Effect of polyethylene glycol on corrosion of fresh macroporous silicon in 1.0 M NaOH and application in determination of porosity and thickness by gravimetric measurement

Abstract

This work presents on improvement in gravimetric measurement for determining the porosity and thickness of microporous silicon. Herein, the corrosion of fresh macroporous silicon (f-MPSi) in 1.0?M NaOH with different concentrations of polyethylene glycol (PEG 200/400/600) was studied by weight loss measurement and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that the corrosion rate decreased with increasing polyethylene glycol concentration, and increased with an increase in temperature. Polyethylene glycol can inhibit the corrosion of f-MPSi in NaOH solution. Moreover, 1.0?M NaOH/PEG 600 (10%) can be used as the optimized solution to remove f-MPSi for measuring its porosity and thickness by gravimetric measurement.     

Activatable NIR-II Photothermal Lipid Nanoparticles for Improved Messenger RNA Delivery

Endosomal escape remains a central issue limiting the high protein expression of mRNA therapeutics. Here, we present second near-infrared (NIR-II) lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) containing pH activatable NIR-II dye conjugated lipid (Cy-lipid) for potentiating mRNA delivery efficiency via a s timulus-responsive p hotothermal-promoted e ndosomal e scape d elivery (SPEED) strategy. In acidic endosomal microenvironment, Cy-lipid is protonated and turns on NIR-II absorption for light-to-heat transduction mediated by 1064 nm laser irradiation. Then, the heat-promoted LNPs morphology change triggers rapid escape of NIR-II LNPs from the endosome, allowing about 3-fold enhancement of enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) encoding mRNA translation capacity compared to the NIR-II light free group. In addition, the bioluminescence intensity induced by delivered luciferase encoding mRNA in the mouse liver region shows positive correlation with incremental radiation dose, indicating the validity of the SPEED strategy.     

Multi-dimensional Pt–Mo/Co@NC nanocomposites with low platinum contents for methanol oxidation

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - The high cost, CO poisoning, and slow electro-oxidation kinetics of Pt-based noble metal catalysts limit the merchandizing of direct methanol fuel cell....     

Boosting Charge Transport in a 2D/3D Perovskite Heterostructure by Selecting an Ordered 2D Perovskite as the Passivator

We demonstrate that an ordered 2D perovskite can significantly boost the photoelectric performance of 2D/3D perovskite heterostructures. Using selective fluorination of phenyl-ethyl ammonium (PEA) lead iodide to passivate 3D FA_0.8Cs_0.2PbI₃, we find that the 2D/3D perovskite heterostructures passivated by a higher ordered 2D perovskite have lower Urbach energy, yielding a remarkable increase in photoluminescence (PL) intensity, PL lifetime, charge-carrier mobilities (ϕμ), and carrier diffusion length (L_D) for a certain 2D perovskite content. High performance with an ultralong PL lifetime of ≈1.3 μs, high ϕμ of ≈18.56 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, and long L_D of ≈7.85 μm is achieved in the 2D/3D films when passivated by 16.67 % para-fluoro-PEA₂PbI₄. This carrier diffusion length is comparable to that of some perovskite single crystals (>5 μm). These findings provide key missing information on how the organic cations of 2D perovskites influence the performance of 2D/3D perovskite heterostructures.     

Electrocatalytic Synthesis of Essential Amino Acids from Nitric Oxide Using Atomically Dispersed Fe on N-doped Carbon

How to transfer industrial exhaust gases of nitrogen oxides into high-values product is significantly important and challenging. Herein, we demonstrate an innovative method for artificial synthesis of essential α-amino acids from nitric oxide (NO) by reacting with α-keto acids through electrocatalytic process with atomically dispersed Fe supported on N-doped carbon matrix (AD-Fe/NC) as the catalyst. A yield of valine with 32.1 μmol mg_cat⁻¹ is delivered at −0.6 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode, corresponding a selectivity of 11.3 %. In situ X-ray absorption fine structure and synchrotron radiation infrared spectroscopy analyses show that NO as nitrogen source converted to hydroxylamine that promptly nucleophilic attacked on the electrophilic carbon center of α-keto acid to form oxime and subsequent reductive hydrogenation occurred on the way to amino acid. Over 6 kinds of α-amino acids have been successfully synthesized and gaseous nitrogen source can be also replaced by liquid nitrogen source (NO₃⁻). Our findings not only provide a creative method for converting nitrogen oxides into high-valued products, which is of epoch-making significance towards artificial synthesis of amino acids, but also benefit in deploying near-zero-emission technologies for global environmental and economic development.     

