Application of Octanohydroxamic Acid for Salting out Liquid–Liquid Extraction of Materials for Energy Storage in Supercapacitors

The ability to achieve high areal capacitance for oxide-based supercapacitor electrodes with high active mass loadings is critical for practical applications. This paper reports the feasibility of the fabrication of Mn₃O₄-multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) composites by the new salting-out method, which allows direct particle transfer from an aqueous synthesis medium to a 2-propanol suspension for the fabrication of advanced Mn₃O₄-MWCNT electrodes for supercapacitors. The electrodes show enhanced capacitive performance at high active mass loading due to reduced particle agglomeration and enhanced mixing of the Mn₃O₄ particles and conductive MWCNT additives. The strategy is based on the multifunctional properties of octanohydroxamic acid, which is used as a capping and dispersing agent for Mn₃O₄ synthesis and an extractor for particle transfer to the electrode processing medium. Electrochemical studies show that high areal capacitance is achieved at low electrode resistance. The electrodes with an active mass of 40.1 mg cm⁻² show a capacitance of 4.3 F cm⁻² at a scan rate of 2 mV s⁻¹. Electron microscopy studies reveal changes in electrode microstructure during charge-discharge cycling, which can explain the increase in capacitance. The salting-out method is promising for the development of advanced nanocomposites for energy storage in supercapacitors.     

Fabrication of composite films containing zirconia and cationic polyelectrolytes

Composite films were prepared by electrophoretic deposition of poly(ethylenimine) or poly(allylamine hydrochloride) combined with cathodic precipitation of zirconia. Films of up to several micrometers thick were obtained on Ni, Pt, stainless-steel, graphite, and carbon-felt substrates. When the concentration of polyelectrolytes in solutions and the deposition time were varied, the amount of the deposited material and its composition can be varied. The electrochemical intercalation of yttria-stabilized zirconia particles into the composite films has been demonstrated. Obtained results pave the way for the electrodeposition of other polymer-ceramic composites. The deposits were studied by thermogravimetric analysis, X-ray diffraction analysis, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. The mechanisms of deposition are discussed.     

Electrophoretic deposition of hydroxyapatite–CaSiO3–chitosan composite coatings

Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) method has been developed for the fabrication of hydroxyapatite (HA)–CaSiO₃ (CS)–chitosan composite coatings for biomedical applications. The use of chitosan enabled the co-deposition of HA and CS particles and offered the advantage of room temperature processing of composite materials. The coating composition was varied by the variation of HA and CS concentrations in the chitosan solutions. Cathodic deposits were obtained as HA–CS–chitosan monolayers, HA–chitosan/chitosan multilayers or functionally graded materials (FGM) containing HA–chitosan and CS–chitosan layers of different composition. The thickness of the individual layers was varied in the range of 0.1–20 μm. The deposition yield was studied at different experimental conditions and compared with the results of modeling. It was shown that the moving boundary model for the two component system can explain the non-linear increase in the deposition yield with increasing HA concentration in chitosan solutions. The obtained coatings were studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential thermal analysis (DTA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) studies showed that these coatings provided corrosion protection of stainless steel substrates in Ringer's physiological solution. The deposition mechanism and kinetics of deposition have been discussed.     

A Monte Carlo study of the first-order transition in a Heisenberg FCC antiferromagnet

A nearest neighbor Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a face-centered cubic lattice is studied by extensive Monte Carlo simulations in zero magnetic field. The parallel tempering algorithm is utilized, which allows one to overcome a slow relaxation of the magnetic order parameter and to fully equilibrate moderately sized clusters with up to N ? 7 × 10³ spins. By collecting energy and order parameter histograms on clusters with up to N ? 2 × 10⁴ sites, we accurately locate the first-order transition point at T _c = 0.4459(1)J.     

