Insights into electrochemical behavior and kinetics of NiP on PEDOT:PSS/reduced graphene oxide as high-performance electrodes for alkaline urea oxidation

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - Highly efficient, abundant, and low-cost materials are highly demanded for energy conversion applications to address the rising consumption of energy. In...     

Geometric Construction of Linear Complex of Planes of <Emphasis Type="Italic">B</Emphasis><Subscript>3</Subscript> Type

Using invariant geometric images of a trivector of the type (884; 400), we construct its basic group of automorphisms. We formulate and prove a theorem on necessary and sufficient conditions for determining all planes of a linear complex associated with a trivector of the given type up to linear transformations of its automorphism group. Proving the theorem, we find all kinds of singular lines and construct the polar hyperplanes for nonsingular lines.     

Polypropylene Nanocomposites Based on Synthetic Organic-Soluble Ag Nanocrystals with Prominent β-nucleating Effect: Quiescent Crystallization and Melting Behavior

Differential scanning calorimetry, x-ray diffraction, and polarized optical microscopy were used to investigate the quiescent crystallization and melting behavior of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) nanocomposites based on synthetic organic-soluble Ag nanocrystals (NCs). The effects of Ag loading and crystallization temperature on the crystallization behavior and crystalline structure were studied. The results showed that the synthetic Ag NCs as a novel effective β-crystal nucleating agent for iPP could promote the overall crystallinity, decrease the size of spherulites, and induce the formation of large amounts of β-crystals in the nanocomposites under quiescent crystallization. The relative content of β-crystals significantly increased with increasing Ag loading, and slightly increased with decreasing crystallization temperature. The quiescent crystallization kinetics was analyzed using the Avrami model. The results showed that the iPP nanocomposites with added Ag NCs had higher crystallization rate constant (k) and lower crystallization half-times (t_1/2) as well as the Avrami exponent (n) than pure iPP, indicating that the presence of Ag NCs acted as heterogeneous nucleating sites and promoted the crystallization rate of iPP.     

Sisal fibers coated with conducting polyaniline: Property and structural studies

Sisal (Agave sisalana) fiber was extracted by manual process. These fibers were subjected to surface coating with conducting polyaniline, through in situ oxidative polymerization. The polyaniline modified sisal fibers were characterized by thermal, spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. It was shown that the fiber was coated with polyaniline through in situ oxidative polymerization and the latter had a smoothing effect on the surface as compared to uncoated sisal fiber. Besides, it was confirmed that polyaniline was deposited in conductive form of emeraldine salt. This in turn verified the introduction of active functionalities to the system, which is helpful to tune up surface chemistry of polyaniline for water treatment applications.