Flexible,Mechanically Stable,Porous Self-Standing Microfiber Network Membranes of Covalent Organic Frameworks: Preparation Method and Characterization

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) show advantageous characteristics, such as an ordered pore structure and a large surface area for gas storage and separation, energy storage, catalysis, and molecular separation. However, COFs usually exist as difficult-to-process powders, and preparing continuous, robust, flexible, foldable, and rollable COF membranes is still a challenge. Herein, such COF membranes with fiber morphology for the first time prepared via a newly introduced template-assisted framework process are reported. This method uses electrospun porous polymer membranes as a sacrificial large dimension template for making self-standing COF membranes. The porous COF fiber membranes, besides having high crystallinity, also show a large surface area (1153 m² g⁻¹), good mechanical stability, excellent thermal stability, and flexibility. This study opens up the possibility of preparation of large dimension COF membranes and their derivatives in a simple way and hence shows promise in technical applications in separation, catalysis, and energy in the future.     

Epitaxial Growth of 2D Materials on High-Index Substrate Surfaces

Recently, the successful synthesis of wafer-scale single-crystal graphene, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), and MoS₂ on transition metal surfaces with step edges boosted the research interests in synthesizing wafer-scale 2D single crystals on high-index substrate surfaces. Here, using hBN growth on high-index Cu surfaces as an example, a systematic theoretical study to understand the epitaxial growth of 2D materials on various high-index surfaces is performed. It is revealed that hBN orientation on a high-index surface is highly dependent on the alignment of the step edges of the surface as well as the surface roughness. On an ideal high-index surface, well-aligned hBN islands can be easily achieved, whereas curved step edges on a rough surface can lead to the alignment of hBN along with different directions. This study shows that high-index surfaces with a large step density are robust for templating the epitaxial growth of 2D single crystals due to their large tolerance for surface roughness and provides a general guideline for the epitaxial growth of various 2D single crystals.     

Magnetic porous nano-carbon catalysts supported silver nanoparticles derived from chitin and their application in catalytic reduction reactions

The exploitation of recycled carbonaceous catalysts from renewable biomass resources such as chitin is a crucial issue for the development of the sustainable society. In this article, the chitin-based N and O doped carbon microspheres (ChC) were fabricated by a simple dissolution, sol–gel transformation, and the carbonization methods. Subsequently, the novel magnetic Ag-Fe₃O₄@chitin-based carbon microspheres catalyst (MChC) was successfully constructed through the in situ redox reaction. The as-prepared MChC possessed rich micropores with high-surface area, and a narrow size distribution (50–120 μm). The Ag-Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles were immobilized through the interaction with C, N, and O atoms in the pores of MChC. The reduction of 4-nitrophenol was applied to evaluate the catalytic activity of MChC. 4-Nitrophenol (4-NP) could be fully reduced to 4-aminophenol (4-AP) in 5 min with the catalyst MChC-45. Moreover, MChC could be collected in solution with an external magnet in 8 s and remained relatively high-catalytic activity after 10 cycle times. This work provided novel ideas for the fabrication of doped carbon material from biomass and promoted its utilization in nanocatalytic applications.     

Nanocrystallization and optical properties of CsPbBr3−xIx perovskites in chalcogenide glasses

The confinement of CsPbX₃ (X = Cl, Br, and I) perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) in a stabilized inorganic glass matrix is a new strategy for improving their long-term stability and promoting their applications in the optoelectronic field. Here, in situ nanocrystallization strategy is developed to precipitate CsPbBr_3?xI_x NCs with arbitrary I/Br ratio among an elaborately designed GeS₂–Sb₂S₃-based chalcogenide glass matrix. Spherical CsPbBr_3?xI_x NCs are homogeneously distributed in the glass matrix after thermal treatment. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra show that the emission peaks of CsPbBr_3?xI_x NCs can be tuned from 570 nm to 722 nm with the replacement of Br by I. The fs transient absorption (TA) spectra reveal that there exists some structural defects in the NCs, leading to short PL decay life. This work would shed light on confining CsPbX₃ NCs into glassy matrices, facilitating their future applications in photoelectronic fields.     

