Switchable counterion gradients around charged metallic nanoparticles enable reception of radio waves

Mechanically flexible, easy-to-process, and environmentally benign materials capable of current rectification are interesting alternatives to "hard" silicon-based devices. Among these materials are metallic/charged-organic nanoparticles in which electronic currents though metal cores are modulated by the gradients of counterions surrounding the organic ligands. Although layers of oppositely charged particles can respond to both electronic and chemical signals and can function even under significant mechanical deformation, the rectification ratios of these "chemoelectronic" elements have been, so far, low. This work shows that significantly steeper counterion gradients and significantly higher rectification ratios can be achieved with nanoparticles of only one polarity but in contact with a porous electrode serving as a counterion "sink." These composite structures act as rectifiers even at radio frequencies, providing a new means of interfacing counterions' dynamics with high-frequency electronic currents

In situ synthesis of interlinked three-dimensional graphene foam/polyaniline nanorod supercapacitor

Three-dimensional (3-D) graphene foam/PANI nanorods were fabricated by hydrothermal treatment of graphene oxide (GO) solution and sequentially in-situ synthesis of PANI nanorods on the surface of graphene hydrogel. 3-D graphene foam was used as substrate for the growth of PANI nanorods and it increases the specific surface area as well as the double layer capacitance performance of the graphene foam/PANI nanorod composite. The length of the PANI nanorod is about 340 nm. PANI nanorods exhibited a short stick shape. These PANI nanorods agglomerate together and the growth orientation is anisotropic. The highest specific capacitance of 3-D graphene/PANI nanorod composite electrodes is 352 F g−1 at the scan rate of 10 mV s−1.Institute of Textiles and Clothin

Direct in situ synthesis of a 3D interlinked amorphous carbon nanotube/graphene/BaFe12O19 composite and its electromagnetic wave absorbing properties

2016-2017 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalbcrcVersion of RecordPublishe

A new framework for large strain electromechanics based on convex multi-variable strain energies: Finite Element discretisation and computational implementation

In Gil and Ortigosa (2016), Gil and Ortigosa introduced a new convex multi-variable framework for the numerical simulation of Electro Active Polymers (EAPs) in the presence of extreme deformations and electric fields. This extends the concept of polyconvexity to strain energies which depend on non-strain based variables. The consideration of the new concept of multi-variable convexity guarantees the well posedness of generalised Gibbs’ energy density functionals and, hence, opens up the possibility of a new family of mixed variational principles. The aim of this paper is to present, as an example, the Finite Element implementation of two of these mixed variational principles. These types of enhanced methodologies are known to be necessary in scenarios in which the simpler displacement-potential based formulation yields non-physical results, such as volumetric locking, bending and shear locking, pressure oscillations and electro-mechanical locking, to name but a few. Crucially, the use of interpolation spaces in which some of the unknown fields are described as piecewise discontinuous across elements can be used in order to efficiently condense these fields out. This results in mixed formulations with a computational cost comparable to that of the displacement-potential based approach, yet far more accurate. Finally, a series of very challenging numerical examples are presented in order to demonstrate the accuracy, robustness and efficiency of the proposed methodology

A computational framework for large strain nearly and truly incompressible electromechanics based on convex multi-variable strain energies

The series of papers published by Gil and Ortigosa (Gil and Ortigosa, 2016; Ortigosa and Gil, 2016, 0000) introduced a new convex multi-variable variational and computational framework for the numerical simulation of Electro Active Polymers (EAPs) in scenarios characterised by extreme deformations and/or extreme electric fields. Building upon this body of work, five key novelties are incorporated in this paper. First, a generalisation of the concept of multi-variable convexity to energy functionals additively decomposed into isochoric and volumetric components. This decomposition is typical of nearly and truly incompressible materials, group which represents the majority of the most relevant EAPs. Second, convexification or regularisation strategies are applied to a priori non-convex multi-variable isochoric functionals to yield physically meaningful convex multi-variable functionals. Third, based on the mixed variational principles introduced in Gil and Ortigosa (2016) in the context of compressible electro-elasticity, a novel extended Hu–Washizu mixed variational principle for nearly and truly incompressible scenarios is presented. From the computational standpoint, a static condensation procedure is applied in order to condense out the element-wise extra fields, the resulting formulation having a comparable cost to the more standard three-field displacement-potential-pressure mixed formulation. Fourth, the computational framework for the three-field mixed variational principle in nearly and truly incompressible scenarios is also presented. In this case, the novelty resides in the consideration of convex multi-variable energy functionals. Ultimately, this leads to the definition of new tangent operators for the Helmholtz’s energy functional in the specific context of incompressible electro-elasticity. Fifth, a Petrov–Galerkin stabilisation technique is applied on the three-field formulation for the circumvention of the Ladyz˘enskaja–Babus˘ka–Brezzi (LBB) condition, enabling the use of linear tetrahedral finite elements for the interpolation of the unknowns of the problem. Finally, a series of challenging numerical examples is presented in order to provide an exhaustive comparison of the different variational formulations presented in this paper

