Science Daily October 31, 2023 Incorporating the latest advancements in microbial electrochemistry and electrochemical CO2 reduction, researchers in China have developed a super-fast charging biohybrid battery by using pure formic acid as an energy carrier. CO2 electrolyzer made it possible to use affordable anion exchange membranes and electrocatalysts that were readily accessible. The biohybrid battery required a 3-minute charging to accomplish 25-hour discharging phase. Bioconversion played a vital role in restricting both the overall Faradaic efficiency and Energy efficiency. The electrolyser was able to operate continuously for 164 hours under Gas Stand-By model, by storing N2 gas in the extraction […]
Tag Archives: S&T China
Light-powered MOFs make seawater drinkable with the flip of a switch
Nanowerk November 4, 2023 Researchers in China have reported a kind of light-responsive MOF adsorption material which was fabricated by covalently immobilizing photoactive spiropyran (SP) molecules onto a chromium(III)-based amino-tagged MIL-101 framework through amide linkages. The photoisomerization of SP moieties provided these materials with reversible binding to metal ions. In the dark, the SP-modified MOFs were capable of adsorbing multiple monovalent and divalent salts from saline water and effectively released the adsorbed ions into water upon exposure to simulated sunlight. The MOFs showed excellent salt adsorption capacity, of which the MOF with an SP modification ratio of 39% had an […]
Clear holographic imaging in turbulent environments
Phys.org October 30, 2023 The existing deep-learning methods for holographic imaging often depend solely on the specific condition based on the given data distributions. One critical problem is how to guarantee the alignment between any given downstream tasks and pretrained models. Researchers in China analyzed the physical mechanism of image degradation caused by turbulence and proposed a swin transformer-based method, termed train-with-coherence-swin (TWC-Swin) transformer, which used spatial coherence (SC) as an adaptable physical prior information to precisely align image restoration tasks in the arbitrary turbulent scene. They designed light-processing system (LPR) which enabled manipulation of SC and simulation of any […]
Self-powered flexible multicolor electrochromic devices for information displays
Phys.org October 19, 2023 Researchers in China have proposed a new trilayer film structure for self-powered flexible multicolor EC displays based on self-charging/discharging mechanism. It was assembled by sandwiching an ionic gel film between 2 cathodic nickel hexacyanoferrate (NiHCF) and Prussian blue (PB) nanoparticle films on indium tin oxide substrates, had self-powered color switching films with fast responsive time and high reversibility. Multicolor switching was achieved through a color overlay effect by superimposing the 2 EC films, including green, blue, yellow, and colorless. The patterns could be created by the spray-coating method… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Study uncovers giant fluctuation-enhanced phonon magnetic moments in a polar antiferromagnet
Phys.org October 28, 2023 In some non- and paramagnetic systems, a large phonon magnetic moment is found due to coupling with electronic excitations. However, for magnetically ordered systems, a correspondingly large moment has not yet been discovered, and the roles of many-body correlations and fluctuations in phonon magnetism remain unclear. Researchers in China found a phonon magnetic moment that was enhanced by critical fluctuations in Fe2Mo3O8. Combining magneto-Raman spectroscopy and inelastic neutron scattering measurements, they showed that a pair of low-lying chiral phonons carried large magnetic moments. Once the system was driven to a ferrimagnetic phase, they observed a splitting […]
New easy-to-use optical chip can self-configure to perform various functions
Phys.org October 11, 2023 To enhance the functional versatility of chips researchers in China introduced the concept of reconfiguration into photonic integrated circuits. Inspired by field programmable gate arrays in the electrical domain, they developed programmable photonic chips employing various topologies. However, users still encounter challenges when utilizing these devices, as they need to understand the internal structure and principles of the chip and individually adjust the tunable basic units within the topology network. The researchers employed the quadrilateral topological network based on the on-chip Mach–Zehnder interferometer as a black box to realize a highly self-reconfigurable optical signal processor. By […]
Scientists demonstrate electrically tunable microlens array using simple PSCOF approach
Phys.org October 11, 2023 Microlens construction methods involve multiple fabrication processes, thereby increasing the complexity and cost of fabrication. Researchers in China demonstrated an optically anisotropic, electrically tunable liquid crystal (LC) microlens array using one-step fabrication method. The microlens array was formed via photopolymerization-induced phase separation inside a polymer/LC composite. Without applying voltage, the microlens array had a natural focal length of 8 mm. Upon applying voltage above the threshold, the LC molecules reorient along the electric field direction and the focal length of the microlens array gradually increased. According to the researchers LC microlens arrays could find numerous potential […]
Living hydrogel fibers unveiling a new era of sustainable engineered materials
Nanowerk September 27, 2023 A major challenge in creating living materials for functional material design, integrating synthetic biology tools to endow materials with programmable, dynamic, and life-like characteristics, is balancing the tradeoff between structural stability, mechanical performance, and functional programmability. To address this problem researchers in China proposed a sheath–core living hydrogel fiber platform that synergistically integrated living bacteria with hydrogel fibers to achieve both functional diversity and structural and mechanical robustness. The microfluidic spinning was used to produce hydrogel fiber, which offered advantages in both structural and functional designability due to their hierarchical porous architectures that could be tailored […]
Single sideband modulation technique can relax the bandwidth restriction
Phys.org September 26, 2023 The highest frequency achievable for microwave signals is limited by the bandwidths of optoelectronic devices. To maximize the microwave frequency with a limited bandwidth of a photodetector (PD) and relieve the bandwidth bottleneck, researchers in China proposed to generate microwave signals with the single sideband (SSB) format by beating a continuous wave (CW) light with an optical SSB signal. By simply adjusting the frequency difference between the CW light and the carrier of the optical SSB signal, the frequency of the generated microwave SSB signal was changed correspondingly. In the experiment, amplitude shift keying (ASK) microwave […]
Scientists develop self-healing elastomer for flexible electronics
Phys.org September 18, 2023 The mechanical properties of the substrate elastomers are often poor due to the inherent performance of the materials. Researchers in China prepared a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)-based self-healing material with high strength and good thermal stability by side-linked grafting modification of PVA with a one-step esterification reaction. Benefiting from the hydrogen bonds and ion coordination between iron ions and carboxyl groups, the synthesized elastomer exhibited excellent mechanical properties and good self-healing performance. The high sensitivity and self-healing performance of a silver nanowire-coated elastomer strain sensor demonstrated the wide potential applicability of the prepared PVA-based elastomers in health […]