Metal organic frameworks as advanced extraction adsorbents for separation and analysis in proteomics and environmental research

Science China Chemistry - Human health is always under global spotlight, but now it suffers from severe environmental issue and various diseases. Developing highly selective and effective...     

A composition-free parallel volume rendering method

Journal of Visualization - In the in situ visualization of large-scale simulation, if using the traditional sort-last parallel rendering method, the performance cannot be fully improved due to the...     

A visible light responsive molecularly imprinted photoelectrochemical sensor for the sensitive detection of BSA

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - A molecularly imprinted photoelectrochemical (PEC) cathodic sensor was developed for the detection of bovine serum albumin (BSA). The PEC sensor was...     

基于NiCo2O4纳米片电极的非对称混合电容器

The looming global energy crisis and ever-increasing energy demands have catalyzed the development of renewable energy storage systems. In this regard, supercapacitors (SCs) have attracted widespread attention because of their advantageous attributes such as high power density, excellent cycle stability, and environmental friendliness. However, SCs exhibit low energy density and it is important to optimize electrode materials to improve the overall performance of these devices. Among the various electrode materials available, spinel nickel cobaltate (NiCo₂O₄) is particularly interesting because of its excellent theoretical capacitance. Based on the understanding that the performances of the electrode materials strongly depend on their morphologies and structures, in this study, we successfully synthesized NiCo₂O₄ nanosheets on Ni foam via a simple hydrothermal route followed by calcination. The structures and morphologies of the as-synthesized products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis, and the results showed that they were uniformly distributed on the Ni foam support. The surface chemical states of the elements in the samples were identified by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The as-synthesized NiCo₂O₄ products were then tested as cathode materials for supercapacitors in a traditional three-electrode system. The electrochemical performances of the NiCo₂O₄ electrode materials were studied and the area capacitance was found to be 1.26 C·cm^-2 at a current density of 1 mA·cm^-2. Furthermore, outstanding cycling stability with 97.6% retention of the initial discharge capacitance after 10000 cycles and excellent rate performance (67.5% capacitance retention with the current density from 1 to 14 mA·cm^-2) were achieved. It was found that the Ni foam supporting the NiCo₂O₄ nanosheets increased the conductivity of the electrode materials. However, it is worth noting that the contribution of nickel foam to the areal capacitance of the electrode materials was almost zero during the charge and discharge processes. To further investigate the practical application of the as-synthesized NiCo₂O₄ nanosheets-based electrode, a device was assembled with the as-prepared samples as the positive electrode and active carbon (AC) as the negative electrode. The assembled supercapacitor showed energy densities of 0.14 and 0.09 Wh·cm^-3 at 1.56 and 4.5 W·cm^-3, respectively. Furthermore, it was able to maintain 95% of its initial specific capacitance after 10000 cycles. The excellent electrochemical performance of the NiCo₂O₄ nanosheets could be ascribed to their unique spatial structure composed of interconnected ultrathin nanosheets, which facilitated electron transportation and ion penetration, suggesting their potential applications as electrode materials for high performance supercapacitors. The present synthetic route can be extended to other ternary transition metal oxides/sulfides for future energy storage devices and systems.     

Caterpillars with maximum degree 3 are antimagic

Let $G=(V,E)$ be a connected graph with $m$ edges. An antimagic labeling of $G$ is a one-to-one mapping from $E$ to $\{1,2,\dots ,m\}$ such that the vertex sum (i.e., sum of the labels assigned to edges incident to a vertex) for distinct vertices are different. A graph $G$ is called antimagic if $G$ has an antimagic labeling. It was conjectured by Hartsfield and Ringel that every tree other than $K_2$ is antimagic. The conjecture remains open though it was verified for trees with some constrains. Caterpillars are an important subclass of trees. This paper shows caterpillars with maximum degree 3 are antimagic, which gives an affirmative answer to an open problem of Lozano et al. (2019).     

