Flame spray pyrolysis for the one-step fabrication of transition metal oxide films: Recent progress in electrochemical and photoelectrochemical water splitting

Developing large scale deposition techniques to fabricate thin porous films with suitable opto-electro nic properties for water catalysis is a necessity to mitigate climate change and have a sustainable environment.In this review,flame spray pyrolysis(FSP)technique,a rapid and scalable methodology to synthesize nanostructured transitional metal oxide films with designed functionalities,is firstly introduced.Furthermore,applications in electrochemical(EC)and photoelectrochemical(PEC)water splitting for the production of hydrogen fuel is also presented.The high combustion temperature and the aggregation of flame aerosol ensure that the FSP-made films possess high crystallinity,tunable porosity and high surface areas,making this method suitable either as catalysts for EC water splitting or as efficient semiconductor materials for PEC water splitting.Finally,a perspective on the next generation FSP engineered films with potential applications in energy storage and conversion is described.     

802GHz integrated horn antennas imaging array

This short paper presents the pattern measurements at 802GHz of a single element in a 256-element integrated horn imaging array. The integrated-horn antenna consists of a dipole-antenna suspended on a 1m dielectric membrane inside a pyramidal cavity etched in Silicon. The theoretical far-field patterns, calculated using reciprocity and Floquet-modes representation of the free-space field, agree well with the measured far-field patterns at 802GBz. The associated directivity for a 1.40 horn aperture, calculated from the measured E and H-plane patterns is 12.3dB±0.2dB. This work demonstrates that high-efficiency integrated-horn antennas are easily scalable to terahertz frequencies and could be used for radio-astronomical and plasma-diagnostic applications.     

Unexpected mesophase behaviour in novel triphenylene multi-alkenes

The first series of hexaalkenyloxytriphenylenes, where the unsaturation resides at the termini of the side chains, has been synthesised and characterised. Most interestingly, the synthesis of these alkenyloxytriphenylenes, by alkylation of hexahydroxytriphenylene, is found to yield additional products resulting from a single C-alkylation alongside exhaustive O-alkylation; surprisingly several homologues of these materials retain columnar mesophase behaviour.     

Role of hydrogen bonding in the photophysical properties of isomeric tetrapyridylporphyrins in aprotic solvent

Extensive photophysical properties of isomeric tetra-2-pyridylporphyrin (TpyP(2)), tetra-3-pyridylporphyrin (TpyP(3)), and tetra-4-pyridylporphyrin (TpyP(4)) have been studied in the presence of a series of phenols of increasing hydrogen bonding power in dichloromethane solution by employing UV/vis spectroscopy; steady-state, time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy; and transient absorption spectroscopic techniques. The change of absorption spectra of all three porphyrins as a function of different phenol concentrations established the preference of hydrogen bonded complex formation to the peripheral pyridyl nitrogen rather than the pyrrole nitrogen of the porphyrin macrocycle. The fluorescence behaviors of the porphyrins which were observed upon addition of different phenols point to a marked dependence on the nature of the added phenols. Phenols with an electron withdrawing group do not quench the fluorescence of porphyrins, whereas phenols with an electron donating group quench the singlet porphyrin both in static and dynamic pathways. A remarkable difference in quenching behaviors of singlet excited porphyrin by 4-methylphenol (4-MePhOH) and 4-MeOPhOH/4-EtOPhOH (4-EtOPhOH = 4-ethoxyphenol) are observed. The quenching of singlet excited porphyrins by 4-MePhOH is attributed to be purely static in nature, and the H-bond provides a strong nonradiative channel to singlet excited porphyrins. However, the quenching of singlet excited porphyrins by 4-MeOPhOH/4-EtOPhOH is mostly dynamic, and it is ascribed to be the reductive quenching of single excited porphyrins. Picosecond transient absorption study with TpyP(2) and 4-MeOPhOH provides the evidence of porphyrin radical anion and phenol radical cation of equal lifetime, which indicates the fact that electron transfer occurs from phenol to singlet excited porphyrin. The temperature effect on dynamic quenching by 4-MeOPhOH/4-EtOPhOH and kinetic deuterium isotope effect established the reaction to be a photoinduced concerted proton coupled electron transfer.     

