Effect of Manganese Valence on Specific Capacitance in Supercapacitors of Manganese Oxide Microspheres

Manganese oxides have attracted great interest in electrochemical energy storage due to high theoretical specific capacitance and abundant valence states. The multiple valence states in the redox reactions are beneficial for enhancing the electrochemical properties. Herein, three manganese microspheres were prepared by a one-pot hydrothermal method and subsequent calcination at different temperatures using carbon spheres as templates. The trivalent manganese of Mn₂O₃ exhibited multiple redox transitions of Mn³⁺/Mn²⁺ and Mn⁴⁺/Mn³⁺ during the intercalation/deintercalation of electrolyte ions. The possible redox reactions of Mn₂O₃ were proposed based on the cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammogram results. Mn₂O₃ microsphere integrated the advantages of multiple redox couples and unique structure, demonstrating a high specific capacitance and long cycling stability. The symmetric Mn₂O₃//Mn₂O₃ device yielded a maximum energy density of 29.3 Wh kg⁻¹ at 250 W kg⁻¹.     

Sustainable and Robust Graphene Cellulose Paper Decorated with Lithiophilic Au Nanoparticles to Enable Dendrite-free and High-Power Lithium Metal Anode

Lithium metal anodes (LMAs) with high energy density have recently captured increasing attention for development of next-generation batteries. However, practical viability of LMAs is hindered by the uncontrolled Li dendrite growth and infinite dimension change. Even though constructing 3D conductive skeleton has been regarded as a reliable strategy to prepare stable and low volume stress LMAs, engineering the renewable and lithiophilic conductive scaffold is still a challenge. Herein, a robust conductive scaffold derived from renewable cellulose paper, which is coated with reduced graphene oxide and decorated with lithiophilic Au nanoparticles, is engineered for LMAs. The graphene cellulose fibres with high surface area can reduce the local current density, while the well-dispersed Au nanoparticles can serve as lithiophilic nanoseeds to lower the nucleation overpotential of Li plating. The coupled relationship can guarantee uniform Li nucleation and unique spherical Li growth into 3D carbon matrix. Moreover, the natural cellulose paper possesses outstanding mechanical strength to tolerate the volume stress. In virtue of the modulated deposition behaviour and near-zero volume change, the hybrid LMAs can achieve reversible Li plating/stripping even at an ultrahigh current density of 10 mA cm⁻² as evidenced by high Coulombic efficiency (97.2 % after 60 cycles) and ultralong lifespan (1000 cycles) together with ultralow overpotential (25 mV). Therefore, this strategy sheds light on a scalable approach to multiscale design versatile Li host, promising highly stable Li metal batteries to be feasible and practical.     

Mannose‐based graft polyesters with tunable binding affinity to concanavalin A

Glycopolymers have been widely used to understand the interactions between carbohydrates and lectins, which facilitate the diagnosis and detection of disease and pathogens as well as the development of vaccines. While studies have been focused on the correlation of glycopolymer structure and their binding to lectins, graft‐type glycopolyesters are uncommon. Herein, we report the design and synthesis of mannose‐based graft polyesters by “grafting‐from” method and investigate their interactions with Concanavalin A (Con A). As confirmed by ¹H NMR spectroscopy and sulfuric acid‐UV method, graft polyesters with different lengths of mannose graft were successfully synthesized. Our results from turbidimetry binding assay showed that graft polyesters with longer mannose graft exhibit higher initial binding rate (k_i). Isothermal titration calorimetry measurements of these graft polyesters with Con A showed that polymers exhibit higher binding affinity (k_a) with the number of side chain mannose. This study provides understanding of the interaction between Con A and mannose‐based graft polyesters, which can be employed for the development of glycopolymeric therapeutics. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2017 , 55, 3908–3917     

Controlling domain orientation of liquid crystalline block copolymer in thin films through tuning mesogenic chemical structures

