The smallest man‐made jet engine

The design of catalytic engines powered by chemical fuels is an exciting and emerging field in multidisciplinary scientific communities. Recent progress in nanotechnology has enabled scientists to shrink the size of macroengines down to microscopic, but yet powerful, engines. Since a couple of years ago, we have reported our progress towards the control and application of catalytic microtubular engines powered by the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide fuel which produces a thrust of oxygen bubbles. Efforts were undertaken in our group to prove whether the fabrication of nanoscale jets is possible. Indeed, the smallest jet engine (600 nm in diameter and 1 picogram of weight) was synthesized based on heteroepitaxially grown layers. These nanojets are able to self‐propel in hydrogen peroxide solutions and are promising for the realisation of multiple tasks. DOI 10.1002/tcr.201100010     

Rolled-up nanotech on polymers: from basic perception to self-propelled catalytic microengines

In this tutorial review we describe the recent progress on catalytic microtubular engines fabricated by rolled-up nanotech on polymers. We summarize the technical aspects of the technology and the basic principles that cause the catalytic microengines to self-propel in fuel solutions. The control over speed, directionality and interactions of the microengines to perform tasks such as cargo transportation is also discussed. We compare this technology to other fabrication techniques of catalytic micro-/nanomotors and outline challenges and opportunities for such engines in future studies. Since rolled-up nanotech on polymers can easily integrate almost any type of inorganic material, huge potential and advanced performance such as high speed, cargo delivery, motion control, and dynamic assembly are foreseen--ultimately promising a practical way to construct versatile and intelligent catalytic tubular microrobots.     

Fabrication of Microtubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cells by Film Compaction and Co-Sintering

The microtubular design of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), which are promising electrochemical power sources, has a number of significant advantages over traditional planar and tubular designs: increased resistance to the cell (stack) heating rate and packing density of cells in a stack. The paper presents results on the development of a microtubular SOFC (MT-SOFC) fabrication method based on compaction and co-sintering a set of films. The formation of an anode-supported MT-SOFC having a Ni-cermet collector (support) and functional layers of about 300 and 50 μm thick, respectively; a Zr_0.84Y_0.16O_2–δ solid electrolyte layer (40 μm); and a cathode based on La_0.7Sr_0.3MnO_3–δ has been developed. The outer diameter and length of the MT-SOFC were 3.9 and 12 mm, respectively. The maximum specific power generated by the MT-SOFC at 850°C was 0.21 W/cm².     

Morphogenesis of polyoxometalate cluster-based materials to microtubular network architectures

Pressed pellets of polyoxometalate (POM)-based materials are shown to undergo morphogenesis to produce microtubular network architectures without the need for a large single crystal precursor. The compression of the POM material into a pellet lowers the solubility sufficiently to allow tube initiation and growth from POMs that would otherwise be too soluble in their native crystalline state, thus yielding hollow, highly controllable, tubes of diameter 10-100 μm.     

柴油机尾气净化催化剂的最新研究进展

柴油机尾气排放的污染物已经引起了严重的环境污染问题,催化净化技术是柴油机尾气污染治理必不可少和最有效的处理技术之一,而高效催化剂的研制和开发是催化净化技术的核心.本文以柴油机尾气中最难处理的两种污染物NOx和碳烟颗粒(PM)的催化处理技术为主线,综述了NOx的催化还原(选择性催化还原(SCR)和贮存还原(NSR))催化剂、碳烟的催化燃烧催化剂、NOx和碳烟颗粒同时消除的催化剂及柴油机尾气四效催化剂的最新研究进展,并总结性地提出了目前该研究方向存在的主要问题和发展方向.     

A novel multistep dip-coating method for the fabrication of anode-supported microtubular solid oxide fuel cells

A novel multistep dip-coating method was developed and successfully applied to the fabrication of anode-supported microtubular solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) using carbon rods as combustible cores. The fabricated microtubular SOFCs consisted of Ni-yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), YSZ, strontium-doped lanthanum manganite (LSM)–YSZ, and LSM as the anode, electrolyte, cathode, and cathode current collector materials, respectively. To investigate the role of anode porosity on cell performance, two types of anode supports were prepared: one without a pore former and the other with a 10 wt.% graphite pore former. The microstructural features of the microtubular SOFCs were examined using scanning electron microscope images whereas the electrochemical performance was characterized by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements as well as I–V characteristic curves. The results showed that the method used is a simple and low-cost alternative to conventional methods for the fabrication of microtubular SOFCs. We found that the anode porosity played an important role in improving the overall performance of the microtubular SOFC by reducing the concentration polarization.     

