An Intrinsic Photothermal Liquid for Light Detection and Energy Storage

Photothermal materials (PTMs) have been intensively investigated in the fields of photothermal conversion. Superior to solid PTMs, liquid PTMs are leading the trends in satisfying the demands of high flexibility and easy recycling. Successful examples of liquid PTMs are mostly formulated by dispersing solid PTMs in solvents, but suffer from the problems of phase segregation and solvent pollution. In this work, a low-cost formulation is proposed, which involves an oxidative product of ethyl oleate by iodine. It is an intrinsic liquid PTM, preserving the fluidic nature as well as possessing considerable ability for photothermal conversion. In addition to understanding the mechanism of light absorption in the visible and even near infrared windows, two examples are presented to demonstrate the great potential of liquid PTMs in broad areas such as light sensing and energy storage.     

Numerical modeling of chlorine concentration in water storage tanks

In this paper, we describe a numerical model to simulate the evolution in time of the hydrodynamics of water storage tanks, with particular emphasis on the time evolution of chlorine concentration. The mathematical model contains several ingredients particularly designed for this problem, namely, a boundary condition to model falling jets on free surfaces, an arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian formulation to account for the motion of the free surface because of demand and supply of water, and a coupling of the hydrodynamics with a convection–diffusion–reaction equation modeling the time evolution of chlorine. From the numerical point of view, the equations resulting from the mathematical model are approximated using a finite element formulation, with linear continuous interpolations on tetrahedra for all the unknowns. To make it possible, and also to be able to deal with convection‐dominated flows, a stabilized formulation is used. In order to capture the sharp gradients present in the chlorine concentration, particularly near the injection zone, a discontinuity capturing technique is employed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Chemistry of Redox‐Flow Batteries

The development of various redox‐flow batteries for the storage of fluctuating renewable energy has intensified in recent years because of their peculiar ability to be scaled separately in terms of energy and power, and therefore potentially to reduce the costs of energy storage. This has resulted in a considerable increase in the number of publications on redox‐flow batteries. This was a motivation to present a comprehensive and critical overview of the features of this type of batteries, focusing mainly on the chemistry of electrolytes and introducing a thorough systematic classification to reveal their potential for future development.     

Regulating Oxygen Configuration in Hierarchically Porous Carbon Nanosheets for High-Rate and Durable Na+ Storage

Surface oxygen functionalities (particularly C−O configuration) in carbon materials have negative influence on their electrical conductivity and Na⁺ storage performance. Herein, we propose a concept from surface chemistry to regulate the oxygen configuration in hierarchically porous carbon nanosheets (HPCNS). It is demonstrated that the C−O/C=O ratio in HPCNS reduces from 1.49 to 0.43 and its graphitization degree increases by increasing the carbonization temperature under a reduction atmosphere. Remarkably, such high graphitization degree and low C−O content of the HPCNS-800 are favorable for promoting its electron/ion transfer kinetics, thus endowing it with high-rate (323.6 mAh g⁻¹ at 0.05 A g⁻¹ and 138.5 mAh g⁻¹ at 20.0 A g⁻¹) and durable (96 % capacity retention over 5700 cycles at 10.0 A g⁻¹) Na⁺ storage performance. This work permits the optimization of heteroatom configurations in carbon for superior Na⁺ storage.     

Self-assembly mechanism of PEG-b-PCL and PEG-b-PBO-b-PCL amphiphilic copolymer micelles in aqueous solution from coarse grain modeling

We followed the self-assembly of high-molecular weight MePEG- b -PCL (poly(methyl ethylene glycol)-block-poly(ε-caprolactone)) diblock and MePEG- b -PBO- b -PCL (poly(methyl ethylene glycol)-block-poly(1,2-butylene oxide)-block-poly(ε-caprolactone)) into micelles using molecular dynamics simulation with a coarse grain (CG) force field based on quantum mechanics (CGq FF). The triblock polymer included a short poly(1,2-butylene oxide) (PBO) at the hydrophilic-hydrophobic interface of these systems. Keeping the hydrophilic length fixed (MePEG₄₅), we considered 250 chains in which the hydrophobic length changed from PCL₄₄ or PBO₆- b -PCL₄₃ to PCL₆₂ or PBO₉- b -PCL₆₁. The polymers were solvated in explicit water for 2 μs of simulations at 310.15 K. We found that the longer diblock system undergoes a morphological transition from an intermediate rod-like micelle to a prolate-sphere, while the micelle formed from the longer triblock system is a stable rod-like micelle. The two shorter diblock and triblock systems show similar self-assembly processes, both resulting in slightly prolate-spheres. The dynamics of the self-assembly is quantified in terms of chain radius of gyration, shape anisotropy, and hydration of the micelle cores. The final micelle structures are analyzed in terms of the local density components. We conclude that the CG model accurately describes the molecular mechanisms of self-assembly and the equilibrium micellar structures of hydrophilic and hydrophobic chains, including the quantity of solvent trapped inside the micellar core.     

