“Self‐Lockable” Liquid Crystalline Diels–Alder Dynamic Network Actuators with Room Temperature Programmability and Solution Reprocessability

Novel main‐chain liquid crystalline Diels—Alder dynamic networks (LCDANs) were prepared that exhibit unprecedented ease for actuator programming and reprocessing compared to existing liquid crystalline network (LCN) systems. Following cooling from 125 °C, LCDANs are deformed with aligned mesogens self‐locked at room temperature by slowly formed Diels–Alder (DA) bonds, which allows for the formation of solid 3D actuators capable of reversible shape change, and strip walker and wheel‐capable light‐driven locomotion upon either thermally or optically induced order–disorder phase transition. Any actuator can readily be erased at 125 °C and reprogrammed into a new one under ambient conditions. Moreover, LCDANs can be processed directly from melt (for example, fiber drawing) and from solution (for example, casting tubular actuators), which cannot be achieved with LCNs using exchangeable covalent bonds. The combined attributes of LCDANs offer significant progress toward developing easily programmable/processable LCN actuators.     

Controlled Synthesis of Cr‐Co0.85Se Nanoarrays for Water Splitting at an Ultralow Cell Voltage of 1.43 V

Water splitting has attracted more and more attention as a promising strategy for the production of clean hydrogen fuel. In this work, a new synthesis strategy was proposed, and Co_0.85Se was synthesized on nickel foam as the main matrix. The doping of appropriate Cr amount into the target of Co_0.85Se and the Cr‐Co_0.85Se resulted in an excellent electrochemical performance. The doping of Cr introduces Cr³⁺ ions which substitute Co²⁺ and Co³⁺ ions in Co_0.85Se, so that the lattice parameters of the main matrix were changed. It is worth noting that the Cr0.15‐Co_0.85Se/NF material exhibits an excellent performance in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) test. When the current density reaches 50 mA cm^?2 for OER, the overpotential is only 240 mV. For the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) tests, the overpotential is only 117 mV to drive 10 mA cm^?2 of current density. Moreover, when the Cr0.15‐Co_0.85Se/NF material is used as a two‐electrode device for whole water splitting, the required cell voltage is only 1.43 V to reach a current density of 10 mA cm^?2, which is among the lowest values of the published catalysts up to now. In addition, the Cr0.15‐Co_0.85Se/NF catalyst also exhibits excellent stability during a long period of water splitting. The experimental result demonstrates that the change of the lattice structure has an obvious influence on the electrocatalytic activity of the material. When an external electric field is applied, it facilitates the rapid electron transfer rate and enhances the electrocatalytic performance and stability of the material.     

Analysis of Vicinal Water in Soft Contact Lenses Using a Combination of Infrared Absorption Spectroscopy and Multivariate Curve Resolution

In this paper, we propose a new spectroscopic method to explore the behavior of molecules near polymeric molecular networks of water-containing soft materials such as hydrogels. We demonstrate the analysis of hydrogen bonding states of water in the vicinity of hydrogels (soft contact lenses). In this method, we apply force to hydrated contact lenses to deform them and to modulate the ratio between the signals from bulk and vicinal regions. We then collect spectra at different forces. Finally, we extracted the spectra of the vicinal region using the multivariate curve resolution-alternating least square (MCR-ALS) method. We report the hydration states depending on the chemical structures of hydrogels constituting the contact lenses.     

The Impact of Foaming Effect on the Physical and Mechanical Properties of Foam Glasses with Molecular-Level Insights

Foaming effect strongly impacts the physical and mechanical properties of foam glass materials, but an understanding of its mechanism especially at the molecular level is still limited. In this study, the foaming effects of dextrin, a mixture of dextrin and carbon, and different carbon allotropes are investigated with respect to surface morphology as well as physical and mechanical properties, in which 1 wt.% carbon black is identified as an optimal choice for a well-balanced material property. More importantly, the different foaming effects are elucidated by all-atomistic molecular dynamics simulations with molecular-level insights into the structure–property relationships. The results show that smaller pores and more uniform pore structure benefit the mechanical properties of the foam glass samples. The foam glass samples show excellent chemical and thermal stability with 1 wt.% carbon as the foaming agent. Furthermore, the foaming effects of CaSO₄ and Na₂HPO₄ are investigated, which both create more uniform pore structures. This work may inspire more systematic approaches to control foaming effect for customized engineering needs by establishing molecular-level structure–property–process relationships, thereby, leading to efficient production of foam glass materials with desired foaming effects.     

泡沫镍载碳化钨催化剂上的析氢反应

结合直接化学还原法和交替微波法制备了泡沫Ni载Ni-WC催化剂,用X射线衍射、扫描电镜和透射电镜对催化剂进行了表征,研究了其析氢电催化性能.结果表明,在相同条件下,泡沫Ni载Ni-WC催化剂的析氢起始电位与泡沫Ni相比降低了60 mV左右.电解质浓度和温度对泡沫Ni载Ni-WC催化剂的析氢电催化活性有很大影响.     