Secondary cells and separation in developing laminar curved-pipe flows

Laminar flows through 180° curved bends of circular cross section are investigated numerically. For small curvature ratio, , defined as pipe radius over mean bend radius, the governing equations could be parabolized. The equations are solved for an range of from 0.04 to 0.143, a Dean number (De) range of from 277.5 to 1360, and for a uniform flow, a potential vortex, and a parabolic flow inlet condition. In all these studies a zero cross-stream flow at the inlet is assumed. A detailed study of the effects of , De, and inlet condition on the secondary flow pattern is carried out. Within the range of parameters investigated, up to three secondary cells are found in the cross-stream half-plane of a curved pipe. They are the Dean-type secondary cell, a secondary separation cell near the inner bend (closest to the center of curvature of the bend), and a third cell near the pipe center. The number of secondary cells in the cross-stream half-plane is greatly influenced by the inlet flow, and to a much lesser extent by and De. For example, only the Dean cell is found in a curved-pipe flow where and De are small and the inlet flow is either uniform or a potential vortex. When the inlet condition of the same case is changed to a parabolic flow, a three-cell structure results. Furthermore, as De increases to 1180, incipient axial flow separation begins at around 23° downstream of the curved-pipe entrance. The formation and extent of the separation and third cells are investigated together with their dependence on the parameters studied. This investigation further shows that, within the range of parameters examined, there is no secondary cell occurring near the outer bend, contrary to some earlier findings on fully developed curved-pipe flows.This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research under Grant No. N0014-81-K-0428 and by DTRC, Annapolis, Maryland, under Contract No. N00167-86-K-0075. Also, support in the form of an IPA awarded to RMCS during his sabbatical leave at DTRC, Annapolis, Maryland, in the spring of 1990 is gratefully acknowledged.     

Accurate Higher-Order Analytical Approximate Solutions to Large-Amplitude Oscillating Systems with a General Non-Rational Restoring Force

A new approximate analytical approach for accurate higher-order nonlinear solutions of oscillations with large amplitude is presented in this paper. The oscillatory system is subjected to a non-rational restoring force. This approach is built upon linearization of the governing dynamic equation associated with the method of harmonic balance. Unlike the classical harmonic balance method, simple linear algebraic equations instead of nonlinear algebraic equations are obtained upon linearization prior to harmonic balancing. This approach also explores large parameter regions beyond the classical perturbation methods which in principle are confined to problems with small parameters. It has significant contribution as there exist many nonlinear problems without small parameters. Through some examples in this paper, we establish the general approximate analytical formulas for the exact period and periodic solution which are valid for small as well as large amplitudes of oscillation.     

Quantum Hacking on an Integrated Continuous-Variable Quantum Key Distribution System via Power Analysis

In quantum key distribution (QKD), there are some security loopholes opened by the gaps between the theoretical model and the practical system, and they may be exploited by eavesdroppers (Eve) to obtain secret key information without being detected. This is an effective quantum hacking strategy that seriously threatens the security of practical QKD systems. In this paper, we propose a new quantum hacking attack on an integrated silicon photonic continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CVQKD) system, which is known as a power analysis attack. This attack can be implemented by analyzing the power originating from the integrated electrical control circuit in state preparation with the help of machine learning, where the state preparation is assumed to be perfect in initial security proofs. Specifically, we describe a possible power model and show a complete attack based on a support vector regression (SVR) algorithm. The simulation results show that the secret key information decreases with the increase of the accuracy of the attack, especially in a situation with less excess noise. In particular, Eve does not have to intrude into the transmitter chip (Alice), and may perform a similar attack in practical chip-based discrete-variable quantum key distribution (DVQKD) systems. To resist this attack, the electrical control circuit should be improved to randomize the corresponding power. In addition, the power can be reduced by utilizing the dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) technology.     

Scale Enhancement Pyramid Network for Small Object Detection from UAV Images

Object detection is challenging in large-scale images captured by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), especially when detecting small objects with significant scale variation. Most solutions employ the fusion of different scale features by building multi-scale feature pyramids to ensure that the detail and semantic information are abundant. Although feature fusion benefits object detection, it still requires the long-range dependencies information necessary for small objects with significant scale variation detection. We propose a simple yet effective scale enhancement pyramid network (SEPNet) to address these problems. A SEPNet consists of a context enhancement module (CEM) and feature alignment module (FAM). Technically, the CEM combines multi-scale atrous convolution and multi-branch grouped convolution to model global relationships. Additionally, it enhances object feature representation, preventing features with lost spatial information from flowing into the feature pyramid network (FPN). The FAM adaptively learns offsets of pixels to preserve feature consistency. The FAM aims to adjust the location of sampling points in the convolutional kernel, effectively alleviating information conflict caused by the fusion of adjacent features. Results indicate that the SEPNet achieves an AP score of 18.9% on VisDrone, which is 7.1% higher than the AP score of state-of-the-art detectors RetinaNet achieves an AP score of 81.5% on PASCAL VOC.     

A Unique,Porous C3N4 Nanotube for Electrochemiluminescence with High Emission Intensity and Long-Term Stability: The Role of Calcination Atmosphere

Developing excellent strategies to optimize the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) performance of C₃N₄ materials remains a challenge due to the electrode passivation, causing weak and unstable light emission. A strategy of controlling the calcination atmosphere was proposed to improve the ECL performance of C₃N₄ nanotubes. Interestingly, we found that calcination atmosphere played a key role in specific surface area, pore-size and crystallinity of C₃N₄ nanotubes. The C₃N₄ nanotubes prepared in the Air atmosphere (C₃N₄ NT-Air) possess a larger specific surface area, smaller pore-size and better crystallinity, which is crucial to improve ECL properties. Therefore, more C₃N₄^•− excitons could be produced on C₃N₄ NT-Air, reacting with the SO₄^•− during the electrochemical reaction, which can greatly increase the ECL signal. Furthermore, when C₃N₄ nanotube/K₂S₂O₈ system is proposed as a sensing platform, it offers a high sensitivity, and good selectivity for the detection of Cu²⁺, with a wide linear range of 0.25 nM~1000 nM and a low detection limit of 0.08 nM.