Natural Cellulose Substance Based Energy Materials

Natural cellulose substances have been proven to be ideal structural templates and scaffolds for the fabrication of artificial functional materials with designed structures, psychochemical properties and functionalities. They possess unique hierarchically porous network structures with flexible, biocompatible, and environmental characteristics, exhibiting great potentials in the preparation of energy-related materials. This minireview summarizes natural cellulose-based materials that are used in batteries, supercapacitors, photocatalytic hydrogen generation, photoelectrochemical cells, and solar cells. When natural cellulose substances are employed as the structural template or carbon sources of energy materials, the three-dimensional porous interwoven structures are perfectly replicated, leading to the enhanced performances of the resultant materials. Benefiting from the mechanical strengths of natural cellulose substances, wearable, portable, free-standing, and flexible materials for energy storage and conversion are easily obtained by using natural cellulose substances as the substrates.     

Molybdenum Disulfide Based Nanomaterials for Rechargeable Batteries

The rapid development of electrochemical energy storage systems requires new electrode materials with high performance. As a two-dimensional material, molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) has attracted increasing interest in energy storage applications due to its layered structure, tunable physical and chemical properties, and high capacity. In this review, the atomic structures and properties of different phases of MoS₂ are first introduced. Then, typical synthetic methods for MoS₂ and MoS₂-based composites are presented. Furthermore, the recent progress in the design of diverse MoS₂-based micro/nanostructures for rechargeable batteries, including lithium-ion, lithium-sulfur, sodium-ion, potassium-ion, and multivalent-ion batteries, is overviewed. Additionally, the roles of advanced in situ/operando techniques and theoretical calculations in elucidating fundamental insights into the structural and electrochemical processes taking place in these materials during battery operation are illustrated. Finally, a perspective is given on how the properties of MoS₂-based electrode materials are further improved and how they can find widespread application in the next-generation electrochemical energy-storage systems.     

Structural characterization and hydrogen sorption properties of the Mg50Ni45Cr5 alloy

The Mg₅₀Ni₄₅Cr₅ alloy for hydrogen storage is prepared by mechanical alloying. First, using the X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) we examine the morphology and the structure of the substrate. The obtained results highlight the effectiveness of this alloy in loading hydrogen as it is a nanocrystalline and a ductile one. Second, we attempt to justify these expectations using the statistical physic, precisely the model monolayer with two levels of energy, in modeling a hydrogen absorption and desorption isotherms on Mg₅₀Ni₄₅Cr₅ alloy at four temperatures T?=?275?K, T?=?300?K, T?=?325?K and T?=?350?K. The model has six physicochemical parameters deduced from the fitting of the isotherms, they are divided by two categories of steric and energetic parameters. Thanks to these parameters we compare the absorption and desorption processes, in order to highlight the hysteresis phenomenon encountered during the hydrogen sorption.     

Microstructural evolution of AZ31 magnesium alloy subjected to sliding friction treatment

Microstructural evolution and grain refinement mechanism in AZ31 magnesium alloy subjected to sliding friction treatment were investigated by means of transmission electron microscopy. The process of grain refinement was found to involve the following stages: (I) coarse grains were divided into fine twin plates through mechanical twinning; then the twin plates were transformed to lamellae with the accumulation of residual dislocations at the twin boundaries; (II) the lamellae were separated into subgrains with increasing grain boundary misorientation and evolution of high angle boundaries into random boundaries by continuous dynamic recrystallisation (cDRX); (III) the formation of nanograins. The mechanisms for the final stage, the formation of nanograins, can be classified into three types: (i) cDRX; (ii) discontinuous dynamic recrystallisation (dDRX); (iii) a combined mechanism of prior shear-band and subsequent dDRX. Stored strain energy plays an important role in determining deformation mechanisms during plastic deformation.     

Relationship between liquid crystalline phase stability and ingredient composition in liquid crystal oil–water emulsion

In this study, we postulated that the optical retardation magnitude could be used to evaluate the stability of the LC phase through the Mueller matrix polarimeter method in LC emulsion. In addition, we found that the increase of cetearyl alcohol concentration induced the more periodic dense lattice structure in crystalline phase of LC lamellae and the sorbitan olivate was relatively more responsible for higher ordering in LC phase compared to C12–20 alkyl glucoside in terms of molecular parallel packing on the basis of the optical retardation magnitude. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the LC emulsion had higher skin barrier function owing to lower TEWL and higher reflectance than ordinary emulsion on human skin and maintained a uniform phase without phase separation for 8 weeks.