A review on high entropy silicides and silicates: Fundamental aspects,synthesis, properties

Metal silicides and silicates belong to the silicon-based non-oxide and oxide ceramics family with exceptional properties. Silicides face fatal oxidation at low temperatures and intrinsic brittleness, whereas silicates face instability in phase at high temperatures which restricts its usage in vast engineering applications. Hence, the ceramic community introduced the concept of high entropy in metal silicides and silicates. Since 2019, high entropy silicides and silicates, a multicomponent system, have created new avenues for materials discovery and design. High entropy silicides displayed elevated properties than the traditional silicides aiming its applications in microelectronic, high-temperature oxidation resistance coatings, and structural materials. Similarly, high entropy silicates displayed improved properties than the traditional silicates making them the most promising materials for environmental and thermal barrier coating applications for hot section components in gas turbines. The review focuses on specific case studies to emphasize the latest research and developments in high entropy silicides and silicates. Synthesis approaches employed in developing high entropy silicides and silicates and their structural and microstructural outcomes are addressed. The possible application is predicted based on the overview of the properties explored to date. The review concludes with future possibilities offered by the high entropy silicides and silicates.     

Froth flotation as primary treatment of flowback water: Removal of total organic carbon and prediction of kinetics

Petroleum and exploration industries employ a hydrofracking process where a large volume of water (fracturing fluid) is injected and a fraction (known as flowback water) is returned to the surface. Froth flotation is a typical process employed for the primary treatment of water. In the present work, froth flotation has been used as a pretreatment method for real flowback water sourced from the petroleum and shale gas exploration industry. In the present work, a first-principle based convective mass transfer model has been developed to describe the froth flotation performance. The resultant equation was solved analytically and compared with the numerical solution, and a parametric sensitivity analysis of the process performance was also undertaken. In addition, a correlation to estimate the flotation rate constant was proposed, thereby circumventing the need to obtain a large number of cumbersome parameters experimentally. Overall, this study proposes froth flotation as an efficient primary treatment method towards the separation of dispersed oil droplets from the flowback water and the corresponding prediction of kinetics using a first-principle based transport model.     

Illuminating Sub-Cellular Organelles by Small Molecule AIEgens

Sub-cellular organelles play a critical role in a myriad biological phenomena. Consequently, organelle structures and functions are invariably highjacked in diverse diseases including metabolic disorders, aging, and cancer. Hence, illuminating organelle dynamics is crucial in understanding the diseased states as well as developing organelle-targeted next generation therapeutics. In this review, we outline the novel small molecules which show remarkable aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties due to restriction in intramolecular motion (RIM). We outline the examples of small molecules developed to image organelles like mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum (ER), Golgi, lysosomes, nucleus, cell membrane and lipid droplets. These AIEgens have tremendous potential for next-generation phototherapy.     

Linker Independent Regioselective Protonation Triggered Detoxification of Sulfur Mustards with Smart Porous Organic Photopolymer

The development of efficient metal-free photocatalysts for the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) for sulfur mustard (HD) decontamination can play a vital role against the stockpiling of chemical warfare agents (CWAs). Herein, one novel concept is conceived by smartly choosing a specific ionic monomer and a donor tritopic aldehyde, which can trigger linker-independent regioselective protonation/deprotonation in the polymeric backbone. In this context, the newly developed vinylene-linked ionic polymers (TPA/TPD-Ionic) are further explored for visible-light-assisted detoxification of HD simulants. Time-resolved-photoluminescence (TRPL) study reveals the protonation effect in the polymeric backbone by significantly enhancing the life span of photoexcited electrons. In terms of catalytic performance, TPA-Ionic outperformed TPD-Ionic because of its enhanced excitons formation and charge carrier abilities caused by the donor-acceptor (D-A) backbone and protonation effects. Moreover, the formation of singlet oxygen (¹O₂) species is confirmed via in-situ Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) spectroscopy and density functional theory (DFT) analysis, which explained the crucial role of solvents in the reaction medium to regulate the (¹O₂) formation. This study creates a new avenue for developing novel porous photocatalysts and highlights the crucial roles of sacrificial electron donors and solvents in the reaction medium to establish the structure-activity relationship.     

