的形成能为-2.242 eV,结构更易形成,且保持稳定;掺杂后Ti₂N-Sc、Ti₂N-Zr体系磁矩增大;此外,Ti₂N-Sc体系中保留了较高的自旋极化率,达到84.9%,可预测该体系在自旋电子学中具有潜在的应用价值。     

Solid-state luminescence of Au(I) complexes with external stimuli-responsive properties

In the last decade, the field of stimuli-responsive luminescent materials have been intensely emerged because of the high potential application to functional sensors or photoelectronic devices. In particular, luminescent molecular crystals constructed from Au(I) complexes have produced a wide range of examples of luminescent alterations when some external stimulations, such as heat, mechanical stress, vapor (or solvents), were applied to the solid samples. In this review, we describe the recent progress through a summary of the reported Au(I) complexes based on their utilized stimuli-responsive mechanisms, which are categorized in crystal phase transitions (“crystal-to-amorphous”, “crystal-to-crystal” and “single-crystal-to-single-crystal” transitions) and molecular rotation in crystalline media, respectively.     

Application of advanced nuclear analytical techniques for the electrocatalyst's characterization: Paving the path for mechanistic investigations

As the application of electrocatalyst continues to expand, envisaging the hidden mechanisms occurring at various length scale affecting the catalytic efficiency became important. To enhance the stability of electrocatalyst and reduce the cost, it is of paramount importance to reveal the active site's dynamics (using in situ techniques for getting the real-time information) which directly affect the reactions such as oxygen evolution reaction, hydrogen evolution reaction, and so on. Since such reactions are crucial for many engineering and scientific applications, in situ characterization techniques are required, which could capture such reactions happening at a different length and time scale. This article analyzes the recent progress made in the field of electrocatalyst's characterization using in situ neutron techniques. The article also paves the future path and has delineated the future challenges involved in multiscale correlative techniques (e.g., neutron techniques in the combination of synchrotron or microscopic techniques) used for getting the multiscale (atomic to micrometer range) mechanistic information about the electrocatalyst's working and degradation.