Enhanced Power Density of Alcohol Biofuel Cell by Polymer-assisted Crosslinks of 3D Graphene on Carbon Paper as the Bioanode

Herein, we successfully construct the 3D biocompatible graphene through crosslinking 2D graphene nanosheet onto carbon fiber paper with poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA) as anode of the alcohol biofuel cell. Compared with the bioanode without 3D graphene, the current density and output power of PDDA-graphene-ADH bioanode is increased by 23 % and 41 % at a high concentration of ethanol at pH 8.9, suggesting the stabilization role of graphene in enzyme loading. The study provides us a deep analysis on structures and performances of the bioanode incl. electrochemistry, X-ray photoelectron spectra, and atomic force microscopy images, which is significant to develop the new methods to construct 3D porous electrodes in energy conversion device.     

Monitoring the Thiol/Thiophenol Molecule-Modulated Plasmon-Mediated Silver Oxidation with Dark-Field Optical Microscopy

Surface plasmon can trigger or accelerate many photochemical reactions, especially useful in energy and environmental industries. Recently, molecular adsorption has proven effective in modulating plasmon-mediated photochemistry, however the realized chemical reactions are limited and the underlying mechanism is still unclear. Herein, by using in situ dark-field optical microscopy, the plasmon-mediated oxidative etching of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs), a typical hot-hole-driven reaction, is monitored continuously and quantitatively. The presence of thiol or thiophenol molecules is found essential in the silver oxidation. In addition, the rate of silver oxidation is modulated by the choice of different thiol or thiophenol molecules. Compared with the molecules having electron donating groups, the ones having electron accepting groups accelerate the silver oxidation dramatically. The thiol/thiophenol modulation is attributed to the modulation of the charge separation between the Ag NPs and the adsorbed thiol or thiophenol molecules. This work demonstrates the great potential of molecular adsorption in modulating the plasmon-mediated photochemistry, which will pave a new way for developing highly efficient plasmonic photocatalysts.     

Y掺杂WS2二维材料的第一性原理研究

WS₂由于其优异的物理和光电性质引起了广泛关注。本研究基于第一性原理计算方法,探索了本征单层WS₂及不同浓度W原子替位钇(Y)掺杂WS₂的电子结构和光学特性。结果表明本征单层WS₂为带隙1.814 eV的直接带隙半导体。进行4%浓度(原子数分数)的Y原子掺杂后,带隙减小为1.508 eV,依旧保持着直接带隙的特性,随着Y掺杂浓度的不断增大,掺杂WS₂带隙进一步减小,当浓度达到25%时,能带结构转变为0.658 eV的间接带隙,WS₂表现出磁性。适量浓度的掺杂可以提高材料的导电性能,且掺杂浓度增大时,体系依旧保持着透明性并且在红外光和可见光区对光子的吸收能力、材料的介电性能都有着显著提高。本文为WS₂二维材料相关光电器件的研究提供了理论依据。     

Design of Functional Carbon Composite Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage

The carbon composite materials have been a research hotspot in the fields of catalysis, energy conversion and so on, because of their features of large structure and morphology variety, good chemical and electrochemical stability, and high electronic conductivity, large specific surface area and rich active sites. This paper summarizes some research progress of carbon composite materials, including assembly methodologies, their structure regulation, properties, and related applications. Moreover, the current challenges and the prospects of these materials are also discussed.     

一种通过梯形PPMgLN波导倍频实现带宽可调谐光源的理论研究

本文设计了一种梯形的周期极化掺镁铌酸锂(PPMgLN)波导,并通过在传播方向上引入温度梯度来拓宽其倍频(SHG)过程的泵浦光源可接收带宽。通过有限差分的光束传输法,计算波导的有效折射率,并进行波导尺寸的设计。结果表明,通过改变梯形波导不同位置的温度,使其形成一个温度梯度,可拓宽泵浦光源的波长可接收带宽。本文所设计的PPMgLN波导最大泵浦光源可接收带宽为C波段,即1 530~1 565 nm,该波导可倍频C波段,得到输出波段带宽为765~782.5 nm,温度调谐范围为30~150 ℃。     

A quantum circuit design of AES requiring fewer quantum qubits and gate operations

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is one of the most widely used block ciphers nowadays, and has been established as an encryption standard in 2001. Here we design AES-128 and the sample-AES (S-AES) quantum circuits for deciphering. In the quantum circuit of AES-128, we perform an affine transformation for the SubBytes part to solve the problem that the initial state of the output qubits in SubBytes is not the |0>^⊗8 state. After that, we are able to encode the new round sub-key on the qubits encoding the previous round sub-key, and this improvement reduces the number of qubits used by 224 compared with Langenberg et al.’s implementation. For S-AES, a complete quantum circuit is presented with only 48 qubits, which is already within the reach of existing noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers.     

