Full bagasse bio-waste derived 3D photothermal aerogels for high efficient solar steam generation

Nowadays, freshwater shortage, energy crisis and environmental pollution are the three major threats to human beings. Bio-waste is an important source of environmental pollutant emissions and a renewable resource with great potential. Herein, we develop a photothermal material based on bagasse for solar steam generation to relieve the freshwater crisis and mitigate environmental pollution caused by bio-waste. The mainly functional part of the solar-driven steam generator here is bagasse-based photothermal aerogel (B-PTA), which composes of carbonized bagasse (CB) and bagasse-derived cellulose fiber (BDCF). The B-PTA relying on CB can effectively absorb sunlight (~?95%), resulting in a prominent light-to-heat ability. The B-PTA with DBCF has super-hydrophilicity, water transport and retention ability. Depending on the excellent light absorption and 3D water passageway, the B-PTA gives a water evaporation rate of 1.36 kg m^–2 h^–1, and achieves a photothermal conversion efficiency of 77.34% under 1-sun illumination (1 kW m^–2). The B-PTA shows remarkable stability that the efficiency without significant change after 20 cycles. In addition, the B-PTA can effectively desalt seawater and purify dye wastewater with natural sunlight. Therefore, turning bio-waste into valuable photothermal material for solar steam generation is possible. Due to the merits of low cost, scalability, environmental friendliness, B-PTA has the potential for real-world water purification.

Graphical abstract

     

The role of ion–neutral complexes in the reactions of onium ions and related species

An account is given of the development of the proposal that ion–neutral complexes are involved in the unimolecular reactions of onium ions (R¹R²C?Z⁺R³; Z = O, S, NR⁴; R¹, R², R³, R⁴ = H, C_nH_{2n + 1}), with particular emphasis on the informative C₄H₉O⁺ oxonium ion system (Z = O; R¹, R² = H; R³ = C₃H₇). Current ideas on the role of ion-neutral complexes in cation rearrangements, hydrogen transfer processes and more complex isomerizations are illustrated by considering the behaviour of isomeric CH₃CH₂CH₂X⁺ and (CH₃)₂CHX⁺ species [X = CH₂O, CH₃CHO, H₂O, CH₃OH, NH₃, NH₂CH₃, NH(CH₃)₂, CH₂?NH, CH₂?NCH₃, CO, CH₃˙, Br˙ and I˙]. Attention is focused on the importance of four energetic factors (the stabilization energy of the ion–neutral complex, the energy released by rearrangement of the cationic component, the enthalpy change for proton transfer between the partners of the ion neutral complex and the ergicity of recombination of the components) which influence the reactivity of the complexes. The nature and extent of the chemistry involving ion-neutral complexes depend on the relative magnitudes of these parameters. Thus, when the magnitude of the stabilization energy exceeds the energy released by cation rearrangement, the ergicity of proton transfer is small, and recombination of the components in a new way is energetically favourable, extensive complex-mediated isomerizations tend to occur. Loss of H₂O from metastable CH₂?O⁺C₃H₇ ions is an example of such a reaction. Conversely, if the stabilization energy is small compared with the magnitude of the energy released by eation rearrangement, the opportunities for complex-mediated processes to become manifest are decreased, especially if proton transfer is endoergic. Thus, CH₃CH₂CH₂CO⁺ expels CO, with an increased kinetic energy release, after rate-limiting isomerization of CH₃CH₂CH₂⁺? CO to (CH₃)₂CH⁺? CO has taken place. When proton transfer between the components of the complex is strongly exoergic, fragmentation corresponding to single hydrogen transfer occurs readily. The proton-transfer step is often preceded by cation rearrangement for CH₃CH₂CH₂X⁺ species. In such circumstances, the involvement of ion–neutral complexes can be detected by the observation of unusual site selectivity in the hydrogen-transfer step. Thus, C₃H₆ loss from CH₂?N⁺(R¹)CH₂CH₂CH₃ (R¹ = H, CH₃, C₃H₇) immonium ions is found by ²H-labelling experiments to proceed via preferential α-and γ-hydrogen transfer; this finding is explained if the incipient ⁺CH₂CH₂CH₃ ion isomerizes to CH₃CH⁺CH₃ prior to proton abstraction. In contrast, the isomeric CH₂?N⁺(R¹)CH(CH₃)₂ species undergo specific β-hydrogen transfer because the developing CH₃CH⁺CH₃ cation is stable with respect to rearrangements involving a 1,2-H shift.     

