Direct View on the Origin of High Li+ Transfer Impedance in All-Solid-State Battery

Large interfacial resistance plays a dominant role in the performance of all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries. However, the mechanism of interfacial resistance has been under debate. Here, the Li⁺ transport at the interfacial region is investigated to reveal the origin of the high Li⁺ transfer impedance in a LiCoO₂(LCO)/LiPON/Pt all-solid-state battery. Both an unexpected nanocrystalline layer and a structurally disordered transition layer are discovered to be inherent to the LCO/LiPON interface. Under electrochemical conditions, the nanocrystalline layer with insufficient electrochemical stability leads to the introduction of voids during electrochemical cycles, which is the origin of the high Li⁺ transfer impedance at solid electrolyte-electrode interfaces. In addition, at relatively low temperatures, the oxygen vacancies migration in the transition layer results in the formation of Co₃O₄ nanocrystalline layer with nanovoids, which contributes to the high Li⁺ transfer impedance. This work sheds light on the mechanism for the high interfacial resistance and promotes overcoming the interfacial issues in all-solid-state batteries.     

Self-healing,elastic and deformable novel composite phase change polymer based on thermoplastic elastomer SEBS for wearable devices

Journal of Materials Science - Form-stable composite phase change materials (C-PCMs) prepared by microencapsulation method and porous matrix adsorption method need for compression molding after...     

Isolation and identification of Lactobacillus and yeast species and their effect on the quality of fermented rice cakes

In this study, microbes were isolated from the rice slurry of a fermented rice cake to obtain lactic acid bacteria and yeast species. These species were identified using microbial physiology and gene sequence analyses. As the growth of the lactic acid bacterial strain R-2b and the yeast J-3a strains were found to be the best, a composite starter comprising these microbes was used for the preparation of fermented rice cakes. Based on single factor and orthogonal experiments, when the proportion of Lactobacillus plantarum, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Candida humilis was 1:3:6, the optimal fermentation conditions were addition of sugar and starter amounts of 20% and 6%, respectively, a fermentation temperature of 32 °C, and fermentation time of 8 h. The fermented rice cake with this optimum ratio had the most abundant volatile components and qualified physicochemical and microbial indexes. Additionally, the overall quality was better than that of commercially available products.     

Alkali metal ion substitution induced luminescence enhancement of NaLaMgWO6:Eu3+ red phosphor for white light-emitting diodes

Alkali metal ion substitution is an effective strategy to improve the luminescence properties of phosphors. In this work, a series of red-emitting phosphors Na_1-xLi_x/2K_x/2La_0.6Eu_0.4MgWO₆ were prepared by a traditional high-temperature solid-state reaction. Their phase structure, microstructure, luminescence properties and potential application in phosphor-converted white light-emitting diodes (pc-WLEDs) were investigated in detail. X-ray diffraction (XRD) result revealed the formation of a solid solution when x?≤?0.3, which kept monoclinic structure of NaLaMgWO₆. Photoluminescence investigation indicated that the partial substitution of Li⁺/K⁺ ions for Na⁺ ions improved largely the red emission of Eu³⁺. Based on the optimized Na_0.7Li_0.15K_0.15La_0.6Eu_0.4MgWO₆ sample with relatively good thermal stability, a WLED device was fabricated by combining a near-ultraviolet (NUV) chip (~400?nm) with the phosphor mixture of commercial green/blue phosphors and the optimized red phosphor. The results indicated that the optimized red phosphor in this work could be a potential candidate for WLEDs pumped by NUV chips.     

Widely Tunable Terahertz-Wave Parametric Oscillator with a Shallow Surface Cross-pump Configuration

Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves - An efficient and widely tunable Si-prism-array coupled terahertz-wave parametric oscillator (TPO) with a very narrow linewidth is demonstrated...     

