Sarkar, Alok; Negi, Lalit Mohan Singh; Lewis, Kenrick M.; Vasimalai, Nagamalai; Gowd, E. Bhoje; Dasgupta, Debarshi
Microstructure Induced Rigidity of Polysiloxane Yielding Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Alkyl Side Chains
The influence of a backbone microstructure on the side chain crystallization of a comb-like polymer is analyzed systematically using a tailor-made random versus block siloxane copolymer system. While the side alkyl chains of the random siloxane undergo a stepwise orderdisorder (OD) transition to form well-ordered orthorhombic structure at low temperature,…
Polyfluorene Copolymers as High-Performance Hole-Transport Materials for Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells
Hu, Jinlong; You, Jiang; Peng, Chang; Qiu, Shudi; He, Wenxin; Li, Chaohui; Liu, Xianhu; Mai, Yaohua; Guo, Fei
Inverted perovskite solar cells (PSCs) that can be entirely processed at low temperatures have attracted growing attention due to their cost-effective production. Hole-transport materials (HTMs) play an essential role in achieving efficient inverted PSCs, as they determine the effectiveness of charge extraction and recombination at interfaces. Herein, three polyfluorene copolymers…
Crystallization-driven microstructure changes during microphase separation for environment-friendly thermoplastic triblock copolymer elastomers
Ding, Shuangshuang; Fang, Chu; Wang, Xuehui; Wang, Zhigang
A study on the crystallization-driven microstructure changes during microphase separation for a series of high transparent semicrystalline thermoplastic triblock copolymer elastomers (TBCPEs), polylactide-b-polyisoprene-b-polylactide (PLA-b-PI-b-PLA) was conducted in this work. A series of PLA-b-PI-b-PLA TBCPEs with different molecular masses of PI midblock and same molecular mass of PLA end
Regulating Pore Structure of Hierarchical Porous Waste Cork-Derived Hard Carbon Anode for Enhanced Na Storage Performance
Li, Yuqi; Lu, Yaxiang; Meng, Qingshi; Jensen, Anders C. S.; Zhang, Qiangqiang; Zhang, Qinghua; Tong, Yuxin; Qi, Yuruo; Gu, Lin; Titirici, Maria-Magdalena; Hu, Yong-Sheng
Porous structure design is generally considered to be a reliable strategy to boost ion transport and provide active sites for disordered carbon anodes of Na-ion batteries (NIBs). Herein, a type of waste cork-derived hard carbon material (CC) is reported for efficient Na storage via tuning the pore species. Benefiting from…
Chirality Transfer in Coassembled Organogels Enabling Wide-Range Naked-Eye Enantiodifferentiation
Yue, Bingbing; Yin, Liyuan; Zhao, Wandong; Jia, Xiaoyong; Zhu, Mingjie; Wu, Bin; Wu, Si; Zhu, Liangliang
Enantiodifferentiation is crucial in organic chemistry, pharmacochemistry, material chemistry, and life science. However, it remains tremendously challenging to achieve a broad enantioselectivity to different types of chiral substrates via a single-material design. Here, we report a coassembled organogel strategy with chirality transfer to make an enantioselective generality possible. This
Preparation and liquid crystal phase properties of discotic cellulose nanoparticles
Li, Chenxi; Evans, Julian; Wang, Nan; Guo, Tingbiao; He, Sailing
Understanding the behavior of fluids with inhomogeneous structural properties is critical for many industrial and biological materials. Sulfuric acid hydrolysis of cotton with ultrasonic treatment and low-speed centrifugation during purification yields spiky discotic cellulose particles. Amorphous cellulose remained in solution and forms discotic units which may be nucleated by crystalline
Improvement of Antialveolar Echinococcosis Efficacy of Albendazole by a Novel Nanocrystalline Formulation with Enhanced Oral Bioavailability
Hu, Chunhui; Liu, Zhengsheng; Liu, Chengyu; Zhang, Yaogang; Fan, Haining; Qian, Feng
Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a chronic infectious parasitic disease that is fatal and still being neglected. Currently, the AE treatment recommended by the WHO is complete excision of the lesions, followed by the oral administration of albendazole (ABZ), the only effective first-line anti-AE drug, for two years. Unfortunately, complete excision…
Towards mechanical robust yet self-healing polyurethane elastomers via combination of dynamic main chain and dangling quadruple hydrogen bonds
Hu, Jin; Mo, Ruibin; Jiang, Xiang; Sheng, Xinxin; Zhang, Xinya
One of the greatest challenges of robust self-healing materials is the confliction between high chain mobility for self-healing and a stable structure for mechanical strength. Herein, dangling 2-ureido-4-pyrimidione (UPy)-functionalized side groups were introduced into the hard segments of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) elastomers, where embedded the dynamic disulfide bonds in the…
Effects of Hard Segment of Polyurethane with Disulfide Bonds on Shape Memory and Self-Healing Ability
Ha, Yu-Mi; Seo, Hae Cheon; Kim, Young-O; Khil, Myung-Seob; Cho, Jae Whan; Lee, Jae-Suk; Jung, Yong Chae
Self-healing polyurethane with disulfide bonds was synthesized using polycarbonate diol as a soft segment, and methylene diphenyl diisocyanate and 2-hydroxyethyl disulfide as a hard segment. Well-developed phase separation as the hard segments increased was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectra. The X-ray diffraction data showed that the crystallinity of the…
Periodic Polyethylene Sulfonates from Polyesterification: Bulk and Nanoparticle Morphologies and Ionic Conductivities
Rank, Christina; Yan, Lu; Mecking, Stefan; Winey, Karen I.
A series of polyethylene-like ionomers with periodic sulfonate groups were synthesized by polyesterification of octatetracontane-1,48-diol and tetrabutylammonium dimethyl sulfosuccinate. Optional cation exchange in aqueous dispersions replaced the NBu4+ counterions for Na+ or Cs+. The defined periodic microstructure of the polymers leads to the formation of layered structures in bulk and…