Electron ionization and chemical ionization mass spectra of pyridinium and isoquinolinium ylides

Electron ionization (EI) spectra and both positive and negative chemical ionization (CI) spectra have been obtained for four isoquinolinium ylides and two pyridinium ylides. Electron transfer reactions dominate the CI mass specra. The base peak in negative chemical ionization is the [M]^?· ion, formed by electron capture. In the positive methane CI spectra the molecular ion, [M]^+·, is relatively more intense than [MH]⁺ showing electron transfer to be the main positive ionization process. In the positive ammonia CI spectra, proton transfer to give [MH]⁺ is the main ionization process, but electron transfer is also observed. The EI spectra show fragmentations in which the aromatic nitrogen moiety retains the charge and fragmentation is by loss of radicals or small neutral molecules from the side-chains. Radical driven reactions are proposed to explain these spectra.     

Loss of methyl radical from some small immonium ions: Unusual violation of the even-electron rule

Several small immonium ions of general formula \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ {\rm R}^{\rm 1} {\rm R}^{\rm 2} {\rm C = }\mathop {\rm N}\limits^{\rm + } {\rm R}^{\rm 3} {\rm CH}_{\rm 3} $\end{document} (R¹, R², R³ = H or alkyl) eliminate ^.CH₃; this reaction occurs in the mass spectrometer in both fast (source) and slow (metastable) dissociations. Such behaviour violates the even-electron rule, which states that closed-shell cations usually decompose to give closed-shell daughter ions and neutral molecules. The heats of formation of the observed product ions (for example, [(CH₃)₂C?NH]^+.) can be bracketed using arguments based on energy data. Deuterium labelling results reveal that the methyl group originally bound to nitrogen is not necessarily lost in the course of dissociation. Thus, for instance, \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ {\rm{(CH}}_{\rm{3}})_2 = \mathop {\rm{N}}\limits^{\rm{ + }} {\rm{HCD}}_{\rm{3}} $\end{document} eliminates both CH₃^. and CD₃^., via different mechanisms, but very little CH₂D^. or CHD₂^. loss occurs.     

Visualisation of an ultrafiltration membrane by non-contact atomic force microscopy at single pore resolution

Non-contact atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been used to investigate the furface pore structure of a polyethersulfone ultrafitration membrane of specified molecular weight cut off (MWCO) 25 000 (ES625, PCI Membrane Systems). Excellent images at up to single pore resolution were obtained. This is the first time that AFM images of a membrane at such high resolution have been presented. Analysis of the images gave a mean pore size of 5.1 nm with a standard deviation of 1.1 nm. The results have been compared to previously published studies of membranes of comparable MWCO using contact AFM and electron microscopy. Non-contact AFM is a powerful means of studying the surface pore characteristics of ultrafiltration membranes.     

Reinforcement of solid‐melt interfaces for semicrystalline polymers in a sequential two‐staged injection molding process

The solid‐melt interfaces between polyethylene (PE) and polyamide 6 (PA6) reinforced by in situ reactive compatibilization in a sequential two‐staged injection molding process has been studied in this work. The effects of the maleic anhydride grafted PE content and processing parameters, such as injection pressure, injection speed, melt temperature, and mold temperature, on the interfacial adhesion were investigated experimentally. The results of the interfacial adhesion characterized by lap shear measurement showed that the interfacial temperature and heat transfer between PE and PA6 interfaces play a very significant role in the bonding process. The fracture surfaces of the specimens prepared at different calculated interfacial temperature were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), which suggested that the fracture failure changes from adhesive to cohesive failure with increasing interfacial temperature. The contribution of crystalline parts of the in situ formed copolymers to the enhancement in interfacial adhesion also was determined by DSC analysis. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 47: 1112–1124, 2009     

Zur Bestimmung der Minerals?uren im Essig

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Erratum to: “The Gromov norm of the product of two surfaces” [Topology 44 (2005) 321–339]

We report an error in the proof of Lemma 2.7 of the original article. This invalidates one direction of our main theorem.