Zhang, Shujing; Han, Jiarui; Gao, Yang; Guo, Baohua; Reiter, Günter; Xu, Jun
Determination of the Critical Size of Secondary Nuclei on the Lateral Growth Front of Lamellar Polymer Crystals
Nucleation is the rate-limiting first step of crystallization. The energy barrier related to form the critical nucleus predominantly affects the nucleation rate. Determination of the size of the critical nucleus is a key for understanding the mechanism of nucleation and allows testing theories. However, it has been a great challenge…
Controllable synthesis of a peapod-like nanostructure via nanoconfining CoFe2O4 in CMK-5 for high-performance lithium-ion batteries
Sun, Yuanyuan; Zou, Yihui; Yuan, Fang; Yan, Chunyun; Chen, Shuai; Jia, Yi Alec; Zhang, Huawei; Yang, Dongjiang; She, Xilin
The CoFe2O4 with spinel structure has been identified as a promising anode material of lithium-ion battery because of high theoretical capacity of 914?mAh?g?1, low price, high chemical durability and environmental friendliness. However, the poor electrical conductivity and significant volume change in the charge and discharge process lead to a severe…
Scalable synthesis of dispersible iron carbide (Fe3C) nanoparticles by nanocasting
Fletcher, D. C.; Hunter, R.; Xia, W.; Smales, G. J.; Pauw, B. R.; Blackburn, E.; Kulak, A.; Xin, Huolin; Schnepp, Z.
Metal carbides have shown great promise in a wide range of applications due to their unique catalytic, electrocatalytic and magnetic properties. However, the scalable production of dispersible metal carbide nanoparticles remains a challenge. Here, we report a simple and scalable route to dispersible iron carbide (Fe3C) nanoparticles. This uses MgO…
Physical Chemical Properties of Shea/Cocoa Butter Blends and their Potential for Chocolate Manufacture
Rodriguez-Negrette, Ana Carolina; Huck-Iriart, Cristián; Herrera, María Lidia
Cocoa butter (CB) is the preferred fat for chocolates and confections. However, for technological and economic reasons, there have been strong efforts for partially replacing it. As shea butter (SB) has become an important natural source of symmetrical stearic-rich triacylglycerols (TAG), the aim of this work was to study physical…
PropylSO3H functionalized SBA-15: Microwave-mediated green synthesis of biologically active multi-substituted imidazole scaffolds
Gabla, Jenifer J.; Lathiya, Dharmesh R.; Revawala, Akash A.; Maheria, Kalpana C.
Propylsulfonic acid functionalized Santa Barbara Amorphous-15 (SBA-15PrSO3H) catalyst has been synthesized using a surface modification of mesoporous SBA-15 via the one-pot co-condensation method. The synthesized SBA-15PrSO3H has been characterized by peculiar characterization techniques such as small- and wide-angle XRD, SEMEDX, TEM, TGDTA, acidity, FT-IR, Py-FT-IR and BET surface area
Self-assembly of a silicon-containing side-chain liquid crystalline block copolymer in bulk and in thin films: kinetic pathway of a cylinder to sphere transition
Liao, Fen; Shi, Ling-Ying; Cheng, Li-Chen; Lee, Sangho; Ran, Rong; Yager, Kevin G.; Ross, Caroline A.
The self-assembly of a high-? silicon-containing side-chain liquid crystalline block copolymer (LC BCP) in bulk and in thin films is reported, and the structural transition process from the hexagonally packed cylinder (HEX) to the body-centered cubic structure (BCC) in thin films was examined by both reciprocal and real space experimental…
Shape and phase controlled synthesis of mesostructured carbon single crystals through mesoscale self-assembly of reactive monomicelles and their unprecedented exfoliation into single-layered carbon nanoribbons
Wang, Tianping; Sun, Yanbin; Wu, Jiali; Liu, Xiangyang; Pan, Ruping; Liu, Xikui
The formation of mesostructured polymer and carbon single-crystals is very difficult due to increased complexity of the energy hypersurface and the role of slowed-down kinetics. Here we reported the synthesis of ordered mesostructured phloroglucinol-formaldehyde single crystals through mesoscale self-assembly of reactive monomicelles under acidic conditions which were traditionally thought very
Identification of a Frank-Kasper Z phase from shape amphiphile self-assembly
Su, Zebin; Hsu, Chih-Hao; Gong, Zihao; Feng, Xueyan; Huang, Jiahao; Zhang, Ruimeng; Wang, Yu; Mao, Jialin; Wesdemiotis, Chrys; Li, Tao; Seifert, Soenke; Zhang, Wei; Aida, Takuzo; Huang, Mingjun; Cheng, Stephen Z. D.
FrankKasper phases, a family of ordered structures formed from particles with spherical motifs, are found in a host of materials, such as metal alloys, inorganic colloids and various types of soft matter. All the experimentally observed FrankKasper phases can be constructed from the basic units of three fundamental structures called…
Effects of an ionic liquid and processing conditions on the ?-polymorph crystal formation in poly(vinylidene fluoride)
Pickford, Tom; Gu, Xu; L. Heeley, Ellen; Wan, Chaoying
The piezoelectric properties of poly?vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) are determined by the prevalence and orientation of its polar ?-crystal phase, which can be tuned by processing conditions, additives, mechanical stretching or post-treatment. Here, the effects of three types of processing conditions on the crystalline structure evolution of PVDF were investigated; electrospinning,…
Enhanced Conductivity via Homopolymer-Rich Pathways in Block Polymer-Blended Electrolytes
Morris, Melody A.; Sung, Seung Hyun; Ketkar, Priyanka M.; Dura, Joseph A.; Nieuwendaal, Ryan C.; Epps, Thomas H.
The optimization of ionic conductivity and lithium-ion battery stability can be achieved by independently tuning the ion transport and mechanical robustness of block polymer (BP) electrolytes. However, the ionic conductivity of BP electrolytes is inherently limited by the covalent attachment of the ionically conductive block to the mechanically robust block,…