Facile control of nanoporosity in Cellulose Acetate using Nickel(II) nitrate additive and water pressure treatment for highly efficient battery gel separators

We succeed in fabricating nearly straight nanopores in cellulose acetate (CA) polymers for use as battery gel separators by utilizing an inorganic hexahydrate (Ni(NO3)2??6H2O) complex and isostatic water pressure treatment. The continuous nanopores are generated when the polymer film is exposed to isostatic water pressure after complexing the nickel(II) nitrate hexahydrate (Ni(NO3)2??6H2O) with the CA. These results can be attributed to the manner in which the polymer chains are weakened because of the plasticization effect of the Ni(NO3)2??6H2O that is incorporated into the CA. Furthermore, we performed extensive molecular dynamics simulation for confirming the interaction between electrolyte and CA separator. The well controlled CA membrane after water pressure treatment enables fabrication of highly reliable cell by utilizing 2032-type coin cell structure. The resulting cell performance exhibits not only the effect of the physical morphology of CA separator, but also the chemical interaction of electrolyte with CA polymer which facilitates the Li-ion in the cell.ope

Unraveling Amazon tree community assembly using Maximum Information Entropy: a quantitative analysis of tropical forest ecology

In a time of rapid global change, the question of what determines patterns in species abundance distribution remains a priority for understanding the complex dynamics of ecosystems. The constrained maximization of information entropy provides a framework for the understanding of such complex systems dynamics by a quantitative analysis of important constraints via predictions using least biased probability distributions. We apply it to over two thousand hectares of Amazonian tree inventories across seven forest types and thirteen functional traits, representing major global axes of plant strategies. Results show that constraints formed by regional relative abundances of genera explain eight times more of local relative abundances than constraints based on directional selection for specific functional traits, although the latter does show clear signals of environmental dependency. These results provide a quantitative insight by inference from large-scale data using cross-disciplinary methods, furthering our understanding of ecological dynamics