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Recently, metal-supported solid oxide fuel cells (MS–SOFCs) have been in the spotlight again for their design, thanks to their inexpensive materials, robustness, resistance to thermal cycling, and benefits of manufacturability. Hydrogen energy electrochemical devices, like MS–SOFCs, have a lot of potential. They are very ideal substitutes for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) that utilize electrolytes or ceramic electrodes as their carrier basis, because of their greater durability, mechanical stability, heat cycle resistance, and rapid startup time. Even though MS–SOFCs have several advantages over conventional ceramic-based SOFCs, researchers are still struggling to perfect them due to issues such as selecting the appropriate metal-based material for the electrodes (anode, electrode) and comprehending how they deteriorate. This limitation might be evaded by optimizing the pore former filling and the diameter of the metallic supports (130–250$\mu$m). Optimization methods, such as particle swarm optimization, as well as penetration cycle numbers (1–15), as well as the impacts of fire temperatures (400–900^∘C), were investigated to aid in optimizing the catalyst infiltration procedure. The enhanced cell outperformed its original performance by a factor of three, reaching an ideal energy density of 0.9W cm${}^{-2}$ at 700^∘C when powered by hydrogen. The improved cells had a 2% degradation rate per 100h at 550^∘C, a 4.5% degradation rate at 600^∘C, and a 5.5% degradation rate at 700^∘C. We used electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy to look at the catalyst’s mass shipping, coarsening, and chromium poisoning.

The hazards of prevailing global warming on this planet have forced human beings to utilize clean energy substitutes. None of the clean energy sources could be better than the Sun. To exploit solar energy to the maximum extent, solar cells were invented. However, the solar cells ruling today’s world are all made from inorganic materials which are not only expensive but also involve complex fabrication processes. Additionally, these cells are limited to utilization on rooftops only. To overcome this scenario organic solar cells are the reliable contender to inorganic solar cells. A review of the origin and developments regarding organic solar cells is explained in this paper, and the improvement in the efficiency of a suggested organic solar cell with optimization at 800nm is 24.05%.

Transient performance of nanowire memristors realized using different material systems is discussed. The approach is validated by comparing simulated results with experimental data obtained for a ZnO nanowire memristor. The ZnO nanowire memristors demonstrate bipolar resistive switching with an R_OFF/R_ON ratio of 684 that is 3 times higher than the previous best report. The transient switching model, derived from the physical mechanisms for memristor switching, show a material dependent switching delay greatly influenced by the mobility of the oxygen vacancies. Measured switching delay of 372 µs for ZnO memristor show excellent agreement with the simulated data. The switching delays for other material systems, namely – TiO_x, TaO_x, HfO_x, and ZrO_x are calculated to be 2.5 s, 5.5 ns, 11.8 ps, and 7.15 ps, respectively, for identical device geometry (length 2 µm and diameter 300 nm). Upon scaling devices down to 50 nm, the delay is observed to decrease by 3-4 orders of magnitude. ZrO_x based memristors showed the shortest switching delay owing to a mobility as high as 370 cm²/V-s. Experimental data for ZnO memristors suggest rise and fall times shorter than 7 µs and 10 ns, respectively. Ultralow switching power of 261 µW and 155 µW are achieved for SET and RESET switching, respectively. Measured switching energy less than 83 nJ and slew rates greater than 0.02 V/µs are attained.

It is proposed to create materials with a desired refraction coefficient in a bounded domain D ⊂ ℝ³ by embedding many small balls with constant refraction coefficients into a given material. The number of small balls per unit volume around every point x ∈ D, i.e., their density distribution, is calculated, as well as the constant refraction coefficients in these balls. Embedding into D small balls with these refraction coefficients according to the calculated density distribution creates in D a material with a desired refraction coefficient.

