Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO2 to Ethylene by Molecular Cu‐Complex Immobilized on Graphitized Mesoporous Carbon

The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO₂) to hydrocarbons is a challenging task because of the issues in controlling the efficiency and selectivity of the products. Among the various transition metals, copper has attracted attention as it yields more reduced and C2 products even while using mononuclear copper center as catalysts. In addition, it is found that reversible formation of copper nanoparticle acts as the real catalytically active site for the conversion of CO₂ to reduced products. Here, it is demonstrated that the dinuclear molecular copper complex immobilized over graphitized mesoporous carbon can act as catalysts for the conversion of CO₂ to hydrocarbons (methane and ethylene) up to 60%. Interestingly, high selectivity toward C2 product (40% faradaic efficiency) is achieved by a molecular complex based hybrid material from CO₂ in 0.1 m KCl. In addition, the role of local pH, porous structure, and carbon support in limiting the mass transport to achieve the highly reduced products is demonstrated. Although the spectroscopic analysis of the catalysts exhibits molecular nature of the complex after 2 h bulk electrolysis, morphological study reveals that the newly generated copper cluster is the real active site during the catalytic reactions.     

Approximate cutting pattern optimization of frame-supported and pneumatic membrane structures

International Journal of Mechanics and Materials in Design - A simple iterative method is presented for cutting pattern optimization of frame-supported and pneumatic membrane structures for...     

Within-class multimodal classification

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In many real-world classification problems there exist multiple subclasses (or clusters) within a class; in other words, the underlying data distribution is...     

Creating the brain and interacting with the brain: an integrated approach to understanding the brain

In the past two decades, brain science and robotics have made gigantic advances in their own fields, and their interactions have generated several interdisciplinary research fields. First, in the ‘understanding the brain by creating the brain’ approach, computational neuroscience models have been applied to many robotics problems. Second, such brain-motivated fields as cognitive robotics and developmental robotics have emerged as interdisciplinary areas among robotics, neuroscience and cognitive science with special emphasis on humanoid robots. Third, in brain–machine interface research, a brain and a robot are mutually connected within a closed loop. In this paper, we review the theoretical backgrounds of these three interdisciplinary fields and their recent progress. Then, we introduce recent efforts to reintegrate these research fields into a coherent perspective and propose a new direction that integrates brain science and robotics where the decoding of information from the brain, robot control based on the decoded information and multimodal feedback to the brain from the robot are carried out in real time and in a closed loop.     

Preparation and polymerization of isopimaric acid derivatives

Isopimaric acid is a typical rosin compound and can account for 30% of the total mass of slash pine rosin. The molecular structure of isopimaric acid derivatives features an unsaturated double bond at the C13 position, opening up the possibility of their industrial polymerization. In this study, isopimaric acid (95.4%), methyl isopimarate (99.5%), and allyl isopimarate (95.1%) were prepared as highly pure monomers. New experimental results are presented and mechanisms based on the investigation of free-radical polymerization under UV irradiation are proposed. New rosin monomers for potential value-added utilization of woody biomass are also identified. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47817.     

某工业厂房主体结构安全性评定探讨

结构的安全性是结构防止破坏倒塌的能力,是结构工程重要的质量指标.老工业基地中的厂房主体结构安全性评价,对于厂房加固改造起到了关键性作用.文中通过对某工业厂房主体结构大量现场勘验、隐患排查及检测数据,结合结构验算,从承载能力、损伤等几方面对该老旧工业厂房的安全性进行了评价与分析,并详细介绍了检测鉴定的流程,为以后类似的老旧工业厂房的检测鉴定提供参考.