Display illumination with modulated directional backlight

Illumination is essential for modern life as colorful world is perceived by human visionary system. Display technology has been developing rapidly in recent decades, and the basic principle is related to the way that the image is illuminated and light is emanated. Traditional illumination is provided by different types of light sources, and the display image is visible in large viewing space until the emanating light decays to zero. This work proposes and demonstrates a novel illumination scheme for a display in which the displaying images are visible only in specific spatial regions. The directional backlight ensures the image propagating to specific direction while imaging visibility can be controlled to terminate abruptly at certain distance from the display screen while exerting no influence to nearby regions. The working principle for such an illumination scheme is the use of the modulated coherent directional backlight through an axicon lens. It is shown that the illumination scheme can robustly deliver carried image information to the designated viewing region. This new illumination scheme has many advantages over conventional illumination, including its usage for personal display, very lower energy consumption, as well as minimizing light hazard pollution.     

Maximum likelihood-based adaptive differential evolution identification algorithm for multivariable systems in the state-space form

Parameter estimation plays an important role in the field of system control. This article is concerned with the parameter estimation methods for multivariable systems in the state-space form. For the sake of solving the identification complexity caused by a large number of parameters in multivariable systems, we decompose the original multivariable system into some subsystems containing fewer parameters and study identification algorithms to estimate the parameters of each subsystem. By taking the maximum likelihood criterion function as the fitness function of the differential evolution algorithm, we present a maximum likelihood-based differential evolution (ML-DE) algorithm for parameter estimation. To improve the parameter estimation accuracy, we introduce the adaptive mutation factor and the adaptive crossover factor into the ML-DE algorithm and propose a maximum likelihood-based adaptive differential evolution algorithm. The simulation study indicates the efficiency of the proposed algorithms.     

Recent Advances in Conjugated Polymers for Visible-Light-Driven Water Splitting

With the ambition of solving the challenges of the shortage of fossil fuels and their associated environmental pollution, visible-light-driven splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen using semiconductor photocatalysts has emerged as a promising technology to provide environmentally friendly energy vectors. Among the current library of developed photocatalysts, organic conjugated polymers present unique advantages of sufficient light-absorption efficiency, excellent stability, tunable electronic properties, and economic applicability. As a class of rising photocatalysts, organic conjugated polymers offer high flexibility in tuning the framework of the backbone and porosity to fulfill the requirements for photocatalytic applications. In the past decade, significant progress has been made in visible-light-driven water splitting employing organic conjugated polymers. The recent development of the structural design principles of organic conjugated polymers (including linear, crosslinked, and supramolecular self-assembled polymers) toward efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution, oxygen evolution, and overall water splitting is described, thus providing a comprehensive reference for the field. Finally, current challenges and perspectives are also discussed.     

Expanded coprime array for DOA estimation: augmented consecutive co-array and reduced mutual coupling

Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing - Generalized coprime structure decomposes the interleaved subarrays in the conventional coprime array by introducing a displacement and the resulting...     

Temperature adaptability of the soluble lead flow battery using different solutions of fluoborate,perchlorate, methanesulfonate and trifluoromethanesulfonate

The evaluation of cell's weatherability is of practical interest. To further improve the soluble lead flow battery's weatherability, physiochemical properties of electrolytes containing fluoborate, perchlorate, methanesulfonate and trifluoromethanesulfonate are investigated from ?60 to 50 °C. Activities of CF₃SO₃H and HClO₄ are poor in trifluoromethanesulfonate and perchlorate solutions due to common anion effect. The solubility of lead salt can be improved by increasing temperature, but worsened by increasing acid's content. With the temperature increasing, the conductivity is enhanced, and the viscosity is lowered for four solutions. The same results have been found by increasing acid's content except for CF₃SO₃H. The high energy efficiency can be achieved for cells over ?40–0 °C using fluoborate and perchlorate solutions, 73.2% at ?40 °C and 78.1% at ?30 °C respectively. Over the temperature range of 20–50 °C, the cells with methanesulfonate and trifluoromethanesulfonate solutions have good performance, 77.4% and 73.7% at 50 °C respectively.