Predicting solvent stability in aprotic electrolyte Li-air batteries: nucleophilic substitution by the superoxide anion radical (O2(•-))

There is increasing evidence that cyclic and linear carbonates, commonly used solvents in Li ion battery electrolytes, are unstable in the presence of superoxide and thus are not suitable for use in rechargeable Li-air batteries employing aprotic electrolytes. A detailed understanding of related decomposition mechanisms provides an important basis for the selection and design of stable electrolyte materials. In this article, we use density functional theory calculations with a Poisson-Boltzmann continuum solvent model to investigate the reactivity of several classes of aprotic solvents in nucleophilic substitution reactions with superoxide. We find that nucleophilic attack by O(2)(?-) at the O-alkyl carbon is a common mechanism of decomposition of organic carbonates, sulfonates, aliphatic carboxylic esters, lactones, phosphinates, phosphonates, phosphates, and sulfones. In contrast, nucleophilic reactions of O(2)(?-) with phenol esters of carboxylic acids and O-alkyl fluorinated aliphatic lactones proceed via attack at the carbonyl carbon. Chemical functionalities stable against nucleophilic substitution by superoxide include N-alkyl substituted amides, lactams, nitriles, and ethers. The results establish that solvent reactivity is strongly related to the basicity of the organic anion displaced in the reaction with superoxide. Theoretical calculations are complemented by cyclic voltammetry to study the electrochemical reversibility of the O(2)/O(2)(?-) couple containing tetrabutylammonium salt and GCMS measurements to monitor solvent stability in the presence of KO(2)(?) and a Li salt. These experimental methods provide efficient means for qualitatively screening solvent stability in Li-air batteries. A clear correlation between the computational and experimental results is established. The combination of theoretical and experimental techniques provides a powerful means for identifying and designing stable solvents for rechargeable Li-air batteries.     

A general strategy for the stereocontrolled preparation of diverse 8- and 9-membered Laurencia-type bromoethers

A unique procedure to effect a ring-expanding bromoetherification process is described, wherein tetrahydrofurans and tetrahydropyrans are smoothly transformed into 8- and 9-membered bromoethers in a regio- and stereocontrolled manner through the use of BDSB (bromodiethylsulfonium bromopentachloroantimonate). These products resemble the cores of the Laurencia C15 acetogenins. In light of the generality and effectiveness of the approach, this work provides a unique strategy for their laboratory preparation and may implicate a possible biosynthesis pathway.     

Ultrafast Extraction of Proteins from Tissues Using Desorption by Impulsive Vibrational Excitation

A picosecond IR laser (PIRL) can be used to blast proteins out of tissues through desorption by impulsive excitation (DIVE) of intramolecular vibrational states of water molecules in the cell in less than a millisecond. With PIRL‐DIVE proteins covering a range of a few kDa up to several MDa are extracted in high quantities compared to conventional approaches. The chemical composition of extracted proteins remains unaltered and even enzymatic activities are maintained.     

PSI3: an open-source Ab Initio electronic structure package

PSI3 is a program system and development platform for ab initio molecular electronic structure computations. The package includes mature programming interfaces for parsing user input, accessing commonly used data such as basis‐set information or molecular orbital coefficients, and retrieving and storing binary data (with no software limitations on file sizes or file‐system‐sizes), especially multi‐index quantities such as electron repulsion integrals. This platform is useful for the rapid implementation of both standard quantum chemical methods, as well as the development of new models. Features that have already been implemented include Hartree‐Fock, multiconfigurational self‐consistent‐field, second‐order Møller‐Plesset perturbation theory, coupled cluster, and configuration interaction wave functions. Distinctive capabilities include the ability to employ Gaussian basis functions with arbitrary angular momentum levels; linear R12 second‐order perturbation theory; coupled cluster frequency‐dependent response properties, including dipole polarizabilities and optical rotation; and diagonal Born‐Oppenheimer corrections with correlated wave functions. This article describes the programming infrastructure and main features of the package. PSI3 is available free of charge through the open‐source, GNU General Public License. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2007     

One-Pot Functionalization of Graphene with Porphyrin through Cycloaddition Reactions

Two types of graphene‐based hybrid materials, graphene‐TPP (TPP=tetraphenylporphyrin) and graphene‐PdTPP (PdTPP=palladium tetraphenylporphyrin), were prepared directly from pristine graphene through one‐pot cycloaddition reactions. The hybrid materials were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), by TEM, by UV/Vis, FTIR, Raman, and luminescence spectroscopy, and by fluorescence/phosphorescence lifetime measurements. The presence of the covalent linkages between graphene and porphyrin was confirmed by FTIR and Raman spectroscopy and further supported by control experiments. The presence of TPP (or PdTPP) in the hybrid material was demonstrated by UV/Vis spectroscopy, with TGA results indicating that the graphene‐TPP and graphene‐PdTPP hybrid materials contained approximately 18 % TPP and 20 % PdTPP. The quenching of fluorescence (or phosphorescence) and reduced lifetimes suggest excited state energy/electron transfer between graphene and the covalently attached TPP (or PdTPP) molecules.     

Synthesis of densely functionalised arenes using [2 + 2 + 2] cycloaddition reactions

Rh(I)-catalysed [2 + 2 + 2] cycloaddition allows the synthesis of aryl ethers and diaryl methanes containing a high degree of steric hindrance from relatively simple diyne and alkyne precursors. The diarylmethanes made in this way show no evidence in their NMR spectra, however, of rotational restriction.     

Cathode pre-lithiation/sodiation for next-generation batteries

Electrochemical energy storage is playing a pivotal role in the global pursuit of a clean and sustainable energy future. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are the state-of-the-art technology, but future energy requirements demand higher energy densities and a more diverse battery landscape to meet a wide variety of applications. Unfortunately, many next-generation LIB chemistries and beyond-LIB technologies suffer from large first-cycle irreversible capacity caused by active ion loss. The field of pre-lithiation/sodiation has recently emerged as researchers attempt to mitigate active ion loss and boost the energy density of next-generation LIBs and sodium-ion batteries. In this short review, we highlight recent advances in cathode pre-lithiation/sodiation using sacrificial additives and pre-lithiation/sodiation of cathode active materials.     

Thermal decomposition of some rare earth metal cupferrates and neocupferrates

The thermal decomposition of the eupferrates and neocupferrates of europium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, and ytterbium was studied on the thermobalance. The metal chelates possessed poor thermal stability as well as a pronounced tendency to Coprecipitate reagent. The minimum oxide level temperatures for the metal cupferrates were : Eu, 570°; Tb, 540°; Dy, 550°; Ho, 610°; Er, 550° and Yb, 520°. The minimum oxide level temperatures for the metal neocupferrates were: Eu, 560°; Tb 565°; Dy, 540°; Ho,445°; Er, 530°; and Yb, 485°.     

Parallel Computing for Long-Time Simulations of Calcium Waves in a Heart Cell

Calcium waves are modeled by parabolic partial differential equations, whose simulation codes contain Krylov subspace methods as computational kernels. This paper presents GPU-based parallel computations for the conjugate gradient method applied to the finite difference discretization of a Poisson equation as prototype problem for the computational kernel. The CUDA algorithm tests the three memory systems of global memory, texture memory, and shared memory of a CUDA-enabled GPU. Due to the caching mechanism and coalesced read/write operations, the CUDA algorithm using global memory and single precision floating point numbers outperforms algorithms accessing texture memory and the shared memory. (© 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)