Polymer 4D printing: Advanced shape-change and beyond

4D printing is an exciting branch of additive manufacturing. It relies on established 3D printing techniques to fabricate objects in much the same way. However, structures which fall into the 4D printed category have the ability to change with time, hence the “extra dimension.” The common perception of 4D printed objects is that of macroscopic single-material structures limited to point-to-point shape change only, in response to either heat or water. However, in the area of polymer 4D printing, recent advancements challenge this understanding. A host of new polymeric materials have been designed which display a variety of wonderful effects brought about by unconventional stimuli, and advanced additive manufacturing techniques have been developed to accommodate them. As a result, the horizons of polymer 4D printing have been broadened beyond what was initially thought possible. In this review, we showcase the many studies which evolve the very definition of polymer 4D printing, and reveal emerging areas of research integral to its advancement.     

Insights into MWCNTs/polyimide nanocomposites: from synthesis to application as free-standing flexible electrodes in low-cost micro-supercapacitors

In the pursuit to enlarge the library of polyimide materials for energy applications, new polyimide/MWCNTs composite films have been developed by MWCNTs-assisted polycondensation reaction of a hydroxyl and triphenylmethane-containing diamine with benzophenone tetracarboxylic dianhydride targeting to highlight their electrical storage capability as flexible electrodes in micro-supercapacitors (mSCs). The Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, proton nuclear magnetic resonance, UV–vis, fluorescence, and Raman spectroscopies were used to demonstrate the evolution of interfacial interactions between MWCNTs and the precursors (diamine monomer and intermediate polyamidic acid) and polyimide matrix that proved to be the origin of MWCNTs homogeneous dispersion. Thus, composite films incorporating 1, 3, 5, and 10 w.t.% MWCNTs were obtained and thoroughly investigated with regard to their morphology, mechanical behavior, thermal stability, and electrical conductivity. The electrochemical performance of these composites was first analyzed in a classical three-electrode cell by cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge-discharge in both aqueous and organic electrolyte systems. By far, the best electrical storage capacity was obtained with the composite polyimide film containing 10% MWCNTs that was further used as both active material and current collector in a flexible symmetric mSC realized by a straightforward and low-cost procedure. In the attempt to better exploit the advantages of this composite film, it was layered with a graphite-containing paint and tested as an electrode in a flexible mSC, which provided satisfactory results. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the electrical charge storage capability of a polyimide/MWCNTs free-standing film as a flexible electrode in mSCs, which do not require time- and resource-consuming processing steps.     

Revealing the Effect of Surface Composition on Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Supported Pt-Fe Alloy Electrocatalysts for Methanol Oxidation Performance

The designs of efficient and inexpensive Pt-based catalysts for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) are essential to boost the commercialization of direct methanol fuel cells. Here, the highly catalytic performance PtFe alloys supported on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) decorating nitrogen-doped carbon (NC) have been successfully prepared via co-engineering of the surface composition and electronic structure. The Pt₁Fe₃@NC/MWCNTs catalyst with moderate Fe³⁺ feeding content (0.86 mA/mg_Pt) exhibits 2.26-fold enhancement in MOR mass activity compared to pristine Pt/C catalyst (0.38 mA/mg_Pt). Furthermore, the CO oxidation initial potential of Pt₁Fe₃@NC/MWCNTs catalyst is lower relative to Pt/C catalyst (0.71 V and 0.80 V). Benefited from the optimal surface compositions, the anti-corrosion ability of MWCNT, strong electron interaction between PtFe alloys and MWCNTs and the N-doped carbon (NC) layer, the Pt₁Fe₃@NC/MWCNTs catalyst presents an improved MOR performance and anti-CO poisoning ability. This study would open up new perspective for designing efficient electrocatalysts for the DMFCs field.     

Chemical versus Electrochemical Synthesis of Carbon Nano‐onion/Polypyrrole Composites for Supercapacitor Electrodes

The development of high‐surface‐area carbon electrodes with a defined pore size distribution and the incorporation of pseudo‐active materials to optimize the overall capacitance and conductivity without destroying the stability are at present important research areas. Composite electrodes of carbon nano‐onions (CNOs) and polypyrrole (Ppy) were fabricated to improve the specific capacitance of a supercapacitor. The carbon nanostructures were uniformly coated with Ppy by chemical polymerization or by electrochemical potentiostatic deposition to form homogenous composites or bilayers. The materials were characterized by transmission‐ and scanning electron microscopy, differential thermogravimetric analyses, FTIR spectroscopy, piezoelectric microgravimetry, and cyclic voltammetry. The composites show higher mechanical and electrochemical stabilities, with high specific capacitances of up to about 800 F g^?1 for the CNOs/SDS/Ppy composites (chemical synthesis) and about 1300 F g^?1 for the CNOs/Ppy bilayer (electrochemical deposition).     

