Effect of Bi promoter on the performances of selective oxidation of isobutane to methacrolein over MoVO/AlPO4 catalysts

The effects of Bi on the catalytic performance of selective oxidation of isobutane to methacrolein over MoVO/AlPO4 catalyst were investigated by XRD, FT-Raman, XPS, UV-vis DRS techniques. The results show that the addition of Bi component into the MoVO/AlPO4 catalyst obviously improves the catalytic performance, and the selectivity to methacrolein can increase from 14.2% to 45.1% with the increase of Bi/V molar ratio from 0 to 1. Combining the characterization results with the reaction evaluation, it is concluded that the catalytic activities of the MoV0.3Bix/AlPO4 catalysts are related to the crystalline phase composition and the dispersion of molybdenum and vanadium oxides species in general, and also to the V5+/V4+ molar ratio on the surface in particular.     

An introduction to molecular spintronics

We review the progress and future possibilities in the emerging area of molecular spintronics. We first provide an overview of the different transport regimes in which electronic nanodevices can operate, then briefly overview the important characteristics of molecular magnetic materials that can be useful for application in spintronics and we eventually present several schemes to include such systems into spintronic nanodevices. We hightlight the importance of a chemical approach to the area, and in the last section we showcase some approaches to the creation of hybrids made of carbon nanostructures and molecular magnets, which are gaining increasing attention.     

Fringe pattern analysis by S-transform

S-transform proposed in 1996 by Stockwell R.G is a simple and popular technique for the time–frequency analysis. It has been introduced in optical three-dimensional shape measurement, recently. In this paper, a study about applications of S-transform in the demodulation of deformed fringe patterns is performed. We focus on discussing not only the S-transform spectrum filtering technique, the S-transform ridge technique and the phase gradient calculation method based on S-transform used in fringe pattern demodulation, but also the phase unwrapping technique. In addition, a generalized S-transform was introduced to analyze fringe patterns, which is helpful to improve the measurement accuracy and flexibility of the method based on S-transform. The reconstruction results based on S-transform were compared with that on wavelet transform and windowed Fourier transform in fringe analysis.     

Finite size effect on the Raman frequency of phonons in nano-semiconductors

A comprehensive study on Raman spectroscopy with different excitation wavelengths, sample sizes, and sample shapes for optic phonons (OPs) and acoustic phonons (APs) in polar and non-polar nano-semiconductors has been performed. The study affirms that the finite size effect does not appear in the OPs of polar nano-semiconductors, while it exists in all other types of phonons. The absence of the FSE is confirmed to originate from the long-range Fr¨ohlich interaction and the breaking of translation symmetry. The result indicates that the Raman spectra of OPs cannot be used as a method to characterize the scale and crystalline property of polar nano-semiconductors.     

Scheme for Implementing Grover Quantum Search Algorithm with Hot Ions

We propose a simple scheme to implement the two-qubit Grover quantum search algorithm with trapped ions in thermal motion. In the scheme two states of the Λ-type three-level ions are used as quantum bits (qubits). The scheme puts no limitations on the intensity of the laser field and the speed of the hot ions, and all the operations can be achieved in a reasonable amount of time before decoherence sets in. The scheme might be experimentally realizable with presently available techniques.     

Catalytic palladium nanoparticles supported on nanoscale MOFs: a highly active catalyst for Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction

Pd nanoparticles have been successfully supported on nanoscale metal-organic frameworks (NMOFs) by using a simple and effective microwave-assisted impregnation process. The resulting composite, representing as a highly active NMOFs supported metal nanoparticles catalyst for the Suzuki cross-coupling reaction between aryl/heteroaryl halides and arylboronic acids, is well characterized, and its high activity and good recyclability are discussed in details. It reveals that, compared to the corresponding bulk MOFs and conventional active carbon materials, nanoscale MOFs as novel support materials for heterogeneous catalysts can exhibit superior performance in the catalytic reactions.     

Investigation of locally resonant absorption and factors affecting the absorption band of a phononic glass

We experimentally and theoretically investigated the mechanisms of acoustic absorption in phononic glass to optimize its properties. First, we experimentally studied its locally resonant absorption mechanism. From these results, we attributed its strong sound attenuation to its locally resonant units and its broadband absorption to its networked structure. These experiments also indicated that the porosity and thickness of the phononic glass must be tuned to achieve the best sound absorption at given frequencies. Then, using lumped-mass methods, we studied how the absorption bandgaps of the phononic glass were affected by various factors, including the porosity and the properties of the coating materials. These calculations gave optimal ranges for selecting the porosity, modulus of the coating material, and ratio of the compliant coating to the stiff matrix to achieve absorption bandgaps in the range of 6–30 kHz. This paper provides guidelines for designing phononic glasses with proper structures and component materials to work in specific frequency ranges.     

Removal of oxygen from silicon by electron beam melting

Small amounts of multicrystalline silicon were melted in an electron beam furnace in different experimental conditions in order to investigate the oxygen evaporation behavior during the electron beam melting (EBM) process. The oxygen content level before and after EBM was determined by secondary ion mass spectroscopy. The oxygen content was reduced from 6.177 to 1.629 ppmw when silicon was melted completely at 15 kW with removal efficiency up to 73.6 %. After that, it decreased continually to <0.0517 ppmw when the refining time exceeded 600 s with a removal efficiency of more than 99.08 %. During the melting process, the evaporation rate of silicon is 1.10 × 10^?5 kg/s. The loss of silicon could be reduced up to 1.7 % during oxygen removal process to a desirable figure, indicating EBM is an effective method to remove oxygen from silicon and decrease the loss of silicon.