Innovative polyelectrolytes/poly(ionic liquid)s for energy and the environment

This paper presents the work carried out within the European project RENAISSANCE‐ITN, which was dedicated to the development of innovative polyelectrolytes for energy and environmental applications. Within the project different types of innovative polyelectrolytes were synthesized such as poly(ionic liquid)s coming from renewable or natural ions, thiazolium cations, catechol functionalities or from a new generation of cheap deep eutectic monomers. Further, macromolecular architectures such as new poly(ionic liquid) block copolymers and new (semi)conducting polymer/polyelectrolyte complexes were also developed. As the final goal, the application of these innovative polymers in energy and the environment was investigated. Important advances in energy storage technologies included the development of new carbonaceous materials, new lignin/conducting polymer biopolymer electrodes, new iongels and single‐ion conducting polymer electrolytes for supercapacitors and batteries and new poly(ionic liquid) binders for batteries. On the other hand, the use of innovative polyelectrolytes in sustainable environmental technologies led to the development of new liquid and dry water, new materials for water cleaning technologies such as flocculants, oil absorbers, new recyclable organocatalyst platforms and new multifunctional polymer coatings with antifouling and antimicrobial properties. All in all this paper demonstrates the potential of poly(ionic liquid)s for high‐value applications in energy and enviromental areas. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry     

Explicit optimal control policy and its practical application for hybrid electric powertrains

This paper presents a simplified, yet realistic, model of a hybrid electric powertrain and derives the explicit solution of the optimal energy management. The explicit solution of this optimal control problem consists of simple rules that rely on powertrain parameters only. The simplified model is validated on a more complex model relying on measured data. Finally, a causal, real-time control strategy including anti-windup is presented. This strategy relies on the optimal control of the simplified model and is successfully evaluated on the complex model that relies on measured data.     

Soft lithographic printing of patterns of stretched DNA and DNA/electronic polymer wires by surface-energy modification and transfer

Aligned and stretched lambda DNA is directed to specific locations on solid substrates. Surface-energy modification of glass substrates by using patterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamps is used to direct DNA onto the surface-energy-modified micrometer-scale pattern through molecular combing. As an alternative, patterned and nonpatterned PDMS stamps modified with polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) are utilized to direct the stretched DNA to the desired location and the results are compared. The DNA is elongated through molecular combing on the stamp and transfer printed onto the surfaces. PMMA-modified stamps show a more defined length of the stretched DNA, as compared to bare PDMS stamps. A combination of these two methods is also demonstrated. As an application example, transfer printing of DNA decorated with a semiconducting conjugated polyelectrolyte is shown. The resulting patterned localization of stretched DNA can be utilized for functional nanodevice structures, as well as for biological applications.     

Optics Design and Verification for the APEX Swedish Heterodyne Facility Instrument (SHeFI)

In this paper, we present the design and verification of the optics of the Swedish Heterodyne Facility Instrument (SHeFI) receiver installed in the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) telescope during spring 2008. SHeFI is located in the Nasmyth instrumentation Cabin A (NCA). The receiver has been designed to have 6 frequency channels, of which four receiver channels have been built, and characterized: 211-275 GHz (Band 1), 275-370 GHz (Band 2), 385-500 GHz (Band 3), and 1250-1390 GHz (Band T2). Bands 1, 2, and T2 are installed at the telescope and are currently in operation. The optical design is driven by the requirement of frequency independent illumination of the secondary with -12 dB edge taper for each frequency channel and the limitation (beam clearance through the Nasmyth tube and the elevation encoder) imposed by the receiver position in the NCA. This paper describes the design approach, optimization, and verification of the optical system, coupling each individual receiving beam to the common optics of the telescope.     

Localized Techniques for Broadcasting in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper we tackle the problem of designing simple, localized, low energy consuming, reliable protocols for one-to-all communication in large scale wireless sensor networks. Our first proposed technique, called the Irrigator protocol, relies on the idea to first build a sparse overlay network, and then flood over it. The overlay network is set up by means of a simple, distributed, localized probabilistic protocol and spans all the sensor nodes with high probability. Based on the algorithmic ideas of the Irrigator protocol we then develop a second protocol, dubbed Fireworks, with similar performance that does not require any overlay network to be set up in advance. Asymptotic analytical results are provided which assess the reliability of the Irrigator and Fireworks techniques. The theoretical analysis of the proposed protocols is complemented and validated by a (simulation based) comparative performance evaluation that assesses several advantages of our new protocols with respect to gossiping and simple flooding. Differently from previous studies, we analyze and demonstrate the performance of our protocols for two different node distributions: The typical uniform distribution and a newly defined “hill” distribution, here introduced to capture some of the important and more realistic aspects of node deployment in heterogeneous terrain. Simulation results show that the proposed schemes achieve very good trade-offs between low overhead, low energy consumption and high reliability. In particular, the Irrigator and Fireworks protocols are more reliable than gossiping, and significantly reduce the number of links along which a message is sent over both flooding and gossiping.     

Reaction monitoring of aliphatic amines in supercritical carbon dioxide by proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and implications for supercritical fluid chromatography

In the recent years, it has repeatedly been stated that amines react with CO2 and can therefore not be chromatographed under supercritical conditions with CO2. The aim of the present work is to elucidate the structural requirements and conditions that can lead to the reaction of an amine analyte with CO2 and, if this occurs, the structure of the formed product. The use of on-line nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy with a flow probe for supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) enables the investigation of these unstable analytes in supercritical mediums. Several alkyl-substituted secondary benzylamines and some primary aromatic amines were dissolved in supercritical CO2 and investigated by employing on-line SFC-1H NMR spectroscopy. It was found that the condition of carbamic acid formation depends on the steric properties of the substituents of the amine. A 2-isopropylamino alcohol compound, metoprolol, was also investigated with the setup. No carbamic acid could be detected with the present conditions.