Optimal design of gears contact interface modification for an objective as minimum impact resistance of initial meshing-in time domain

Meccanica - In gear pair actual alternating meshing process, the comprehensive errors of the transmission system and the thermal elastic deformation of the teeth body cause the gears in the meshing...     

Modulating Charge Carrier Efficient Separation Enabled by Lewis Base Modification in Paper-based Photoelectrochemical Sensor

The separation efficiency of charge carriers determines the analytical sensitivity of the paper-based photoelectrochemical sensor. Herein, the Lewis base modification strategy is proposed to promote the carrier separation through an in-situ ion exchange method. Firstly, three-dimensional paper-based hierarchically TiO₂ (PHT) arrays are prepared with the one-step hydrothermal method. With the aid of Lewis base, the photo-induced charge separation efficiency and the photocurrent signal are obviously increased. Ultimately, sensitive sensing of prostate specific antigen (PSA) is achieved and the linear range is 1 pg/mL–100 ng/mL with the detection limitation of 0.3 pg/mL.     

Alkaline oxygen evolution: exploring synergy between fcc and hcp cobalt nanoparticles entrapped in N-doped graphene

Herein, we report a Mott-Schottky catalyst by entrapping cobalt nanoparticles inside the N-doped graphene shell (Co@NC). The Co@NC delivered excellent oxygen evolution activity with an overpotential of merely 248 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm^–2 with promising long-term stability. The importance of Co encapsulated in NC has further been demonstrated by synthesizing Co nanoparticles without NC shell. The synergy between the hexagonal close-packed (hcp) and face-centered cubic (fcc) Co plays a major role to improve the OER activity, whereas the NC shell optimizes the electronic structure, improves the electron conductivity, and offers a large number of active sites in Co@NC. The density functional theory calculations have revealed that the hcp Co has a dominant role in the surface reaction of electrocatalytic oxygen evolution, whereas the fcc phase induces the built-in electric field at the interfaces with N-doped graphene to accelerate the H⁺ ion transport.     

Direct Synthesis of Adipic Esters and Adiponitrile via Photoassisted Cobalt-Catalyzed Alkene Hydrodimerization

The direct hydrodimerization of acrylates and acrylonitrile offers a general streamlined access to industrially important intermediates to nylon 6,6. However, a practical catalytic method for this process has thus far underdeveloped owing to the challenges in regioselectivity and environmental compatibility of applied reagents. Here, we report a cobalt-catalyzed tail-to-tail hydrodimerization of activated alkenes driven by a visible-light photoredox catalysis at ambient temperature, which is applicable to both adipates and adiponitrile synthesis from potentially renewable feedstocks. This protocol utilizes half equivalent of hantzsch ester as a recyclable two-electron and two-proton donor with the assistance of catalytic amount of base as a proton shuttle, and has been shown to be highly regioselective and efficient for hydrodimerizing various activated alkenes to 1,4-difunctionalized butane derivatives.     

Asymmetric nonlinear-mode-conversion in an optical waveguide withPT symmetry

Asymmetric mode transformation in waveguide is of great significance for on-chip integrated devices with one-way effect, while it is challenging to achieve asymmetric nonlinear-mode-conversion (NMC) due to the limitations imposed by phase-matching. In this work, we theoretically proposed a new scheme for realizing asymmetric NMC by combining frequency-doubling process and periodic PT symmetric modulation in an optical waveguide. By engineering the one-way momentum from PT symmetric modulation, we have demonstrated the unidirectional conversion from pump to second harmonic with desired guided modes. Our findings offer new opportunities for manipulating nonlinear optical fields with PT symmetry, which could further boost more exploration on on-chip nonlinear devices assisted by non-Hermitian optics.     

Influence of inherent alkali metal chlorides on pyrolysis mechanism of a lignin model dimer based on DFT study

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - In order to understand the catalytic effects of inherent inorganic elements in biomass on the pyrolysis mechanism of lignin, density functional theory...     

Thermal behaviour of glazed ceramic bodies

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Flower-shaped Ni-doped Fe3O4/SnS2 composite was synthesized by a one-pot solvothermal method, where nanosized Ni-doped Fe3O4 particles were dispersed...     

Catalytic properties of mesoporous materials supported heteropoly acids for Baeyer-Villiger oxidation of cyclic ketones

Three mesoporous molecular sieves loaded silicotungstic acids, named HSiW/SBA-15, HSiW/MCM-41, HSiW/MCM-48, were prepared and characterised by XRD, FT-IR, TEM and SEM. The catalytic performance of the prepared materials for the Baeyer-Villiger oxidation of cyclic ketones was carried out in the presence of 30%H₂O₂ under mild conditions. These loading materials were proved to be efficient and reusable catalysts, they all exhibited excellent catalytic performance for the Baeyer-Villiger oxidation of cyclic ketones with 30% H₂O₂ as oxidant. Many cyclic ketones were efficiently converted to the corresponding lactones with up to 90% conversions and high selectivities under the optimum reaction conditions.

Cyclic ketones were efficiently oxidised by mesoporous materials sopported silicotungstic acid to the corresponding lactones with 30%H₂O₂ as oxidant. All of the catalysts showed promising recyclability in the reactions.     

An improved evaluation of the neutron background in the PandaX-Ⅱ experiment

In dark matter direct detection experiments,neutron is a serious source of background,which can mimic the dark matter-nucleus scattering signals.In this paper,we present an improved evaluation of the neutron background in the PandaX-II dark matter experiment by a novel approach.Instead of fully relying on the Monte Carlo simulation,the overall neutron background is determined from the neutron-induced high energy signals in the data.In addition,the probability of producing a dark-matter-like background per neutron is evaluated with a complete Monte Carlo generator,where the correlated emission of neutron(s)andγ(s)in the(α,n)reactions and spontaneous fissions is taken into consideration.With this method,the neutron backgrounds in the Run 9(26-ton-day)and Run 10(28-ton-day)data sets of PandaX-II are estimated to be(0.66±0.24)and(0.47±0.25)events,respectively.