Cathode materials in non-aqueous aluminum-ion batteries: Progress and challenges

Aluminum-ion batteries (AIBs) are considered as alternatives to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) due to their low cost, good safety and high capacity. Based on aqueous and non-aqueous AIBs, this review focuses on the research progress of the latter cathode materials. Firstly, we fully explain the aluminum storage mechanism of different types of materials. Next, according to relative statistical data, the research trend of different cathode materials (transition metal chalcogenides, transition metal oxides and carbon-based materials) in non-aqueous AIBs is summarized, and related electrochemical performance are analyzed and compared in detail. In addition, as for the research of non-aqueous AIBs cathode materials, the existing problems and expected solutions are discussed, as well as the proposed future research directions.     

Self-lubrication and wear-resistance mechanism of graphene-modified coatings

To reduce the friction coefficient of WC-17Co wear-resistant coatings, Graphene oxide were used to mix with WC-17Co powder. The SEM, EDS and Raman results were used to analyze the morphology and phase composition of graphene oxide in the powder and coating obtained by plasma spraying processes. The mechanical properties of the coatings were studied by using a microhardness tester and a universal testing machine. The friction and wear properties of the coatings were studied by using a UMT-2 friction and wear tester. The results show that among the pulverization processes, the spray granulation process can achieve a stronger and more uniform adhesion of graphene oxide on the surface of WC-17Co particles, and the graphene oxide content in the coating is higher. Graphene is still embedded in the coating as transparent, thin sheets. The bonding strength is approximately 63 MPa, the hardness is approximately 931 HV0.1, and the friction coefficient of the graphene oxide coating is reduced by approximately 22% compared to that of the coating without graphene. The formation of lubrication films in the micro-area improves the self-lubrication and antiwear effects.     

Learning Biased SVM with Weighted Within-Class Scatter for Imbalanced Classification

Neural Processing Letters - Support vector machine (SVM) is a powerful tool for pattern classification and regression estimation. However, for the class imbalanced problem, conventional SVMs are...     

Exploring the photocatalytic hydrogen production potential of titania doped with alumina derived from foil waste

The multifunctional potential of a catalyst previously synthesised for thermal processes is explored by investigating its activity for photocatalytic production of H₂ from glycerol, a by-product from the manufacture of bio-diesel. The studied catalyst contains TiO₂ doped with Al₂O₃ that was derived from aluminum foil waste. This catalyst showed higher photocatalytic activity than the analogous catalyst prepared with a commercial Al₂O₃. Pt and Pd act as electron traps while the Al₂O₃ demonstrated a promotional effect, partially through proton donation. Under optimum conditions, a steady-state of 4.2 mmol H₂ gTiO₂⁻¹ hr⁻¹ was produced, which is comparable to the 4.7 mmol H₂ gTiO₂⁻¹ hr⁻¹ obtained with Pt–TiO₂, which is a standard photocatalytic material. It should be noted that the reported Pt/Pd/TiO₂-ANFL catalyst has not yet been optimised and so this result is encouraging. It is hoped that these findings can inspire more sustainable and less expensive hydrogen production, including from biomass feedstocks such as glycerol.     

Machining accuracy improvement for a dual-spindle ultra-precision drum roll lathe based on geometric error analysis and calibration

This paper performs a comprehensive analysis and calibration on the geometric error of the ultra-precision drum roll lathe with dual-spindle symmetrical structure and cross slider layout. Firstly, the volumetric error model which contains all geometric errors of the dual-spindle ultra-precision drum roll lathe (DSUPDRL) is developed based on the combination of the homogenous transfer matrix (HTM) and multi-body system (MBS) theory. Secondly, sensitivity analysis for the volumetric error model is conducted to identify the sensitive geometric error components of the DSUPDRL using an improved Sobol method based on the quasi-Monte Carlo algorithm. The result of sensitivity analysis laid the foundation for the subsequent geometric error calibration. Then, some sensitive error components along the X and Z directions are calibrated using a laser interferometer and a pair of inductance displacement probes. Besides the volumetric error model, the concentricity error caused by dual-spindle symmetrical structure is proposed and calibrated by the on-machine measurement using a classic reversal method. Finally, a large-scale roller mold with a diameter of 250 mm and a length of 600 mm is machined using the DSUPDRL after calibration. The experimental result shows that 1.4 μm/600 mm generatrix accuracy is obtained, which validate the effectiveness of the geometric error analysis and calibration.