Application of room temperature ionic liquids to Li batteries

Novel electrolyte materials, room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) were applied to the Li battery system and their characteristics in Li-metal batteries are discussed, partly reviewing authors work in the past. Quaternary ammonium (QA) cation-imide RTIL was focused on because of the excellent stability in cathodic environment of Li. Li/LiCoO₂ cell performance and Li cycling efficiency using the selected QA-imide RTIL was almost satisfactory. In addition, thermal stability of selected QA-imide RTIL with the charged positive electrode and Li was the advantage for Li battery. On the other hand, further improvement in the conducting properties is required with balanced approach for both electrochemical stability and thermal stability in order to use the RTIL electrolyte practically in batteries.     

Interfacial reaction and its influence on phase morphology and impact properties of modified‐polyacetal/thermoplastic polyurethane blends

The cationic polymerization of 1,3,5‐trioxane, 1,3‐dioxolane and a small amount of 2‐hydroxyacetic acid (HAA) was carried out, and the resulting modified‐polyacetal (POM) was blended with thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) in melt. The results of ¹H NMR analysis indicated that HAA was almost incorporated in the modified‐POM, and that the resulting carboxyl end‐group and hydroxyl end‐group in the modified‐POM reacted with TPU during the melt blending. There were many boundary layers between the cavities and matrix in the modified‐POM/TPU (82/18 by weight) blend that was etched with tetrahydrofuran (THF), and the diameter of the cavities became ～0.3–1 μm long when the blending time reached 10 min. The results of scanning electron microscopic (SEM) observation and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) indicated that the modified‐POM/TPU blend had a good compatibility because of the interfacial reaction between the modified‐POM and TPU phase in the blend. The modified‐POM/TPU blend exhibited higher Charpy impact strength when compared with a normal‐POM/TPU blend; the toughness of the modified‐POM/TPU blend attributed to the good compatibility between the two phases. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 4375–4382, 2006     

Modification of transport properties of ion exchange membranes,XIII. Surface-modified cation exchange membranes prepared from polyamines and a copolymer membrane containing p-stryenesulfonyl chloride

A membrane precursor was prepared by the copolymerization of p-styrenesulfonyl chloride and divinylbenzene in the presence of a poly(vinyl chloride) supported cloth. The surface of the membrane was treated with various amines, and then the sulfonyl chloride groups in the internal part of the membrane were hydrolyzed with an aqueous sodium hydroxide solution in organic methanol or acetone solvent. Hydrolysis conditions were examined for the introduction of the sulfonic acid groups. The membrane modified by ethylenediamine exhibited slightly bipolar properties during the electrodialysis of seawater. Surface-modified membranes using tetraethylenepentamine exhibited excellent monovalent cation permselectivity, low membrane electric resistance, and long performance durability during the electrodialysis of seawater.     

Block coordinate descent algorithms for large-scale sparse multiclass classification

Over the past decade, ? ₁ regularization has emerged as a powerful way to learn classifiers with implicit feature selection. More recently, mixed-norm (e.g., ? ₁/? ₂) regularization has been utilized as a way to select entire groups of features. In this paper, we propose a novel direct multiclass formulation specifically designed for large-scale and high-dimensional problems such as document classification. Based on a multiclass extension of the squared hinge loss, our formulation employs ? ₁/? ₂ regularization so as to force weights corresponding to the same features to be zero across all classes, resulting in compact and fast-to-evaluate multiclass models. For optimization, we employ two globally-convergent variants of block coordinate descent, one with line search (Tseng and Yun in Math. Program. 117:387–423, 2009) and the other without (Richtárik and Taká? in Math. Program. 1–38, 2012a; Tech. Rep. arXiv:1212.0873, 2012b). We present the two variants in a unified manner and develop the core components needed to efficiently solve our formulation. The end result is a couple of block coordinate descent algorithms specifically tailored to our multiclass formulation. Experimentally, we show that block coordinate descent performs favorably compared to other solvers such as FOBOS, FISTA and SpaRSA. Furthermore, we show that our formulation obtains very compact multiclass models and outperforms ? ₁/? ₂-regularized multiclass logistic regression in terms of training speed, while achieving comparable test accuracy.     