Controlling the macroscopic orientation of nanoscale periodic structures of amphiphilic liquid crystalline block copolymers (LC BCPs) is important to a variety of technical applications (e.g., lithium conducting polymer electrolytes). To study LC BCP domain orientation, a series of LC BCPs containing a poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) block as a conventional hydrophilic coil block and LC blocks containing azobenzene mesogens is designed and synthesized. LC ordering in thin films of the BCP leads to the formation of highly ordered, microphase‐separated nanostructures, with hexagonally arranged PEO cylinders. Substitution on the tail of the azobenzene mesogen is shown to control the orientation of the PEO cylinders. When the substitution on the mesogenic tails is an alkyl chain, the PEO cylinders have a perpendicular orientation to the substrate surface, provided the thin film is above a critical thickness value. In contrast, when the substitution on the mesogenic tails has an ether group the PEO cylinders assemble parallel to the substrate surface regardless of the film thickness value. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2017 , 55, 532–541     

Physical gelation and macromolecular mobility of sustainable polylactide during isothermal crystallization

The mobility of free macromolecular chains is of importance to the growth of crystallites in a crystallizing sustainable polylactide (PLA), which was scarcely explored by rheology. In this study, the time‐resolved rheological properties for PLA during isothermal crystallization were investigated first, showing that the storage and loss modulus experience 2–3 decades of increase. The Avrami analysis reveals that the crystallization kinetics in rheological measurement protocol follows the homogeneous nucleation and three‐dimensional growth mechanism. The linear viscoelastic properties in the vicinity of physical gelation point were then studied at the inverse quenching temperature of 165 °C. The results show that physical gelation occurs when the critical absolute crystallinity reaches 13% as determined by the rheological method. Relaxation time spectra reveal that the interfacial relaxation is greatly retarded but the presence of growing spherulites possesses little constraint on the mobility of free chains in matrix especially before physical gelation point. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2017 , 55, 1235–1244     

Progress in fluorene-based wide-bandgap steric semiconductors

Molecular bulks are favorable for the thermal and morphological stability in organic wide-bandgap semiconducting polymers with potential applications in both information and energy electronics. In this review, we present our progress in the design of fluorene-based bulky semiconductors with a fractal four-element pattern. Firstly, we established one-pot methods to spirofluorenes, especially spiro[fluorene-9,9′-xanthene](SFX) serving as the next-generation spiro-based semiconductors. Secondly, we observed the supramolecular forces at the bulky groups and discovered the supramolecular steric hindrance(SSH) effect on polymorphisms, nanocrystals as well as device performance. Thus, a synergistically molecular attractor-repulsor theory(SMART) was proposed for the control of nanocrystal morphology, thin film phase and morphology. Thirdly, the third possible type of defects has been identified to generate green band(g-band) emission in widebandgap semiconductors by the introduction of molecular strain design of cyclofluorene. Finally, the first bulky polydiarylfluorene with highly crystalline and β conformation was achieved by an attractor-repulsor design of tadpole-shape monomer, which offered an effective platform to fabricate stable wide-bandgap semiconducting devices. All the discoveries offer the solid basis to break through bottlenecks of organic/polymer wide-bandgap semiconductors by the improvements of overall performances.     

Multi-bond network hydrogels with robust mechanical and self-healable properties

Multi-bond network(MBN) which contains a single network with hierarchical cross-links is a suggested way to fabricate robust hydrogels. In order to reveal the roles of different cross-links with hierarchical bond energy in the MBN, here we fabricate poly(acrylic acid) physical hydrogels with dual bond network composed of ionic cross-links between carboxylFe3+ interactions and hydrogen bonds, and compare these dually cross-linked hydrogels with singly and ternarily cross-linked hydrogels. Simple models are employed to predict the tensile property, and the results confirm that the multi-bond network with hierarchical distribution in the bond energy of cross-links endows hydrogel with effective energy-dissipating mechanism. Moreover, the dually cross-linked MBN gels exhibit excellent mechanical properties(tensile strength up to 500 k Pa, elongation at break ~ 2400%) and complete self-healing after being kept at 50 °C for 48 h. The factors on promoting self-healing are deeply explored and the dynamic multi-bonds are regarded to trigger the self-healing along with the mutual diffusion of long polymer chains and ferric ions.     