Design and Fabrication of Tubular Micro/Nanomotors via 3D Laser Lithography

Catalytic tubular micro/nanomachines convert chemical energy from a surrounding aqueous fuel solution into mechanical energy to generate autonomous movements, propelled by the oxygen bubbles decomposed by hydrogen peroxide and expelled from the microtubular cavity. With the development of nanotechnology, micro/nanomotors have attracted more and more interest due to their numerous potential for in vivo and in vitro applications. Here, highly efficient chemical catalytic microtubular motors were fabricated via 3D laser lithography and their motion behavior under the action of driving force in fluids was demonstrated. The frequency of catalytically‐generated bubbles ejection was influenced by the geometrical shape of the micro/nanomotor and surrounding chemical fuel environment, resulting in the variation in motion speed. The micro/nanomotors generated with a rocket‐like shape displayed a more active motion compared with that of a single tubular micro/nanomotor, providing a wider range of practical micro‐/nanoscale applications in the future.     

Syntheses and biological evaluation of vinblastine congeners

Sixty-two congeners of vinblastine (VLB), primarily with modifications of the piperidine ring in the carbomethoxycleavamine moiety of the binary alkaloid, were synthesized and evaluated for cytotoxicity against murine L1210 leukemia and RCC-2 rat colon cancer cells, and for their ability to inhibit polymerization of microtubular protein at < 10(-6) M, and for induction of spiralization of microtubular protein, and for microtubular disassembly at 10(-4) M concentrations. An ID50 range of >10(7) M concentrations was found for L1210 inhibition by these compounds, with the most active 1000x as potent as vinblastine.     

Comparison of different search engines using validated MS/MS test datasets

Massive amounts of tandem mass spectra are produced in high-throughput proteomics studies. The manual interpretation of these spectra is not feasible. Instead, search engines are used to match the tandem mass spectra with sequence information contained in proteomics and genomics databases. Typically, these search engines provide a list of the best matching peptide sequences for an individual tandem mass spectrum. As well, they provide scores that are somewhat related to the confidence level in the match. Many peptide tandem mass spectra search engines have been reported. These search engines provide very different results depending on the type of mass spectrometers used and their input parameters. Here we describe a comparative analysis of different search engines using validated test sets of tandem mass spectra. We have defined test sets of MS/MS spectra derived from high throughput proteomics experiments performed by HPLC-ESI-MS/MS on ion trap (LCQ) and tandem quadrupole time-of-flight instruments with a pulsar functionality (Qstar Pulsar) mass spectrometers. We analyzed the ability of the different search engines to identify the correct peptides, and the cross-validations of the different search engines.     

Experimental studies on the impact of part-cooled high-pressure loop EGR on the combustion and emission characteristics of liquefied petroleum gas

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Liquefied petroleum gas is preferred and adopted in automotive engines because of its efficient burning and cleaner emission characteristics. Since LPG...     

Improvement of Performance of Oxygen-Conducting Membranes by Electric Heating

Alternating current heating of microtubular oxygen-conducting membranes was studied for the first time. In this case, oxygen–electron mixed-conduction membranes simultaneously act as a heater and an oxygen separator. The efficiency of the alternative heating method was tested on microtubular Ba_0.5Sr_0.5Co_0.78W_0.02Fe_0.2O_3–δ membranes produced by phase inversion. Alternating current heating of microtubular membranes ensures higher membrane performance in oxygen separation at T < 900°C and noticeably decreases the starting period and the lag in varying temperature conditions.     

柴油车尾气排放PM2.5氧化消除催化剂的设计、制备与催化作用

柴油机尾气中的炭烟颗粒(PM2.5)已经引起了严重的环境污染问题,作为控制柴油车尾气中炭烟颗粒使用最有效和最经济的技术手段—催化净化技术成为当前研究的热点,而开发高效的催化剂是催化净化技术中最活跃、最重要的因素.本文总结了近年来柴油炭烟燃烧催化剂的最新研究进展,重点介绍了本研究组近年来在柴油炭烟氧化催化剂的设计、制备和催化作用机理方面的研究结果和进展,主要包括:低共熔点催化剂、纳米催化剂、三维有序大孔催化剂及三维有序大孔氧化物担载贵金属催化剂的最新研究进展,并报道了上述催化剂对炭烟燃烧的反应机理.最后,总结性地提出了目前炭烟催化燃烧中存在的主要问题和发展方向.     

A High-Performance and Flexible Chemical Structure & Data Search Engine Built on CouchDB & ElasticSearch

Computer-assisted chemical structure searching plays a critical role for efficient structure screening in cheminformatics. We designed a high-performance chemical structure & data search engine called DCAIKU, built on CouchDB and ElasticSearch engines. DCAIKU converts the chemical structure similarity search problem into a general text search problem to utilize off-the-shelf full-text search engines. DCAIKU also supports flexible document structures and heterogeneous datasets with the help of schema-less document database. Our evaluations show that DCAIKU can handle both keyword search and structural search against millions of records with both high accuracy and low latency. We expect that DCAIKU will lay the foundation towards large-scale and cost-effective structural search in materials science and chemistry research.     

Rapid determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the exhaust gases of direct-injecting Diesel engines by HPLC

A rapid HPLC procedure is introduced that allows the quantification of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in the exhaust gases of direct injecting Diesel engines. A branch stream of the motor exhaust gas is passed through a cooler and a filter. Then the cooler rinsing phase and the soot collected on the filter are extracted with toluene. The clean-up is carried out by solid phase extraction and thin-layer chromatography. Using this method, which is reproducible with high precision, a great number of samples may be analysed in a cost and time efficient manner, even when other rapid procedures fail.     