Multiexciton molecules in the hexaborides

We investigate multiexciton bound states in a semiconducting phase of divalent hexaborides. Due to three degenerate valleys in both the conduction and valence bands the binding energy of a 6-exciton molecule is greatly enhanced by the shell effect. The ground state energies of multiexciton molecules are calculated using the density functional formalism. We also show that charged impurities stabilize multiexciton complexes leading to condensation of localized excitons. These complexes can act as nucleation centers of local moments. Received 24 October 2000     

Ion current distribution within a toroidal duct of a filteredvacuum arc deposition system

Vacuum arcs were established on a 90-mm-diameter Ti cathode in a deposition apparatus consisting of a spacer, 122 mm-diameter annular anode, quarter-torus magnetic macroparticle filter, and a deposition chamber. A toroidal magnetic field generally parallel to the torus walls of up to 20 mT was applied. The ion current in various cross-sections of the toroidal duct was measured using: 1) a disc probe of 130-mm diameter, oriented normal to the torus axis used to measure the transmitted ion current, and 2) a hollow cylindrical probe of 135-mm diameter and 25-mm height, whose axis coincided with the torus axis, used to measure ion current losses to the duct wall. The distribution of ion current loss was studied using an 8-segment hollow cylindrical multiprobe, where the individual probes were equally distributed on the circumference of a 130-mm-diameter circle. It was shown that: 1) the ratio of ion currents collected on the cylindrical and disc probes at first decreases with increasing the toroidal field, and then becomes approximately constant; 2) the presence of the large-diameter disc probe does not influence the value of the ion current on the cylindrical probe; and 3) the maximum ion current density near the torus walls is located in the +g direction and displaces in the -(B×g) direction with increasing the toroidal field, where g and B are the vectors of the centrifugal acceleration and the magnetic field, respectively     

Comparative study of ESR spectra in incommensurate antiferromagnets

The electron spin resonance is studied for noncollinear low-dimensional antiferromagnets RbMnBr₃ and RbFe(MoO₄)₂ in a wide range of frequencies and fields. Both compounds have incommensurate spin structures appearing due to a low-symmetry distortion of an ideal hexagonal crystal lattice. Magnetic field applied in the spin plane induces a first-order transition into the commensurate phase. The low-energy resonance branch corresponding to a uniform oscillation of the spin system in the easy plane is observed in the two compounds in both incommensurate and commensurate phases, with a dramatic change of the spectra taking place near the transition field. The resonance spectrum of a nearly commensurate spin structure with long-wave modulations is analyzed in clean and dirty limits in the framework of a hydrodynamic approach. The resonance branch with steep field dependence in the incommensurate state is attributed to the acoustic mode with the gap resulted from pinning of local domain walls (discommensurations) on defects of the crystal structure.     

Water aerosols spraying for SO2 and NOx removal from gases under E-beam irradiation

The gas-phase transport process of an admixture to the surface of spraying aerosol droplets has been experimentally investigated with reference to E-beam gas cleaning processes. The rate of SO₂ uptake by alkali aerosol droplets with average radius 30 μm has been measured in gas-aerosol jet using light absorption technique. It has been shown that the rate of gas-phase transport is described by the molecular flux of the admixture. Gas-liquid reactions are considered to explain the observed improvement of radiation-induced NO removal in the presence of spraying alkali aerosol.     

Distorted vortex lattice in a tetrahedral superconductor

The equilibrium shape and the orientation of the vortex lattice are studied for an s-wave tetrahedral superconductor in the vicinity of the upper critical field. The phase diagram, which includes transitions between rhombic and rectangular lattices, is constructed in the parameter space of the Ginzburg-Landau functional. The developed theory is applied to the heavy-fermion superconductor PrOs₄Sb₁₂. In a wide range of parameters, the shape of the vortex lattice is only weakly dependent on the temperature. The neutron scattering measurements of the vortex lattice in PrOs₄Sb₁₂ can be explained by particularities of the tetrahedral symmetry group and are further supported by analysis of the appropriate band structure calculations. The text was submitted by the authors in English.