Construction and development of a time-resolved x-ray magnetic circular dichroism-photoelectron emission microscopy system using femtosecond laser pulses at BL25SU SPring-8

A femtosecond pulsed laser system has been installed at the BL25SU soft x-ray beamline at SPring-8 for time-resolved pump-probe experiments with synchronization of the laser pulses to the circularly polarized x-ray pulses. There are four different apparatuses situated at the beamline; for photoemission spectroscopy, two-dimensional display photoelectron diffraction, x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) with electromagnetic coils, and photoelectron emission microscopy (PEEM). All four can be used for time-resolved experiments, and preliminary investigations have been carried out using the PEEM apparatus to observe magnetization dynamics in combination with XMCD. In this article, we describe the details of the stroboscopic pump-probe XMCD-PEEM experiment, and present preliminary data. The repetition rate of the laser pulses is set using a pulse selector to match the single bunches of SPring-8's hybrid filling pattern, which consists of several single bunches and a continuous bunch train. Electrons ejected during the bunch train, which do not provide time-resolved signal, are eliminated by periodically reducing the channel plate voltage using a custom-built power supply. The pulsed laser is used to create 300 ps long magnetic field pulses, which cause magnetic excitations in micron-sized magnetic elements which contain magnetic vortex structures. The observed frequency of the motion is consistent with previously reported observations and simulations.     

Effects of entraining velocity of lubricant and sliding velocity on friction behavior in stainless steel sheet rolling

A series of experiments was carried out using a rolling-type tribometer to investigate the effects on friction behavior of the entraining velocity of the lubricant at the inlet to the contact zone (V) and sliding velocity during deformation (ΔV). Experiments with stainless steel sheets of two different surface roughnesses showed that the variations in the friction coefficient with entraining velocity V and sliding velocity ΔV are largely dependent on the initial surface texture of the workpiece. For a smooth workpiece, the friction coefficient decreases with increasing sliding velocity ΔV but keeps almost constant with increasing entraining velocity V. However, for a rough workpiece, the friction coefficient initially decreases slowly and increases largely with increasing sliding velocity ΔV or decreasing entraining velocity V. Observation of the rolled surface for a smooth workpiece shows that, with increasing entraining velocity V, the slip band becomes more marked, and with increasing sliding velocity ΔV, the rubbed portions become more conspicuous. For a rough workpiece, galling occurs at high sliding velocity ΔV. The critical condition for galling outbreak is shown on the V-ΔV graph. The galling outbreak process is observed by interrupting the rolling process.     

Electrochemical reaction of lithium alanate dissolved in diethyl ether and tetrahydrofuran

We present electrochemical properties of lithium alanate (LiAlH₄) dissolved in aprotic ethers – diethyl ether (Et₂O) and tetrahydrofuran (THF) – under an Ar atmosphere of 1 atm at 298 K. Specific conductivities of both LiAlH₄–THF and LiAlH₄–Et₂O solutions are measured by AC four-terminal method. Cyclic voltammetry is performed with using a beaker-type electrochemical cell consisted of a Ni wire, Ni mesh and Li wire as a working, counter and reference electrode, respectively. In order to clarify the electrochemical behavior, anodic polarization of LiAlH₄–THF solution is measured. The current density of 1.0 M LiAlH₄–THF solution reaches to 1 A cm⁻², which is higher than the LiAlH₄–Et₂O solution. Quantitative analysis of H₂ gas generated on the working electrode during the potentiostatic electrolysis tells that the number of electrons involved in the anodic reaction at the limiting current is one in case of the LiAlH₄–THF solution. We propose conceivable electrochemical reactions of LiAlH₄ in the non-aqueous ethereal solutions.     

Supplemental treatment of rheumatoid arthritis with natural milk antibodies against enteromicrobes and their toxins: results of an open-labelled pilot study

Background  

Environmental factors, particularly commensal bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, may be involved in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The aim of this study was to evaluate whether natural milk antibodies against a wide spectrum of pathogenic enteromicobes and their toxins modify the disease activity in RA.     

Effect of palladium loaded activated carbons on hydrogen storage

Pd-loaded high surface area activated carbon (BAC-Pd) was produced from bamboo by carbonization and activation using potassium hydroxide with subsequent loading of palladium. The palladium loaded onto BACs appears to exist more in micropores. The Pd compounds exist mainly as amorphous PdCl₂ with Pd (0) structures in the whole surface of BAC-Pd. The hydrogen adsorption capability of BAC-Pd at 0.1?MPa and room temperature was evaluated for hydrogen storage. The amount of adsorbed hydrogen on BAC-Pd was the maximum among three Pd-loaded activated carbons because the physical properties and the Pd content are the highest among them. According to the effect of Pd content, the amounts of adsorbed hydrogen on BAC-Pd increased linearly as the Pd content increased, and the BET surface area of BAC-Pd decreased. BAC, which had the highest Pd contents in micropores, exhibited excellent adsorption ability for hydrogen at 298?K and 0.1?MPa. The amounts of chemisorbed hydrogen of BAC-Pd increased along with the increase in Pd content. Furthermore, the amount of adsorbed hydrogen of BAC-Pd is expected to increase in conditions with pressure higher than 0.1?MPa.