无粘结剂ZSM-11催化剂上异丁烯直接胺化生成叔丁胺

叔丁胺是一种重要的化工原料和中间体,广泛应用于制备橡胶促进剂、医药、农药和着色剂等下游产品.异丁烯在分子筛催化剂上直接胺化生产叔丁胺是一个经济环保过程,其中ZSM-5和BEA分子筛的催化性能优于其它系列分子筛.ZSM-11与ZSM-5分子筛具有相似的孔道结构,我们以前的实验结果表明,与ZSM-5相比,ZSM-11表现出更优越的芳构化反应性能,在干气中乙烯低温芳构化方面也有明显优势.在此基础上,我们进行无粘结剂ZSM-11分子筛催化剂合成,并应用于异丁烯直接胺化生产叔丁胺反应.传统水热技术合成的分子筛通常为粉末,机械强度不能达到实际应用的要求,在工业化过程中分子筛粉末一般需要加入粘结剂成型使其具备一定的机械强度和形状,但是粘结剂会降低分子筛催化剂的活性和选择性,有可能会引发一些副反应,因此无粘结剂分子筛催化剂引起人们广泛关注.无粘结剂分子筛是指分子筛颗粒中不含惰性粘结剂或只含有少量粘结剂,主要依靠分子筛晶粒间的相互作用支撑存在,具有一定形状、尺寸和机械强度的催化材料.无粘结剂分子筛催化剂中分子筛含量较高,可利用的有效表面积较大,在离子交换及工业催化等方面具有明显优势.本文采用水热合成的ZSM-11分子筛原粉与二氧化硅机械混合(ZSM-11/SiO2=70/30)挤条后,通过气固相合成法制备了无粘结剂ZSM-11分子筛催化剂(Cat-C).作为对比,还分别制备了ZSM-11和SiO2机械混合(ZSM-11/SiO2=70/30)样品HZSM-11+SiO2及ZSM-11和氧化铝机械混合(ZSM-11/Al2O3=70/30)样品HZSM-11+Al2O3.利用X射线衍射、透射电镜、NH3程序升温脱附和吸附吡啶红外光谱等对分子筛催化剂的物理化学性能进行了表征.同时,以这些分子筛样品为催化剂,在固定床反应装置上进行了异丁烯胺化反应评价,反应条件为270℃,5.0 MPa,氨烯比为4和异丁烯空速0.5 h?1.结果表明,与HZSM-11+SiO2和HZSM-11+Al2O3相比,Cat-C上叔丁胺生成速率最高.关联催化剂物化性能和反应性能发现,催化剂孔道结构与叔丁胺生成并不存在明显的关联性,而较多的Br?nsted酸和较少的Lewis酸才是Cat-C具有良好反应性能的主要原因.具有一定机械强度的无粘结剂ZSM-11分子筛催化剂制备简单,在异丁烯直接胺化过程中叔丁胺生成速率高,具有很好的工业化应用前景.     

含季鏻阳离子的[Mo6O19]2-多酸化合物的合成、结构及光催化性能研究

通过使用季鏻盐与钼酸铵在常温条件下合成了含季鏻阳离子的(n-PentylPh₃P)₂[Mo₆O₁₉]多酸化合物,并通过X-射线单晶衍射、红外光谱、紫外光谱、热重分析和电化学对其进行了表征。产物中的季鏻配体上的氢原子通过与多酸阴离子端基氧原子形成氢键而构筑了一维链状结构,并且季鏻配体上的苯环与相邻季鏻配体上的苯环通过π-π作用形成三维层状结构。此外,对该多酸化合物的光催化降解亚甲基蓝的性能进行了研究。     

Encapsulation of nanocrystals with responsive gels for spatial optical identification

A tripeptide (β-AspFF) gelator was designed and synthesised using solid-phase peptide synthesis. The as-prepared gelator formed a stable and clear multi-responsive gel in toluene solution. Encapsulating the quantum dots with β-AspFF effectively increased stability and antioxidisation ability which are beneficial for optical identification.