Porous sunflower plate-like NiFe2O4/CoNi–S heterostructure as efficient electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Constructing high-efficient and nonprecious electrocatalysts is of primary importance for improving the efficiency of water splitting. Herein, a novel sunflower plate-like NiFe₂O₄/CoNi–S nanosheet heterostructure was fabricated via facile hydrothermal and electrodeposition methods. The as-fabricated NiFe₂O₄/CoNi–S heterostructure array exhibits remarkable bifunctional catalytic activity and stability toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media. It presents a small overpotential of 219 mV and 149 mV for OER and HER, respectively, to produce a current density of 10 mA cm^?2. More significantly, when the obtained electrodes are used as both the cathode and anode in an electrolyzer, a voltage of 1.57 V is gained at 10 mA cm^?2, with superior stability for 72 h. Such outstanding properties are ascribed to: the 3D porous network structure, which exposes more active sites and accelerates mass transfer and gas bubble emission; the high conductivity of CoNi–S, which provides faster charge transport and thus promotes the electrocatalytic reaction of the composites; and the effective interface engineering between NiFe₂O₄ (excellent performance for OER) and CoNi–S (high activity for HER), which leads to a shorter transport pathway and thus expedites electron transfer. This work provides a new strategy for designing efficient and inexpensive electrocatalysts for water splitting.     

Large increase of Curie temperature in (110)-oriented La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films

From the perspectives of scientific researches and practical applications, it is desirable to explore high operating temperature ferromagnetic films. The effect of biaxial strain on magnetic properties of (110)-oriented La_0.7Sr_0.3MnO₃ films was studied. High quality La_0.7Sr_0.3MnO₃ films were grown on (110)-oriented perovskite single crystal substrates using pulsed laser deposition, varying substrate-induced misfit strains from ??2.27–0.75%. A remarkable enhancement of Curie temperature has been achieved for (110)-oriented La_0.7Sr_0.3MnO₃ films clamped with small misfit strains (i.e., grown on LAST (110)). The enhanced Curie temperature of (110)-oriented La_0.7Sr_0.3MnO₃ films could be attributed to the misfit strain between the films and the underlying substrates and may have technological implication for applications at high temperature environments.     

Effects of anion and cation doping on the thermoelectric properties of n-type PbS

The PbCl_xS_1-x and Pb_1-xBi_xS (x? =?0–0.05) bulks were fabricated with a facile method of hydrothermal synthesis and microwave sintering, and the effect of anionic and cationic donors on the thermoelectric performance of PbS was investigated. Although Cl^? and Bi³⁺ both effectively improved the thermoelectric properties of n-type PbS, more excellent thermoelectric performance was obtained from Cl^? doped samples because of higher electrical property and lower thermal conductivity at higher temperature (T? >?600?K). The thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) reaches 1.04 for PbCl_0.015S_0.985 at 800?K and increases with temperature increasing without sign of saturation, which is probably the highest value ever reported for single-phase polycrystalline n-type PbS. The results also indicate that the hydrothermal synthesis and microwave sintering can realize anion doping as well as cation doping for n-type PbS at low cost, and PbS should be a robust alternative for PbTe thermoelectric materials.     

Bearing Failure Optimization of Composite Double-Lap Bolted Joints Based on a Three-Step Strategy Marked By Feasible Region Reduction and Model Decoupling

To minimize the mass and increase the bearing failure load of composite doublelap bolted joints, a three-step optimization strategy including feasible region reduction, optimization model decoupling and optimization was presented. In feasible region reduction, the dimensions of the feasible design region were reduced by selecting dominant design variables from numerous multilevel parameters by sensitivity analyses, and the feasible regions of variables were reduced by influence mechanism analyses. In model decoupling, the optimization model with a large number of variables was divided into various sub-models with fewer variables by variance analysis. In the third step, the optimization sub-models were solved one by one using a genetic algorithm, and the modified characteristic curve method was adopted as the failure prediction method. Based on the proposed optimization method, optimization of a double-lap single-bolt joint was performed using the ANSYS^® code. The results show that the bearing failure load increased by 13.5% and that the mass decreased by 8.7% compared with those of the initial design of the joint, which validated the effectiveness of the three-step optimization strategy.     

Comparative studies on thermal and toughness properties of polybenzoxazine composites with two functionalized graphene oxides

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) was functionalized by polyether amine (PEA) via two methods which were one-pot modification in acetone (GON) and two steps with the intermediate product of GOCO-Cl generated (GONS). There were more PEA successfully grafted onto GO for GONS than GON. The onset polymerization temperatures of the benzoxazine (Bz) composites decreased by the inclusion of 1?wt% of GO, GON or GONS. Thermal stability of the polybenzoxazine (PBz) composites was significantly improved indicated from the increase of weight loss temperature. T₁₀, T₂₀ and T₅₀ values of the composites with GONS were higher than that of the others. Toughness of PBzs may be enhanced by the incorporation of nanofillers, and GONS had stronger interfacial interaction with PBz matrix than GON.