4,303 research outputs found
High Performance Electrocatalysts Based on Pt Nanoarchitecture for Fuel Cell Applications
Fuel cells, converting chemical energy from fuels into electricity directly without the need for combustion, are promising energy conversion devices for their potential applications as environmentally friendly, energy efficient power sources. However, to take fuel cell technology forward towards commercialization, we need to achieve further improvements in electrocatalyst technology, which can play an extremely important role in essentially determining cost-effectiveness, performance, and durability. In particular, platinum- (Pt-) based electrocatalyst approaches have been extensively investigated and actively pursued to meet those demands as an ideal fuel cell catalyst due to their most outstanding activity for both cathode oxygen reduction reactions and anode fuel oxidation reactions. In this review, we will address important issues and recent progress in the development of Pt-based catalysts, their synthesis, and characterization. We will also review snapshots of research that are focused on essential dynamics aspects of electrocatalytic reactions, such as the shape effects on the catalytic activity of Pt-based nanostructures, the relationships between structural morphology of Pt-based nanostructures and electrochemical reactions on both cathode and anode electrodes, and the effects of composition and electronic structure of Pt-based catalysts on electrochemical reaction properties of fuel cells.</jats:p
Critical Behaviour of Superfluid He in Aerogel
We report on Monte Carlo studies of the critical behaviour of superfluid
He in the presence of quenched disorder with long-range fractal
correlations. According to the heuristic argument by Harris, uncorrelated
disorder is irrelevant when the specific heat critical exponent is
negative, which is the case for the pure He. However, experiments on helium
in aerogel
have shown that the superfluid density critical exponent changes. We
hypothesize that this is a cross-over effect due to the fractal nature of
aerogel. Modelling the aerogel as an incipient percolating cluster in 3D and
weakening the bonds at the fractal sites, we perform XY-model simulations,
which demonstrate an increase in from
for the pure case to an apparent value of in the presence of
the fractal disorder, provided that the helium correlation length does not
exceed the fractal correlation length.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 3 postscript figures, LaTeX file and figures have
been uuencoded
Mg(, )Na reaction study for spectroscopy of Na
The Mg(, )Na reaction was measured at the Holifield
Radioactive Ion Beam Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in order to
better constrain spins and parities of energy levels in Na for the
astrophysically important F()Ne reaction rate
calculation. 31 MeV proton beams from the 25-MV tandem accelerator and enriched
Mg solid targets were used. Recoiling He particles from the
Mg(, )Na reaction were detected by a highly segmented
silicon detector array which measured the yields of He particles over a
range of angles simultaneously. A new level at 6661 5 keV was observed in
the present work. The extracted angular distributions for the first four levels
of Na and Distorted Wave Born Approximation (DWBA) calculations were
compared to verify and extract angular momentum transfer.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, proceedings of the 18th International Conference
on Accelerators and Beam Utilization (ICABU2014
Development of Bis-GMA-free biopolymer to avoid estrogenicity
Objective:
Although bisphenol A-glycidyl methacrylate (Bis-GMA)-based dental materials are widely used in dentistry, Estrogenicity from released bisphenol A remains a concern due to possibility of adversely affecting the growth of children and homeostasis of adults. Here, a new family of isosorbide-derived biomonomers were synthesized and experimentally utilized as a matrix of dental sealants to provide physico-mechanical and biological properties comparable to those of a conventional Bis-GMA-based material but without the the potential estrogenicity. /
Methods:
After synthesis of isosorbide-derived biomonomers (ISDB) by light polymerization, an experimental dental sealant with different silica filler concentrations (0–15 wt%) was characterized and compared to a commercially available Bis-GMA-based sealant. Cytotoxicity and estrogenicity assays were conducted with human oral keratinocytes and estrogen-sensitive MCF-7 cells, respectively. /
Results:
ISDB-based dental sealants exhibited typical initially smooth surfaces with depth of cure, Vickers hardness, compressive strength/modulus, water resorption/solubility, and flowability comparable to those of the commercial sealant and met the ISO standard for dental sealants and polymer-based restorative materials. Indirect cytotoxicity tests using an extract showed comparable viability among experimental ISDB-based materials and a commercial Bis-GMA-incorporated control. DNA synthesis in MCF-7 cells (a marker of estrogenicity) and the release of bisphenol A under enzymatic incubation were not detected in ISDB-based materials. /
Significance:
In conclusion, the comparable physico-mechanical properties of ISDB-based materials with their cytocompatibility and lack of estrogenicity suggest the potential usefulness of ISDBs as a newly developed and safe biomaterial
Ogle-2018-blg-0677lb: A super earth near the galactic bulge
We report the analysis of the microlensing event OGLE-2018-BLG-0677. A small
feature in the light curve of the event leads to the discovery that the lens is
a star-planet system. Although there are two degenerate solutions that could
not be distinguished for this event, both lead to a similar planet-host mass
ratio. We perform a Bayesian analysis based on a Galactic model to obtain the
properties of the system and find that the planet corresponds to a
super-Earth/sub-Neptune with a mass . The host star has a mass . The projected
separation for the inner and outer solutions are ~AU
and ~AU respectively. At , this is by far the lowest for any
securely-detected microlensing planet to date, a feature that is closely
connected to the fact that it is detected primarily via a "dip" rather than a
"bump".Comment: 15 page, 12 figures, Published in A
Flux Pinning and Phase Transitions in Model High-Temperature Superconductors with Columnar Defects
We calculate the degree of flux pinning by defects in model high-temperature
superconductors (HTSC's). The HTSC is modeled as a three-dimensional network of
resistively-shunted Josephson junctions in an external magnetic field,
corresponding to a HTSC in the extreme Type-II limit. Disorder is introduced
either by randomizing the coupling between grains (Model A disorder) or by
removing grains (Model B disorder). Three types of defects are considered:
point disorder, random line disorder, and periodic line disorder; but the
emphasis is on random line disorder. Static and dynamic properties of the
models are determined by Monte Carlo simulations and by solution of the
analogous coupled overdamped Josephson equations in the presence of thermal
noise. Random line defects considerably raise the superconducting transition
temperature T, and increase the apparent critical current density
J, in comparison to the defect-free crystal. They are more effective
in these respects than a comparable volume density of point defects, in
agreement with the experiments of Civale {\it et al}. Periodic line defects
commensurate with the flux lattice are found to raise T even more than
do random line defects. Random line defects are most effective when their
density approximately equals the flux density. Near T, our static and
dynamic results appear consistent with the anisotropic Bose glass scaling
hypotheses of Nelson and Vinokur, but with possibly different critical indices:Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX(REVTeX v3.0, twocolumn), 11 figures (not included
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