Preface: Mechanics of soft materials and flexible structures

Acta Mechanica Sinica -     

Study on propagation efficiency and fidelity of subthreshold signal in feed-forward hybrid neural network under electromagnetic radiation

Nonlinear Dynamics - The hybrid neural model provides a computationally effective and biophysics-based neuron behavior model, which maintains its simplicity by incorporating the dynamics...     

Investigation of Relationships between Grain Structure and Inhomogeneous Deformation by Means of Laboratory-Based Multimodal X-Ray Tomography: Strain Accuracy Analysis

Experimental Mechanics - The internal strain distribution developing during plastic deformation is important for understanding the mechanical properties of polycrystalline materials. Such...     

Robustness of the Spin-Navigator Based Method for the Manipulation of the Beam Polarization Axis in a Spin-Transparent Storage Ring

Physics of Atomic Nuclei - We have investigated the robustness of the spin-navigator based method for manipulating the beam polarization to bend magnet installation errors. Toward that end,...     

Neutron Scattering Techniques and Complementary Methods for Structural and Functional Studies of Biological Macromolecules and Large Macromolecular Complexes

Crystallography Reports - The review describes the application of small-angle scattering (SAS) of neutrons and complementary methods to study the structures of biomacromolecules. Here we cover SAS...     

Supertime and Pauli’s Principle

Russian Physics Journal - Connection of Pauli’s principle with the nontrivial structure of the fermion supertime is shown. When supersymmetry is localized as supergravitation, fields of...     

Secondary Metabolites of Litchi chinensis

Chemistry of Natural Compounds -     

Effect of Temperature on the Electrorheological Behavior of Porous Chitosan Particles in Polydimethylsiloxane

Doklady Physical Chemistry - The rheological behavior of a 1 wt % suspension of highly porous chitosan particles in polydimethylsiloxane in a high electric field has been studied as a function of...     

Solar light-driven photocatalytic production of hypochlorous acid over Pt/WO3 in seawater for marine antifouling

The hypochlorous acid (HCIO) was synthesized from seawater by the Pt/WO₃ photocatalyst under visible-light irradiation. The effect of WO₃ morphology and Pt loading on the performance of the composite photocatalyst for the production of HCIO has been studied in detail. The study found that among the series of materials, hollow WO₃ microspheres with a diameter of about 3 μm loaded with 1.0 wt% Pt have the best HCIO production performance. Over it, 14.52 μM of HClO (1.24 mg/L of free chlorine) was accumulated in 0.5 M NaCl solution after 2 h of visible-light photoirradiation. What is more, the concentration of HClO can reach 4.34 μM (0.354 mg/L free chlorine) in natural seawater for 1 h using this Pt/WO₃ photocatalyst. Under visible-light irradiation, the Pt/WO₃ photocatalyst has a good broad-spectrum antibacterial activity and the activity of inhibiting marine fouling algae. The Pt/WO₃ photocatalyst has high stability and reusability. All these characteristics are conducive to the application in the field of marine antifouling. Moreover, the photocatalytic reaction mechanism was evaluated by studying the photoelectrochemical properties of Pt/WO₃/FTO. This research provides a new strategy for replacing the traditional electrolytic marine antifouling system with the visible-light-catalyzed HClO production system.

     

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.