Effect of microstructural features on the corrosion behavior of severely deformed Al–Mg–Si alloy

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of severe plastic deformation processing and the changes in microstructure resulting therefrom on the corrosion resistance of an Al–Mg–Si alloy. The alloy was processed using incremental equal channel angular pressing, which caused a reduction in grain size from 15 to 0.9 µm. The grain refinement was accompanied by an increase in the number of grain boundaries and dislocations, and by changes in grain orientation. However, there was no change in the size and number of intermetallic particles, which presumably resulted in a constant number of galvanic couplings. Electrochemical experiments revealed only slight differences between the samples before and after processing. Higher potential transients/oscillations upon immersion and increased corrosion currents in the vicinity of corrosion potential point to slightly higher reactivity of the most refined material. This indicates that intermetallic particles are the most crucial microstructural elements in terms of corrosion resistance. Their impact exceeds that of grain boundaries, in particular, at the stage of corrosion initiation. The development of corrosion attack is controlled more by the microstructure of the matrix as the grain refinement resulted in a less pronounced corrosion attack in comparison with the coarse-grained sample.     

Environmentally Friendly Graphene Inks for Touch Screen Sensors

Graphene-based materials have attracted significant attention in many technological fields, but scaling up graphene-based technologies still faces substantial challenges. High-throughput top-down methods generally require hazardous, toxic, and high-boiling-point solvents. Here, an efficient and inexpensive strategy is proposed to produce graphene dispersions by liquid-phase exfoliation (LPE) through a combination of shear-mixing (SM) and tip sonication (TS) techniques, yielding highly concentrated graphene inks compatible with spray coating. The quality of graphene flakes (e.g., lateral size and thickness) and their concentration in the dispersions are compared using different spectroscopic and microscopy techniques. Several approaches (individual SM and TS, and their combination) are tested in three solvents (N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, dimethylformamide, and cyrene). Interestingly, the combination of SM and TS in cyrene yields high-quality graphene dispersions, overcoming the environmental issues linked to the other two solvents. Starting from the cyrene dispersion, a graphene-based ink is prepared to spray-coat flexible electrodes and assemble a touch screen prototype. The electrodes feature a low sheet resistance (290 Ω □⁻¹) and high optical transmittance (78%), which provide the prototype with a high signal-to-noise ratio (14 dB) and multi-touch functionality (up to four simultaneous touches). These results illustrate a potential pathway toward the integration of LPE-graphene in commercial flexible electronics.     

Freeze-drying and mechanical redispersion of aqueous PEDOT:PSS

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) films are attracting famous applications in antistatic coating, energy storage and conversion, printed electronics, and biomedical fields due to their conductivity, optical transparency and flexibility. However, PEDOT:PSS has poor dispersion stability during long-term storage and transport. Moreover, the dried PEDOT:PSS films are insoluble in any solvent and cannot be redispersed again. In comparison to bake drying, here, a feasible strategy to achieve mechanically redispersed PEDOT:PSS with the help of freeze-drying process was reported. The redispersed PEDOT:PSS can recover not only the initial characters such as pH, chemical composition, viscosity, and particle size under similar solid contents, but also conductivity and surface morphology of treated films. In addition, the treated film exhibits self-healing properties similar to pristine film in terms of mechanical and electrical properties. This technology enables reuse and overcomes the technical problems of PEDOT:PSS dispersion, realizing real-time processing to meet variable applications.     

Enhanced mechanical properties of glass fibre epoxy composites by 2D exfoliated graphene oxide filler

Graphene oxide (GO) received a significant attention in the scientific community due to their excellent mechanical properties identifying themselves as an alternative and combinatory to various other metals and composites. Though GO possess excellent strength, it was observed from the literature that graphene oxide consisting of hydroxyl group elements ensue in poor bonding. Thus reduced functional group density (rFGD) graphene is preferred which has an advantage of good bonding, alongside very small quantity as a filler is required to achieve the enhancement equivalent to graphene oxide which forms the novelty of the current work. In current case, 3, 6 and 9 wt% of rFGD is dispersed into E-glass fibre reinforced composite by traditional hand layup technique. The obtained results revealed that, the tensile, flexural and impact strength have shown superior enhancement with 3 and 6 wt% of rGO than neat E-glass epoxy (0 wt% rGO), whereas an asymptotic decrement is noticed at 9 wt% when tested with ASTM standards except for impact strength. The microstructural studies also indicated the proper adhesion and alignment of fibres without any agglomerations corroborate the enhancement of properties. These overall finding supports the suitability of the developed laminates for potential use in structural applications in aerospace industry.     

跨行政区游憩空间柔性一体化研究 ——以高莱茵河沿岸地区为例

随着城市化与区域一体化的迅速发展,不同行政区之间的联动关系越来越紧密,这种联动关系在城市各功能空间的设计上有所体现,更渗透到了与市民息息相关的游憩空间建构之中。受制于行政管理等方面的原因,在跨行政区的游憩空间一体化实施过程中,往往会采取一系列柔性措施。以欧洲高莱茵河沿岸地区为研究对象,分析高莱茵河沿岸地区游憩空间的发展与现状,总结其游憩空间体系的构建特点,为中国跨城市河流沿岸的游憩空间柔性一体化建构提供策略与建议。     