Preparation and Adsorption Properties of Graphene-Modified, Pitch-Based Carbon Foam Composites

In view of the good adsorption properties of graphene and carbon foam, they were combined to achieve the optimal matching of microstructures. Taking mesophase pitch as a raw material, pitch-based carbon foam was prepared by the self-foaming method. Graphene gel was prepared as the second phase to composite with the carbon foam matrix; graphene-modified, pitch-based carbon foam composites were finally obtained. Graphene gel was dispersed in the rich pore structure of carbon foam to improve its agglomeration and the porosity, and the active sites of the composite were further increased; the adsorption properties and mechanical properties of the composites were also significantly improved. The microstructure and morphology of the composites were studied by SEM, XRD and Raman spectroscopy; the compressive property and porosity were also tested. Methylene blue (MB) solution was used to simulate a dye solution for the adsorption test, and the influence of the composite properties and MB solution on the adsorption property was studied. Results showed that the compressive strength of the composite was 13.5 MPa, increased by 53.41%, and the porosity was 58.14%, increased by 24.15%, when compared to raw carbon foam. When the mass of the adsorbent was 150 mg, the initial concentration of the MB solution was 5 mg/L, and the pH value of the MB solution was 11; the graphene-modified carbon foam composites showed the best adsorption effect, with an adsorption rate of 96.3% and an adsorption capacity of 144.45 mg/g. Compared with the raw carbon foam, the adsorption rate and adsorption capacity of the composites were increased by 158.18% and 93.50%, respectively

An Efficient Hybrid Linear Clustering Superpixel Decomposition Framework for Traffic Scene Semantic Segmentation

Superpixel decomposition could reconstruct an image through meaningful fragments to extract regional features, thus boosting the performance of advanced computer vision tasks. To further optimize the computational efficiency as well as segmentation quality, a novel framework is proposed to generate superpixels from the perspective of hybridizing two existing linear clustering frameworks. Instead of conventional grid sampling seeds for region clustering, a fast convergence strategy is first introduced to center the final superpixel clusters, which is based on an accelerated convergence strategy. Superpixels are then generated from a center-fixed online average clustering, which adopts region growing to label all pixels in an efficient one-pass manner. The experiments verify that the integration of this two-step implementation could generate a synergistic effect and that it becomes more well-rounded than each single method. Compared with other state-of-the-art superpixel algorithms, the proposed framework achieves a comparable overall performance in terms of segmentation accuracy, spatial compactness and running efficiency; moreover, an application on image segmentation verifies its facilitation for traffic scene analysis

Absorption properties of radar absorbing structure laminate composites filled with Carbon Nanotubes

Radar absorbing structure laminate composites composed of glass fibers, carbon fibers and epoxy resin filled with carbon nanotubes were fabricated. Two optimal double-layer radar absorbing structures were obtained, the smallest reflection loss of them was -19.23 dB and -26.60 dB respectively, and the absorbing bandwidth was 4.2 GHz and 4.0 GHz separately. It was possible to achieve out the reflection loss was smaller than -10 dB in whole 8.2 - 12.4 GHz by adopting double-layered radar absorbing structure, adjusting to the permittivity of the composites and controlling the thickness of each layer materials

Chemical kinetics of catalytic chemical vapor deposition of an acetylene/xylene mixture for improved carbon nanotube production

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