非均匀多孔介质有效热导率分析

本文采用控制容积法,界面调和平均导热系数值以及图形处理方法对典型非均匀多孔介质硬质聚氨酯泡沫材料的导热过程进行了分析与模拟计算。结果表明:多孔介质的内部结构是影响温度分布和热量传递的主要的因素,其影响程度与骨架和孔隙的导热系数,孔隙的大小和分布有关;计算得到的有效热导率值与文献中实验测量结果吻合较好。本文的研究结果可以推广到更为复杂的非均匀多孔介质的场合,从而可以进一步认识非均匀多孔介质中的导热规律,为工程计算提供更精确的计算方法。     

Identifying the viscoelastic properties of soft matter from the indentation response of a hard film-soft substrate system

The indentation technique is widely used in measuring the mechanical properties of soft matter at the microscale or nanoscale,but still faces challenges by these unique properties as well as the consequent strong surface adhesion, including the strong nonlinear effect, unclear judgment of the contact point, difficulties in estimating the contact area, and the risk of the indenter piercing the sample. Here we propose a two-step method to solve these problems: lay a hard film on a soft matter, and obtain the viscoelastic properties of this soft matter through the indentation response of this composite structure. We first establish a theoretical indentation model of the hard film-soft substrate system based on the theory of plates, elastic-viscoelastic correspondence principle and Boltzmann superposition principle. To verify the correctness of this method, we measure the mechanical properties of the methyl vinyl silicone rubber(MVSR) covered by a Cu nanofilm. Finally, we test the effectiveness and error sensitivity of this method with the finite element method(FEM). The results show that our method can accurately measure the mechanical properties of soft matter, while effectively circumventing the problems of the traditional indentation technique.     

泡沫塑料动态快速分离富集金方法的研究

本文系统研究了泡沫塑料动态快速分离富集金的方法。对泡沫塑料柱的处理方法,再生及主要共存离子干扰的消除等均做了较详细的研究。提出了一种简便,不控速的金分离富集的方法。该法用于分析0.051～3.59g/t四种不同含量的金标样,结果与推荐值吻合,5次分析结果,相对标准偏差<5％,同时,可用泡沫塑料柱当天连续使用分析拿标样,回收率为93％—109％。     

Heat‐Free Biomimetic Metal Molding on Soft Substrates

Fabrication of bio‐templated metallic structures is limited by differences in properties, processing conditions, packing, and material state(s). Herein, by using undercooled metal particles, differences in modulus and processing temperatures can be overcome. Adoption of autonomous processes such as self‐filtration, capillary pressure, and evaporative concentration leads to enhanced packing, stabilization (jamming) and point sintering with phase change to create solid metal replicas of complex bio‐based features. Differentiation of subtle differences between cultivars of the rose flower with reproduction over large areas shows that this biomimetic metal patterning (BIOMAP) is a versatile method to replicate biological features either as positive or negative reliefs irrespective of the substrate. Using rose petal patterns, we illustrate the versatility of bio‐templated mapping with undercooled metal particles at ambient conditions, and with unprecedented efficiency for metal structures.     

木糖-软模板水热法制备硼掺杂分级多孔炭球及其电化学性能

以D-木糖为炭源,月桂酸钠为模板剂,硼酸为掺杂剂,通过水热炭化方法制得硼掺杂分级多孔炭球（BPC_S）。通过扫描电子显微镜（SEM）、透射电子显微镜（TEM）、N₂吸附-脱附测试、X射线光电子能谱（XPS）、顺磁共振波谱（EPR）、傅里叶红外光谱（FT-IR）、拉曼光谱（Raman）、X射线粉末衍射（XRD）、热重（TG）分析对样品进行表征。结果表明：月桂酸钠作为介孔造孔剂的同时,通过与D-木糖间的氢键作用使有机-有机自组装过程自发进行并形成窄尺寸分布（2~5 μm）规整炭球;硼酸在水热中催化炭源脱水降解,并以BC₃、BCO₂和BC₂O的形式掺杂在炭球上,掺硼后炭球与水表面接触角降低,润湿性提高。经CO₂活化、月桂酸钠高温分解以及胶质炭球的堆积分别产生微孔（0.5~1.2 nm）、介孔（3.14~35.00 nm）和大孔（60~146 nm）并形成分级结构。当硼酸加入量为0.927 5 g时多孔炭球（BPC_S-1）的电化学性能最佳,在6 mol·L^-1 KOH三电极体系中电流密度为0.5 A·g^-1时,比电容达287.12 F·g^-1;两电极体系中电流密度为0.5 A·g^-1时比电容达151.34 F·g^-1,能量密度达5.3 Wh·kg^-1;电流密度为5 A·g^-1时进行1 000次充放电循环,电容保持率仍达96.43%。