新型限力输出保护功能柔性夹钳的设计与参数评估

柔性夹钳因具有微/纳精密操作能力, 常应用于微操作系统中, 但因抓爪无法提供恒定输出力或恒力范围小, 容易造成操作对象的损伤或脱落。根据放大模块与常力模块串联的结构形式, 设计了一种具有常力特性的柔性夹钳。基于伪刚体法, 建立放大模块中桥式机构与杠杆机构的刚度和放大率数学模型, 通过对倾斜导向梁进行分析, 得到常力模块的力-位移关系式, 计算出恒定输出力为42.5 N, 输出范围为370 μm。最后, 结合不同柔顺梁的结构参数, 运用MATLAB仿真探究了各关键参数对常力特性的影响。研究结果可为常力柔性夹钳的构型设计和分析提供一定的理论支撑。     

Flexible Osteogenic Glue as an All-In-One Solution to Assist Fracture Fixation and Healing

Osteogenic glue that reproduces the natural bone composition represents the final frontier of orthopedic adhesives with the potential to revolutionize surgical strategies against comminuted fractures. However, it is difficult to achieve an all-in-one formula, which could provide flexible and reliable adhesiveness while avoiding interfering with or even promoting the healing of glued fractures. Herein, an osteogenic glue characterized by inorganic-in-organic integration between amine-modified mesoporous bioactive glass nanoparticles (AMBGN) and bioadhesive gelatin-dextran network (GelDex) is introduced as an all-in-one tool to flexibly adhere and splice bone fragments and subsequently guide fracture healing during degradation. Relying on such integration, a 4-fold improvement in cohesiveness is presented, followed by a nearly 5-fold enhancement in adhesive strength in ex vivo porcine bone samples. The reversible and re-adjustable adhesiveness also enables glue to effectively splice intricate fragments from highly comminuted fractures in the rabbit radius in an in vivo environment. Moreover, well-preserved organic–inorganic integrity during degradation of the glue guides sustained interfacial osteogenesis and achieve satisfying healing outcomes in glued fractures, as observed by the 2-fold improvement in biomechanical and radiological performance compared with commercially available cyanoacrylate adhesives. The current findings propose an all-in-one solution for the fixation of bone fragments during surgery.     

Designing amorphous formulations of polyphenols with naringin by spray-drying for enhanced solubility and permeability

Naringin (NAR), a major flavanone (FVA) glycoside, is a component of food mainly obtained from grapefruit. We used NAR as a food additive to improve the solubility and permeability of hydrophobic polyphenols used as supplements in the food industry. The spray-dried particles (SDPs) of NAR alone show an amorphous state with a glass transition temperature (T_g) at 93.2 °C. SDPs of hydrophobic polyphenols, such as flavone (FVO), quercetin (QCT), naringenin (NRG), and resveratrol (RVT) were prepared by adding varying amounts of NAR. All SDPs of hydrophobic polyphenols with added NAR were in an amorphous state with a single T_g, but SDPs of hydrophobic polyphenols without added NAR showed diffraction peaks derived from each crystal. The SDPs with NAR could keep an amorphous state after storage at a high humidity condition for one month, except for SDPs of RVT/NAR. SDPs with NAR enhanced the solubility of hydrophobic polyphenols, especially NRG solubility, which was enhanced more than 9 times compared to NRG crystal. The enhanced solubility resulted in the increased membrane permeability of NRG. The antioxidant effect of the hydrophobic NRG was also enhanced by the synergetic effect of NAR. The findings demonstrated that NAR could be used as a food additive to enhance the solubility and membrane permeability of hydrophobic polyphenols.     

Effect of mesoporous carbon on oxygen reduction reaction activity as cathode catalyst support for proton exchange membrane fuel cell

In this paper, a new carbon support with a large number of mesoporous-structures is selected to prepare Pt/C catalysts. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) results show that the Pt/3# catalyst presents a sponge-like morphology, Pt particles are not only evenly distributed on the surface of carbon support, but also the smaller Pt particles are deposited in the mesoporous inside the support. The average diameter of Pt particles is only 2.8 nm. The membrane electrode assembly (MEA) based on Pt/3# catalyst also shows excellent performance. In conclusion, the 3# support is an idea carbon support for PEMFC, which helps to improve the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity of the catalyst. Based on the “internal-Pt” structure of the support mesoporous, the efficient three-phase boundaries (TPBs) are construct to avoid the poisoning effect of ionomer on the nano-metal particles, reduce the activation impedance and oxygen mass transfer impedance, and improve the reaction efficiency.     

基于滚动摩擦作用下玉米颗粒在模拟筒仓卸料中的力链分析（网络首发、推荐阅读）

针对颗粒滚动摩擦作用对筒仓中玉米颗粒的力链空间分布进行研究，通过EDEM离散元软件建立筒仓模型与仿真玉米颗粒模型进行卸粮仿真模拟，并与筒仓卸料实验作流态对比，验证模型与仿真结果的准确性。通过对模拟仓进行切片观察和数据处理，对比分析了不同摩擦情况下力链的细观参数随时间演化规律。模拟结果表明：颗粒间摩擦系数越大，卸粮完成的最终时间越长；颗粒间滚动摩擦系数越小，颗粒由整体流转变为管状流的时间越早。对于有漏斗的筒仓来说，减小颗粒间摩擦会改变整体流和管状流之间的极限，从而增加产生管状流的面积。标准滚动摩擦系数下玉米颗粒在卸料过程中会出现起拱-塌陷效应；减小滚动摩擦，玉米颗粒卸料较稳定，未出现起拱的应力突增、以及拱塌陷的应力衰减；增大颗粒间滚动摩擦不但会增加拱效应，且出现成拱高度距离漏斗口更高。