Anion exchange membranes derived from nafion precursor for the alkaline fuel cell

Robust hydroxide conducting membranes are required for long‐lasting, low‐cost solid alkaline fuel cells (AFCs). In this study, we synthesize Nafion‐based anion exchange membranes (AEMs) via amination of the Nafion precursor membrane with 1,4‐dimethylpiperazine. This initial reaction produces an AEM with covalently attached dimethylpiperazinium cations neutralized with fluoride anions, while a subsequent ion exchange reaction produces a hydroxide ion conducting membrane. These AEMs possess high thermal stability and different thermal transition temperatures compared to Nafion, while small‐angle X‐ray scattering reveals a similar ionic morphology. The hydroxide ion conductivity of the Nafion‐based AEM is fivefold lower than the proton conductivity of Nafion at 80 °C and 90% relative humidity. More importantly, the hydroxide conductivity is insensitive to drying and rehydrating the membrane, which is atypical of other AEMs with quaternary ammonium cations. The high chemical and thermal stability of this hydroxide conducting Nafion‐based AEM provides a promising alternative for AFCs. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2011     

The Peierls instability in one-dimensional conductors with arbitrary bandfilling

Mean field calculations of the Peierls instability have been carried out for arbitrary bandfilling both in the case of free electrons as well as for the tightbinding approximation. New expressions for Δ(0) and T_p are derived which change the experimentally derived λ to a more reasonable value. Δ(0)/k_BT_p may differ significantly from the BCS value 1.76 in the tightbinding approximation.     

The decay scheme of 127Ba and half-lives of some low-lying excited states in 123, 125, 127, 129Cs

Radioactive sources of ^{123, 125, 127, 129}Ba obtained in the spallation reaction have been studied with Ge(Li), Si(Li), NaI(Tl) and plastic detectors. On the basis of γ-ray energies, intensities, energy sums and coincidence information, the decay scheme has been proposed for ¹²⁷Ba. No high-spin isomer of ¹²⁷Ba has been observed. The lifetimes of $\text{5}\text{2}$⁺ → $\text{1}\text{2}$⁺ transitions in ^{123, 125, 127, 129}Cs have been measured. No evidence for the shape isomerism in ¹²⁷Cs has been found.     

Investigation of deep states in thin films of hydrogenated amorphous silicon by photo-induced current transient spectroscopy

Summary Photo-induced current transient spectroscopy (PICTS) was performed for thin films of undoped hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-SiH). Existing theoretical models i.e. the standard model of PICTS (the transient currents are limited by thermal emission of carriers from localized to mobile states) and the recombination model due to Rose (the transient currents are limited by recombination) fail to describe the experimental data. It is concluded that the recombination model has to be extended to arbitrary distributions of the density of states in order to be applicable to the present case.

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Untersuchung tiefer Zustände in dünnen Schichten von wasserstoffhaltigem amorphem Silicium mit Hilfe der Photostrom-Transienten-Spektroskopie