Reversible Capacity of Conductive Carbon Additives at Low Potentials: Caveats for Testing Alternative Anode Materials for Li-Ion Batteries

The electrochemical performance of alternative anode materials for Li-ion batteries is often measured using composite electrodes consisting of active material and conductive carbon additives. Cycling of these composite electrodes at low voltages demonstrates charge storage at the operating potentials of viable anodes, however, the conductive carbon additive is also able to store charge in the low potential regime. The contribution of the conductive carbon additives to the observed capacity is often neglected when interpreting the electrochemical performance of electrodes. To provide a reference for the contribution of the carbons to the observed capacity, we report the charge storage behavior of two common conductive carbon additives Super P and Ketjenblack as a function of voltage, rate, and electrolyte composition. Both carbons exhibit substantial capacities after 100 cycles, up to 150 mAh g^(−1), when cycled to 10 mV. The capacity is dependent on the discharge cutoff voltage and cycling rate with some dependence on electrolyte composition. The first few cycles are dominated by the formation of the SEI followed by a fade to a steady, reversible capacity thereafter. Neglecting the capacity of the carbon additive can lead to significant errors in the estimation of charge storage capabilities of the active material

Team Production in Business Organizations: An Introduction

For the past two decades, legal and economic scholarship has tended to assume that the central economic problem addressed by corporation law is getting managers and directors to act as faithful agents for shareholders. There are other important economic problems faced by business firms, however. This article introduces a Symposium that explores one of those alternate economic problems: the problem of team production . Team production problems can arise whenever three conditions are met: (1) economic production requires the combined inputs of two or more individuals; (2) at least some of these inputs are team-specific, meaning they have a significantly higher value when used in the team than in their next best use; and (3) the gains resulting from team production are non-separable, making it difficult to attribute any particular portion to any single team member?s contribution. In such situations, it can be difficult or impossible for team members to draft explicit contracts that protect their team-specific investments from other team members\u27 opportunism. Thus the nine articles in the Symposium explore the implications of team production analysis for a wide variety of business organizations, including public corporations, private companies, multinational firms, and venture capital firms

Reconstructing World Politics: Norms, Discourse, and Community

This Article argues that the conventional (rationalist) approach to world politics characterized by political bargain cannot fully capture the new social reality under the contemporary global ambience where ideational factors such as ideas, values, culture, and norms have become more salient and influential not only in explaining but also in prescribing state behaviors. After bringing rationalism’s paradigmatic limitations into relief, the Article offers a sociological framework that highlights a reflective, intersubjective communication among states and consequent norm-building process. Under this new paradigm, one can understand an international organization as a “community” (Gemeinschaft), not as a mere contractual instrument of its contracting parties (Gesellschaft). The Article applies the new paradigm to the World Trade Organization (WTO) as it describes the WTO’s institutional evolution from a power-oriented, tariff-reducing contract to a norm-oriented world trade community

Onto new horizons:Insights from the WeObserve project to strengthen the awareness, acceptability and sustainability of Citizen Observatories in Europe

WeObserve delivered the first European-wide Citizen Observatory (CO) knowledge platform to share best practices, to address challenges and to inform practitioners, policy makers and funders of COs. We present key insights from WeObserve activities into leveraging challenges to create interlinked solutions, connecting with international frameworks and groups, advancing the field through communities of practice and practitioner networks, and fostering an enabling environment for COs. We also discuss how the new Horizon Europe funding programme can help to further advance the CO concept, and vice versa, how COs can provide a suitable mechanism to support the ambitions of Horizon Europe