An Improved Composite Multiscale Fuzzy Entropy for Feature Extraction of MI-EEG

Motor Imagery Electroencephalography (MI-EEG) has shown good prospects in neurorehabilitation, and the entropy-based nonlinear dynamic methods have been successfully applied to feature extraction of MI-EEG. Especially based on Multiscale Fuzzy Entropy (MFE), the fuzzy entropies of the τ coarse-grained sequences in τ scale are calculated and averaged to develop the Composite MFE (CMFE) with more feature information. However, the coarse-grained process fails to match the nonstationary characteristic of MI-EEG by a mean filtering algorithm. In this paper, CMFE is improved by assigning the different weight factors to the different sample points in the coarse-grained process, i.e., using the weighted mean filters instead of the original mean filters, which is conductive to signal filtering and feature extraction, and the resulting personalized Weighted CMFE (WCMFE) is more suitable to represent the nonstationary MI-EEG for different subjects. All the WCMFEs of multi-channel MI-EEG are fused in serial to construct the feature vector, which is evaluated by a back-propagation neural network. Based on a public dataset, extensive experiments are conducted, yielding a relatively higher classification accuracy by WCMFE, and the statistical significance is examined by two-sample t-test. The results suggest that WCMFE is superior to the other entropy-based and traditional feature extraction methods.     

固体间界面的物理模型和界面对声波的反射

简要描述了模拟两固体间界面特性的弹簧模型，该模型最早是根据静力学方法提出的，后来用固体间界面薄层的声波反射方法加以改进，从界面弹簧模型可以方便地得到界面外近似边界条件，其中包含界面“弹簧”振子的劲度常数和质量，文章还给出了两相间固体中界面声反射系数的表达式，介绍了测量界面劲度常数的超声反射谱方法。最后讨论了仍关声波与界面相互作用研究领域中最近的一些研究进展。     

COMPACT COUPLED LINEAR TAPERED LINE BANDPASS FILTER WITH TWO TRANSMISSION ZEROS

A new compact bandpass filter composed of two coupled linear tapered line resonators (LTLRs) is designed. The two resonators are arranged in different layers. The filter has two transmission zeros on both sides of the passband. It has small size and steep response below its passband. It is also shown that this filter has 0.6 dB low insertion loss at the centre frequency and 10.5% 3dB bandwidth. This work was supported by the Development Foundation of Shanghai Educational Committee (217608) and Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (T0102).     

Acoustic reflection from a baffled elastic/piezoelectric plate

A finite difference/boundary integral procedure to determine the acoustic reflected pressure from a fluid-loaded bi-laminated plate is described. The bi-laminate is composed of a piezoelectric layer and an elastic layer in contact with the fluid, and is held by an acoustically hard baffle. In the numerical model, the fluid pressure at fluid/solid interface is replaced by a continuum of point sources weighted by the normal acceleration of the elastic plate, and the governing equation system is solved in the solid domain. With the normal acceleration found, the reflected pressure in the fluid is determined by an integral expression involving the Green's function. It is demonstrated that an appropriate applied voltage potential across the piezoelectric layer has the effect of cancelling either the reflected or scattered pressure of the plate at any chosen field points in the fluid. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 10172039).     

Decreasing the Displacements of a Composite Saddle-Shaped Cable Roof

The structural possibilities of decreasing the compliance of a composite saddle-shaped cable roof having a compliant support contour are investigated. The use of a supporting contour consisting of cables joined together with tie-bars is considered as a structural method enabling one to decrease the compliance of the roof. Each cable of the support has its own initial flexure. The method is most efficient from the viewpoint of material consumption per unit of covered area relative to the increasing rigidity and prestress level of the cable net.The efficiency of the method was evaluated by a numerical experiment, which was carried out for a composite saddle-shaped cable roof 50 × 50 m in the plan. The roof was formed by two orthogonal cable groups joined with a compliant supporting contour. A hybrid composite cable based on a carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic, a glass-fiber-reinforced plastic, and steel was considered as a material for the cable net in combination with steel. The material consumption and the maximum vertical displacement of the cable net in relation to the initial geometrical characteristics of the supporting contour were obtained. A possibility of decreasing the maximum vertical displacements of the roof by 8% was established.     

波片复合旋光器研究

利用矩阵光学方法，分析了波片复合旋光器的理论基础，给出了二元和三元复合波片旋光器的条件及其旋光角的大小的数学表达式，并根据此理论作了典型设计。结果表明，旋光角的大小与各波片的延迟量和它们的快轴同X轴的夹角有关。