In Situ Reconstruction of Helical Iron Borophosphate Precatalyst toward Durable Industrial Alkaline Water Electrolysis and Selective Oxidation of Alcohols

Iron-based (pre)catalysts have attracted enormous attention for various electrooxidation reactions due to the low cost, high abundance, and multiple accessible redox states of iron. Herein, a well-defined helical iron borophosphate (LiFeBPO) is developed as an electro(pre)catalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and selective alcohol oxidation. When deposited on nickel foam (NF), LiFeBPO exhibits an exceptional OER performance at ambient conditions attaining a current density of 100 mA cm⁻² at ≈276 mV overpotential in 1 m KOH. Notably, this anode sustains durable alkaline water electrolysis at 500 mA cm⁻² for over 330 h under industrial conditions (6 m KOH and 85 °C). In –situ and ex situ investigations reveal a deep reconstruction of LiFeBPO during OER, which transforms into a 3D open porous skeleton assembled by ultrasmall, low-crystalline α-FeOOH nanoparticles (interfacing with NiOOH of NF). This structure contributes to exposing accessible surface active sites, as well as accelerating mass transport and bubble detachment. Moreover, this electrode also catalyzes the electrooxidation of alcohols (methanol, ethylene glycol, and glycerol) to formic acid (FA) with high selectivity and full conversion. This study provides promising solutions for designing suitable anodes for the simultaneous production of green hydrogen fuel and value–added FA from electrooxidation reactions.     

Emergence of a Non-Van der Waals Magnetic Phase in a Van der Waals Ferromagnet

Manipulation of long-range order in 2D van der Waals (vdW) magnetic materials (e.g., CrI₃, CrSiTe₃ ,etc.), exfoliated in few-atomic layer, can be achieved via application of electric field, mechanical-constraint, interface engineering, or even by chemical substitution/doping. Usually, active surface oxidation due to the exposure in the ambient condition and hydrolysis in the presence of water/moisture causes degradation in magnetic nanosheets that, in turn, affects the nanoelectronic /spintronic device performance. Counterintuitively, the current study reveals that exposure to the air at ambient atmosphere results in advent of a stable nonlayered secondary ferromagnetic phase in the form of Cr₂Te₃ (T_C2 ≈160 K) in the parent vdW magnetic semiconductor Cr₂Ge₂Te₆ (T_C1 ≈69 K). The coexistence of the two ferromagnetic phases in the time elapsed bulk crystal is confirmed through systematic investigation of crystal structure along with detailed dc/ac magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, and magneto-transport measurement. To capture the concurrence of the two ferromagnetic phases in a single material, Ginzburg-Landau theory with two independent order parameters (as magnetization) with a coupling term can be introduced. In contrast to the rather common poor environmental stability of the vdW magnets, the results open possibilities of finding air-stable novel materials having multiple magnetic phases.     

Accelerating earthquake simulations on general‐purpose graphics processors

Parallelization strategies are presented for Virtual Quake, a numerical simulation code for earthquakes based on topologically realistic systems of interacting earthquake faults. One of the demands placed upon the simulation is the accurate reproduction of the observed earthquake statistics over three to four decades. This requires the use of a high‐resolution fault model in computations, which demands computational power that is well beyond the scope of off‐the‐shelf multi‐core CPU computers. However, the recent advances in general‐purpose graphic processing units have the potential to address this problem at moderate cost increments. A functional decomposition of Virtual Quake is performed, and opportunities for parallelization are discussed in this work. Computationally intensive modules are identified, and these are implemented on graphics processing units, significantly speeding up earthquake simulations. In the current best case scenario, a computer with six graphics processing units can simulate 500 years of fault activity in California at 1.5 km × 1.5 km element resolution in less than 1 hour, whereas a single CPU requires more than 2 days to perform the same simulation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.