A microtubular all CNT gas diffusion electrode

We report a microtubular gas diffusion electrodes made of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). The electrodes were prepared by inside-out cake filtration of an aqueous MWCNT suspension onto a microfiltration hollow fiber (HF) membrane, followed by washing out the surfactant, drying and removal of the all CNT microtube from the HF membrane. Length, outer diameter, and wall thickness of the tubular electrodes are: up to 44 cm, ~ 1.7 mm and 275 μm, respectively. The BET surface area is 200 m²/g with a porosity of 48–67% and an electrical conductivity of ~ 20 S/cm. Application of this microtubular Gas Diffusion Electrodes (GDE) was studied for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in divided and undivided electrochemical cells. Oxygen supply into the lumen of the tubular electrodes resulted in much higher current densities for ORR than in experiments where the electrolyte was saturated by bubbling with pure oxygen. Within the 0.25–1.0 bar pressure (gauge) region, higher ORR rates were achieved at lower pressure. We also show that H₂O₂ production is possible using the new GDE. We propose to use such novel electrodes for the fabrication of tubular electrochemical reactors, e.g. fuel cells, H₂O₂ generators, CO₂ reduction and other processes that involve GDE application.     

High-Performance Chemical Information Database towards Accelerating Discovery of Metal-Organic Frameworks for Gas Adsorption with Machine Learning

Chemical structure searching based on databases and machine learning has attracted great attention recently for fast screening materials with target functionalities. To this end, we established a high-performance chemical structure database based on MYSQL engines, named MYDB. More than 160000 metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been collected and stored by using new retrieval algorithms for efficient searching and recommendation. The evaluations results show that MYDB could realize fast and efficient keyword searching against millions of records and provide real-time recommendations for similar structures. Combining machine learning method and materials database, we developed an adsorption model to determine the adsorption capacitor of metal-organic frameworks toward argon and hydrogen under certain conditions. We expect that MYDB together with the developed machine learning techniques could support large-scale, low-cost, and highly convenient structural research towards accelerating discovery of materials with target functionalities in the field of computational materials research.     

Characterization of Diesel Soot Particles Using Field-Flow Fractionation

Diesel engines have advantages over gasoline engines as they have higher thermal efficiency (thus producing less CO and hydrocarbons) and higher durability. Despite these merits, heavy-duty diesel engines are regarded as one of major sources of air-polluting particulate matters (soot) which are mainly fine carbonaceous particles. Environmental effects of diesel soot depend on the size and size distribution of the soot particles.     

Preparation of microtubular solid oxide fuel cells based on highly asymmetric structured electrolyte hollow fibers

A simple and cost-effective method has been developed for the fabrication of microtubular solid oxide fuel cells (MT-SOFCs). Highly asymmetric electrolyte hollow fibers composed of a thin dense skin layer and a thick porous substrate are first prepared by a modified phase inversion/sintering technique. The porous substrate is then formed into the anode by deposition of a Ni catalyst via an electroless plating method inside the pores while the thin dense skin layer serves directly as the electrolyte film of ...     

基于高度非对称结构电解质中空纤维的微管式固体氧化物燃料电池制备

提出了一种简单而方便的微管式固体氧化物燃料电池(MT-SOFCs)的制备新方法.首先应用改进相转化-烧结技术制备由致密电解质表皮薄层和多孔支撑层构成的高度非对称结构电解质中空纤维膜(微管),在电解质中空纤维膜的多孔支撑层内通过化学镀法沉积Ni催化剂作为电池阳极,而致密电解质表皮层直接作为电解质膜,在电解质微管外表面用浆料涂层法制备电池的多孔阴极,烧结后即得到完整的MT-SOFC.应用该方法制备了Ni-YSZ|YSZ|LSCF微管式电池,该电池以H2/空气作原料气,在800℃时最大输出功率达到159.6mWcm-2.     

All-Fiber Tunable Pulsed 1.7 μm Fiber Lasers Based on Stimulated Raman Scattering of Hydrogen Molecules in Hollow-Core Fibers

Fiber lasers that operate at 1.7 μm have important applications in many fields, such as biological imaging, medical treatment, etc. Fiber gas Raman lasers (FGRLs) based on gas stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HC-PCFs) provide an elegant way to realize efficient 1.7 μm fiber laser output. Here, we report the first all-fiber structure tunable pulsed 1.7 μm FGRLs by fusion splicing a hydrogen-filled HC-PCF with solid-core fibers. Pumping with a homemade tunable pulsed 1.5 μm fiber amplifier, efficient 1693~1705 nm Stokes waves are obtained by hydrogen molecules via SRS. The maximum average output Stokes power is 1.63 W with an inside optical–optical conversion efficiency of 58%. This work improves the compactness and stability of 1.7 μm FGRLs, which is of great significance to their applications.