1,3-丁二烯选择性加氢催化剂的设计策略以及构效关系

催化裂化是石油化工的核心单元之一.从催化裂化尾气中分离出来的碳四馏分富含许多的不饱和烯烃,如1-丁烯、顺、反式-2-丁烯以及少量的1,3-丁二烯,这些不饱和烯烃可以通过后续聚合反应,生成合成橡胶和工程塑料的重要原料,具有重要的应用价值.上述工艺过程对原料中1,3-丁二烯的含量(<100~200 ppm)有严苛的要求.采用选择性加氢技术对碳四馏分中的1,3-丁二烯进行选择性加氢,将其转化为更高附加值的单烯烃是一个理想的解决方案.然而,1,3-丁二烯加氢反应得到的单烯烃可能发生深度加氢得到副产物丁烷.因此,开发高效选择性加氢催化剂对碳四资源的利用具有重要的现实意义.另一方面,1,3-丁二烯加氢反应可以作为模型反应,用来考察选择性加氢催化剂的性能.基于此,该反应无论在工业界还是学术界均受到广泛关注.尽管如此,有关1,3-丁二烯加氢催化剂研究进展方面的综述极少.仅有关于1,3-丁二烯加氢作为模型反应的综述报道.本文对过去半个世纪以来1,3-丁二烯加氢反应中不同催化剂的发展历程进行系统综述,特别是包括Pd,Pt和Au等的单一贵金属催化剂.重点介绍以下内容:(1)固体催化剂构效关系,包括活性金属尺寸效应、晶面和形貌效应以及载体效应(晶相、孔道和酸碱性);(2)高性能催化剂的设计新策略,如单原子催化剂、核壳结构催化剂、金属-离子液复合催化体系以及载体的形貌调控;(3)催化剂的反应机理和失活机理.提出了1,3-丁二烯选择性加氢高性能催化剂开发面临的挑战,并对潜在的发展方向进行了展望.本文认为随着纳米技术和金属纳米材料合成方法的快速发展,对贵金属活性组分进行原子层面上的调控(包括形貌、尺寸以及单原子配位环境等)已成为可能.这将有助于研制出一类新型高性能选择性加氢催化材料,从而实现高转化率条件下高附加值单烯烃的定向转化.此外,载体的酸碱性和孔道结构的调控有助于进一步调节催化剂的抗积炭性能,也是未来发展的一个重要方向.     

Sample preparation,instrumental analysis,and natural distribution of complex organic pollutants in the wastewater from unconventional gas production

Large amounts of flowback and produced water (FPW) have been generated from hydraulic fracturing process for the production of unconventional gas such as shale gas. Complex organic pollutants are abundantly present in FPW with revealed toxicity to aquatic organisms and these contaminants may transfer into surrounding aquatic environment. Characterization and determination of complicated organic pollutants in FPW remains a challenge due to its complex composition and high salinity matrix. This review article covers the progress of recent 5 years regarding the sample preparation and instrumental analysis methods and thus summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of these methods for critical analysis of organic contaminants in FPW samples. Furthermore, the natural distribution of detected organic compounds and their transformation were reviewed and discussed to enhance the understanding of spatial and temporal behaviors of these organic pollutants in natural environment, paving the way for future development of pollution control policies and strategies. Enlightened by the studies of FPW contamination in the US, the investigations of FPW contamination in China continued to grow due to rapidly growing production of shale gas in China and resulted pollution.     

Bifurcation analysis of visual angle model with anticipated time and stabilizing driving behavior

In the light of the visual angle model (VAM), an improved car-following model considering driver's visual angle, anticipated time and stabilizing driving behavior is proposed so as to investigate how the driver's behavior factors affect the stability of the traffic flow. Based on the model, linear stability analysis is performed together with bifurcation analysis, whose corresponding stability condition is highly fit to the results of the linear analysis. Furthermore, the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) equation and the modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) equation are derived by nonlinear analysis, and we obtain the relationship of the two equations through the comparison. Finally, parameter calibration and numerical simulation are conducted to verify the validity of the theoretical analysis, whose results are highly consistent with the theoretical analysis.     

Chemical bonding in representative astrophysically relevant neutral,cation, and anion HCnH chains

Most existing studies assign a polyynic and cumulenic character of chemical bonding in carbon-based chains relying on values of the bond lengths. Building on our recent work, in this paper we add further evidence on the limitations of such an analysis and demonstrate the significant insight gained via natural bond analysis. Presently reported results include atomic charges, natural bond order and valence indices obtained from ab initio computations for representative members of the astrophysically relevant neutral and charged HC_2k/2k+1H chain family. They unravel a series of counter-intuitive aspects and/or help naive intuition in properly understanding microscopic processes, e.g., electron removal from or electron attachment to a neutral chain. Demonstrating that the Wiberg indices adequately quantify the chemical bonding structure of the HC_2k/2k+1H chains—while the often heavily advertised Mayer indices do not—represents an important message conveyed by the present study.