XANES/EPR Evidence of the Oxidation of Nickel(II) Quinolinylpropioamide and Its Application in Csp3−H Functionalization

An in situ generated oxidation species of nickel quinolinylpropioamide intermediate was produced. Characterization by X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) and EPR provides complementary insights into this oxidized nickel species. With aliphatic amides and isocyanides as substrates, a nickel-catalyzed facile synthesis of structurally diverse five-membered lactams could be achieved.     

Non-isothermal thermogravimetric analysis of pyrolysis kinetics of four oil shales using Sestak–Berggren method

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - In this study, the non-isothermal pyrolysis method was used to investigate the pyrolysis characteristics of oil shale from four areas: namely Nongan,...     

Amphiphilic Graft Copolymers of Hydroxypropyl Cellulose Backbone with Nonpolar Polyisobutylene Branches

The novel amphiphilic graft copolymers with hydrophilic hard polar hydroxypropyl cellulose(HPC) backbone and hydrophobic soft nonpolar polyisobutylene(PIB) branches have been successfully synthesized through nucleophilic substitution reaction of living PIB chains carrying oxonium ions with the-OH groups along HPC backbone. The PIB branch length in the graft copolymers could be designed by living cationic polymerization and the grafting density could be adjusted by PIB~+/-OH molar ratio. The living PIB chains carrying oxonium ion were prepared by transformation of allyl bromide end groups in the presence of AgClO_4 and silver nanoparticles(3.2±0.3 nm, 0.7 wt%-1.8 wt%)generated in situ from AgBr. The phase-separation morphology was formed in the graft copolymers due to their incompatibility between backbone and branches. The hydrophilicity on the surface of graft copolymer films could be turned to hydrophobicity by increasing grafting density or/and length of PIB branches. The soft PIB segments in graft copolymers provided an unique surface via self-assembly for anti-protein adsorption against bovine serum albumin. A small amount of Ag nanoparticles in the copolymers contributed to good antibacterial activities against Staphylococcus aureus or Escherichia coli.     

BiVO4/TiO2 heterojunction with rich oxygen vacancies for enhanced electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction

The large-scale production of ammonia mainly depends on the Haber–Bosch process, which will lead to the problems of high energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission. Electrochemical nitrogen fixation is considered to be an environmental friendly and sustainable process, but its efficiency largely depends on the activity and stability of the catalyst. Therefore, it is imperative to develop highefficient electrocatalysts in the field of nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR). In this paper, we developed a BiVO₄/TiO₂ nanotube (BiVO₄/TNT) heterojunction composite with rich oxygen vacancies as an electrocatalytic NRR catalyst. The heterojunction interface and oxygen vacancy of BiVO₄/TNT can be the active site of N₂ dynamic activation and proton transition. The synergistic effect of TiO₂ and BiVO₄ shortens the proton transport path and reduces the over potential of chemical reaction. BiVO₄/TNT has high ammonia yield of 8.54 μg·h⁻¹·cm⁻² and high Faraday efficiency of 7.70% in −0.8 V vs. RHE in 0.1 M Na₂SO₄ solution.     

Bicomponent Cocatalyst Decoration on Flux-assisted CaTaO2N Single Crystals for Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction under Visible Light

Cubic-like CaTaO₂N photocatalysts with high crystallinity and uniform particle size were successfully prepared by the flux-assisted nitridation method. The growth of CaTaO₂N single crystals under different synthesis conditions was systematically investigated to understand the effects of the crystallinity and optical property on photocatalytic performance of CO₂ reduction. Moreover, the modification of CaTaO₂N single crystals with core-shell Ni−Ag bicomponent cocatalyst by two-step decoration process gave a 2.4 times higher amount of CO evolution than the deposition of sole Ag cocatalyst, because of the synergistic effects of bicomponent cocatalyst on the interfacial electron transfer and surface catalytic process. This study provides a valuable way to construct high-crystalline photocatalysts with effective bicomponent cocatalyst for visible-light-driven CO₂ reduction with H₂O.