This is an analytical investigation of well-known 10–12 potential of hydrogen–hydrogen covalent bond. In this research, we will make an elaboration of the well-known 6–12 Lennard–Jones potential in case of this type of bond. Though the results are illustrated in many text books and literature, an analytical analysis for these potentials is missing almost everywhere. The power laws are valid for small radial distances, which are calculated to some extent. The internuclear separation as well as the binding energy of the hydrogen molecule are evaluated with success.

DeltaHealth Inspires a New Standard of Cardiovascular Care in China with the Opening of its First Hospital in Shanghai.

International Science Community Welcomes China National GeneBank Opening.

Shanghai Newsummit Biopharma Group and Indiso Sign Collaboration Agreement for Clinician Trials and Commercial Development in China.

Merck Strengthens Display Materials R&D in China.

Shuwen Biotech's Clinical Lab Receives Accreditation from College of American Pathologists.

Booming Chinese DNA Sequencing Market Rife with Opportunities Reports BCC Research.

China Issues Plan on Turning Beijing Into a Tech Innovation Hub.

Study Shows Sound-induced Fear Can Be Treated.

SINGAPORE – Human Heart Tissue Grown from Stem Cells Improves Drug Testing.

UNITED STATES – Bioengineered Human Livers Mimic Natural Development.

UNITED STATES – New Cellular Target May Put the Brakes on Cancer’s Ability to Spread.

UNITED STATES – Does Consuming Low-Fat Dairy Increase the Risk of Parkinson’s Disease?

UNITED STATES – Memory Loss and Other Cognitive Decline Linked to Blood Vessel Disease in the Brain.

AUSTRALIA – Fabricating High Performance Nanohybrid Catalysts.

TAIWAN – US FDA Approves Zhaohe Cao-based Botanical Drug as an Investigational New Drug for Cancer Therapy.

KOREA – Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee Elected to the NAS.

Advanced forming technologies have been evolving at a rapid pace with the products applicability in the industrial fields of aerospace and automobile especially for the materials like aluminum and titanium alloys (light weight) and ultra-high strength steels. Innovative forming methods like hydroforming (tube and sheet) have been proposed for industries throughout the world. The ever-increasing needs of the automotive industry have made hydroforming technology an impetus one for the development and innovations. In this paper, the review on various developments towards lightweight materials for different applications is presented. The influencing process parameters considering the different characteristics of the tube and sheet hydroforming process have also been presented. General ideas and mechanical improvements in sheet and tube hydroforming are given late innovative work exercises. This review will help researchers and industrialists about the history, state of the art in hydroforming technologies of the lightweight materials.

Current work is devoted to covalent immobilization of sulfonated derivatives of cobalt phthalocyanines “Merox catalysts” on the surfaces of polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate. Their catalytic activity in reaction of mild oxidation of sulfur compounds to disulfides with oxygen of the air was studied. Anchoring of the catalyst on this polymer prevents its leaching and promotes its efficient recovering and recycling without significant loss of catalytic activity.

While dipyrrin-boron complexes (BODIPYs) and their derivatives have attracted much attention, dipyrrin-based metal complexes recently appeared as a novel luminescent material. So far, dipyrrin-metal complexes have been regarded as non-luminescent or weakly luminescent. Interestingly, introduction of steric hindrance at the meso-position and the development of heteroleptic complexes with proper frontier orbital ordering are two recent strategies that have been developed to improve their luminescent ability. Compared with BODIPYs, one of the distinctive advantages of dipyrrin-metal complexes is that they can form a series of self-assembled supramolecules and polymer assemblies via facile coordination reactions. In recent times, several supramolecular, coordination polymers and Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) have been developed, $e.g.$ by spontaneous coordination reactions between dipyrrin ligands and metal ions. As a novel luminescent material, dipyrrin-metal complexes have been applied in many fields. This review article summarizes recent developments in dipyrrin-metal complexes from the viewpoint of the improvement of luminescent ability, the formation of supramolecular and coordination polymers and their potential applications.

Based on their great economic value, many current uses and state of the technology, the future of accelerators in medicine, industry, homeland security and research is assured for a long time to come. We review some of the areas in which R&D could have an important impact in the future and mention a few examples.

Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality and occur in many healthcare facilities including hospitals, surgery centers and long-term care facilities. It is well known that some pathogens can persist on healthcare surfaces for weeks to months and spread readily to new surfaces. It is current practice to disinfect or clean surfaces routinely in order to reduce the risk of HAIs. However, routine cleaning can damage the surface chemically or mechanically, which may actually increase the surface contamination. Fundamental knowledge is therefore needed to understand the influence of cleaning and disinfection on healthcare surfaces in order to mitigate pathogen persistence. In this study, materials and objects found in healthcare facilities were selected and exposed to disinfection procedures including wiping and soaking with readily available chemical disinfectants. A variety of chemical disinfectants were selected which contain hydrogen peroxide, quaternary ammonia, and chlorine, respectively. Optical microscopy, contact angle measurement, atomic force microscopy (AFM), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and nanoindentation are used to analyze surface characteristics before and after disinfection in order to study the effect of disinfection on material properties. Disinfection procedures are found to cause changes to surface properties of materials and objects which can be detected and observed or quantified by the approaches used in this study. The methods should become regular practice in the studies of healthcare surfaces and their role in HAIs. Each method in this study may not be reliably applied to every object or disinfection scenario. Sample geometry and features may influence response during measurement and affect results. The combination of the approaches is able to sufficiently characterize chemical, mechanical, and topological changes to the surface.

Healthcare-associated infections are a significant concern in acute care facilities across the US. Studies have shown the importance of a hygienic patient environment in reducing the risk of such infections. This has caused an increased interest in ultraviolet (UV-C) light disinfectant technology as an adjunct technology to provide additional pathogen reduction to environmental surfaces and patient care equipment (i.e., surfaces). It is also well known that UV-C light can cause premature degradation of materials, particularly certain plastic materials. However, there is little information in the literature regarding characterizing this degradation of plastics and other materials used for surfaces in healthcare. This study aims to evaluate multiple characterization techniques and propose a systematic approach to further understand early onset degradation of plastics due to UV-C exposure. Susceptibility and modes of degradation of multiple plastic materials were compared using the techniques evaluated. Ten grades of plastic materials were exposed to UV-C light in a manner consistent with standards given in the healthcare and furniture industry to achieve disinfection. These materials were characterized for visual appearance, chemical composition, surface roughness and hardness using light microscopy, spectrophotometry, contact angle analysis, infrared spectroscopy, profilometry and nanoindentation. All characterization methods were able to identify one or more specific degradation features from UV-C exposure covering different aspects of physicochemical properties of the surfaces. However, these methods showed different sensitivity and applicability to identify the onset of surface damage. Different types of surface materials showed different susceptibility and modes to degradation upon UV-C light exposure. UV-C disinfection can cause detectable damage to various surfaces in healthcare. A characterization approach consisting of physical and chemical characterizations is proposed in quantifying surface degradation of a material from UV-C exposure to address the complexity in modes of degradation and the varied sensitivity to UV-C from different materials. Methods with high sensitivity can be used to evaluate onset of damage or early stage damage.

The synthetic scalability of water harvesting metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) is crucial for making these promising materials accessible and widely available for use in household devices. Herein, we present a facile, sustainable, and high-yield synthesis method to produce a series of water-harvesting MOFs, including MOF-303, CAU-23, MIL-160, MOF-313, CAU-10, and Al-fumarate. Using readily available reactants and water as the only solvent, we were able to synthesize these materials at the kilogram scale in a 200 L batch reactor with yields of 84–96% and space-time yields of 238–305 kg/day/m³ under optimized reaction conditions. We also show that our procedure preserves framework crystallinity, porosity, and water-harvesting performance of the MOFs synthesized at scale.