Strong Convergence Theorems for Quasi-Nonexpansive Mappings and Uniformly L-Lipschitzian Asymptotically Pseudo-Contractive Mappings in Banach Spaces

A new 𝒮-generated Ishikawa iteration with errors is proposed for a pair of quasi-nonexpansive mapping and uniformly L-Lipschitzian asymptotically pseudo-contractive mapping in real Banach spaces. We show that the proposed iterative scheme converges strongly to a common solution of quasi-nonexpansive mapping and uniformly L-Lipschitzian asymptotically pseudo-contractive mapping in real Banach spaces. A comparison table is prepared using a numeric example which shows that the proposed iterative algorithm is faster than some known iterative algorithms.     

Noble Metal Decorated Graphene-Based Gas Sensors and Their Fabrication: A Review

Research on graphene/nanostructure hybrid materials has been gaining momentum in recent years, with wide-ranging applications in gas sensing and detection. Specifically, noble metal decorated graphene-based novel structures were found to be extremely sensitive and selective owing to the synergistic effect of the compound configuration. In this article, recent developments in graphene/noble metal nanostructure hybrids and their promising potential in gas sensing applications has been highlighted. More significantly, an understanding of the electronic mechanism of gas sensing is presented with a specific emphasis on electron transfer and junctions effects at the graphene/nanostructure interfaces. Finally, the future research prospects of application of bi-metallic and tri-metallic nanostructure/graphene-based hybrids and the challenges in this new and rapidly growing domain are discussed.     

Perylenophthalocyanines

The first perylenophthalocyanines have been synthesised using a Diels-Alder reaction between dialkylperylenes and fumaronitrile as the key step towards the dinitrile precursors. As expected the octaalkylperylenophthalocyanines show red-shifted absorption spectra. They are high melting solids that do not display mesophase behaviour at accessible temperatures. A 3:1 phthalocyanine/perylenophthalocyanine hybrid material, prepared by a mixed macrocyclisation reaction, presents an unusual board-like molecular profile. Its absorption maxima lie between those observed for the parent phthalocyanines and the symmetrical perylenophthalocyanines. The spectrum shows a characteristic split Q-band due to the reduced symmetry of the core. This material is non-mesogenic but is sufficiently soluble to permit processing and characterisation. The (1)H NMR spectrum indicates that at least two of the appended alkyl chains are displaced out of the macrocycle plane and lie in its shielding region--an arrangement that disfavours the face-to-face packing required for mesophase formation.     

Vibration of piezoelectric elements surrounded by fluid media

In this paper we analyse vibrational characteristics of piezoceramic shells surrounded by acoustic media. Main results are presented for radially polarized piezoceramic PZT5 elements of hollow cylindrical shapes. The coupling in the radial direction between the solid and the acoustic media is accounted for indirectly, via impedance boundary conditions. The model based on such impedance boundary condition approximations offers a robust simplified alternative to a full scale fluid-solid interaction modelling. By using this model, we analyse numerically the influence of the boundary conditions imposed in the axial direction for long, medium, and short (disk-like) piezoceramic elements.     

A new stability indicating reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography method for the determination of enantiomeric purity of a DPP‐4 inhibitor drug linagliptin

A simple, sensitive, and stability indicating isocratic reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography method has been developed, optimized and validated for the separation and quantification of S‐enantiomer in linagliptin (R‐enantiomer) drug substance. Enantiomeric separation was achieved on a Cellulose tris(4‐chloro‐3‐methylphenylcarbamate) stationary phase. Mobile phase consists of aqueous diammonium hydrogen phosphate buffer and acetonitrile in the ratio of 35:65 v/v. Isocratic elution was performed at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min, the column oven temperature was set at 40°C and detection was at 226 nm. The resolution between R and S enantiomers is found to be more than 4.0. The impact of mobile phase composition, pH of buffer and temperature on the resolution has been studied. The detector response is found to be linear over the concentration range of 0.17–1.7 μg/mL. LOD and LOQ levels of S‐enantiomer are found to be 0.057 and 0.172 μg/mL respectively. The recovery of S‐enantiomer is 99.8% w/w. The proposed method is validated for specificity, precision, linearity, accuracy and robustness.