Materials that characteristically respond to mechanical stimulus are utilized in a wide variety of engineering applications as strain gauges. The response can be produced as a change in resistance or a change in capacitance. Constantan was initially utilized in strain gauges and exhibited a gauge factor (GF) of 2. With the development of fabrication techniques, new materials are correspondingly utilized in strain gauges that revealed a GF higher than 2. However, a review pertaining to the latest materials utilized in strain gauges is absent. Therefore, in this review article, strain gauges utilizing metallic, polymer, and ceramic-based materials were investigated by evaluating their fabrication method, characterization in numerous testing conditions, gauging their sensitivity and the parameters influencing the same, and proposing a real-world biomedical application based on the sensor properties ranging from monitoring of orthopedics, knee laxity, heartbeat, and mechanical properties of implants and prosthetics, to stretchable and wearable sensors for e-skin and exoskeletons.

Based on their great economic value, many current uses and state of the technology, the future of accelerators in medicine, industry, homeland security and research is assured for a long time to come. We review some of the areas in which R&D could have an important impact in the future and mention a few examples.

Transient performance of nanowire memristors realized using different material systems is discussed. The approach is validated by comparing simulated results with experimental data obtained for a ZnO nanowire memristor. The ZnO nanowire memristors demonstrate bipolar resistive switching with an R_OFF/R_ON ratio of 684 that is 3 times higher than the previous best report. The transient switching model, derived from the physical mechanisms for memristor switching, show a material dependent switching delay greatly influenced by the mobility of the oxygen vacancies. Measured switching delay of 372 μs for ZnO memristor show excellent agreement with the simulated data. The switching delays for other material systems, namely – TiO_x, TaO_x, HfO_x, and ZrO_x are calculated to be 2.5 s, 5.5 ns, 11.8 ps, and 7.15 ps, respectively, for identical device geometry (length 2 μm and diameter 300 nm). Upon scaling devices down to 50 nm, the delay is observed to decrease by 3-4 orders of magnitude. ZrO_x based memristors showed the shortest switching delay owing to a mobility as high as 370 cm²/V-s. Experimental data for ZnO memristors suggest rise and fall times shorter than 7 μs and 10 ns, respectively. Ultralow switching power of 261 μW and 155 μW are achieved for SET and RESET switching, respectively. Measured switching energy less than 83 nJ and slew rates greater than 0.02 V/μs are attained.

Renewable energy sources coupled with heating and cooling applications serve as great connectors between thermal supply and demand. The previous chapters have demonstrated that sensible and latent thermal energy storage systems could be applied to in situ heat transfer and energy storage applications. Latent energy storage systems offer around 5–15 times higher energy storage density than sensible energy storage systems, thereby making them more compact. Principally different from sensible and latent energy storage technologies, thermochemical energy storage systems operate on reversible chemical reactions and store energy in the employed material’s chemical potential. As a result, this technology offers up to 10 times more improvement in energy storage density than the latent energy storage systems. Since energy storage occurs based on the material’s chemical potential, it can be stored even in ambient conditions without significant losses as long as the reactants remain separated. This characteristic offers considerable advantages in addressing the challenges associated with energy storage. This chapter discusses the fundamental operating principle of different thermochemical reactions and provides a comprehensive overview of two types of thermochemical processes: sorption and reaction-driven energy storage systems. Different designs and configurations are discussed, ideal characteristics of these materials are identified, and key challenges associated with improving this technology’s readiness levels are thoroughly described.

Transient simulation of heat properties for vehicle exhaust system components plays an important role in vehicle development process. Simulation analysis can find thermal materials risk in early stage of project, and quickly give proposal so as to reduce test cost. Based on STAR-CD software, a vehicle exhaust system model, which includes the exhaust gas, the exhaust pipes and aftertreatment devices, was established. A three-dimensional transient simulation was undertaken for the heat properties of vehicle exhaust system components. The heat properties with the periodic pulsating exhaust gas velocity were obtained and analyzed, and the transient mean value were compared with the steady results, the results show the predicted the unsteady mean exhaust gas surface temperatures are higher than 50°C,the unsteady mean surface heat dissipating capacities of exhaust gas system components are 11.3 percent up at the 10% pulsating exhaust gas velocity condition.