The importance of knowledge and trust for ethical fashion consumption

Purpose. The clothing industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, although manufacturers and retailers are trying to revert this tendency by applying ethical fashion principles. Drawing on the knowledge-attitude-behavior (KAB) model or practice, this study aims to predict Chinese consumers' purchase intention of ethical fashion by employing and extending the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Design/methodology/approach. The extended TPB model incorporates knowledge of ethical fashion and trust in the fashion industry and two critical variables in ethical fashion literature to explain the purchase intention of ethical fashion. Primary data from 245 Chinese respondents were collected in 2019. The model was tested and analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings. Results show that the extended TPB model has higher predictability than the original TPB model. Attitude toward ethical fashion and subjective norm significantly predicts purchase intention while perceived behavioral control (PBC) does not. In addition, trust of ethical fashion is positively related to attitude toward ethical fashion and purchase intention, whereas knowledge of ethical fashion plays a significant role in predicting trust and the three TPB factors. The subjective norm was found to have the most significant impact on consumers' intention to purchase ethical fashion, which shows that social pressure from one individual's reference group is the most dominant factor in forming consumer's purchase intention on ethical fashion. Originality/value. The findings enrich the past literature on ethical fashion that trusting belief is a salient determinant of consumers' attitude toward ethical fashion and purchase intention of ethical fashion products. The findings also supported the applicability of KAB and TPB in the domain of ethical consumption in the context of a developing country

Ferroelectric memristor based on Pt/BiFeO3/Nb-doped SrTiO3 heterostructure

We report a continuously tunable resistive switching behavior in Pt/BiFeO₃/Nb-doped SrTiO₃ heterostructure for ferroelectric memristor application. The resistance of this memristor can be tuned up to 5 × 10⁵% by applying voltage pulses at room temperature, which exhibits excellent retention and anti-fatigue characteristics. The observed memristive behavior is attributed to the modulation effect of the ferroelectric polarization reversal on the width of depletion region and the height of potential barrier of the p-n junction formed at the BiFeO₃/Nb-doped SrTiO₃ interface.This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11074193 and 51132001). Q.L. and Y.L. acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council (ARC) in the form of ARC Discovery Grants

Signals of Hotel Effort on Enhancing IAQ and Booking Intention: Effect of Customer's Body Mass Index Associated with Sustainable Marketing in Tourism

Since outdoor air pollutants may penetrate into hotels, indoor air quality (IAQ) has recently developed as an important criterion for tourists' decision to choose traveling destinations and for business travelers to select accommodation. Thus, some hoteliers have raised concern about the negative effects of emerging air quality issues on guests' experience and are willing to invest in improving the IAQ. Unlike hotel's currently offered services and products which are observable, the improved IAQ is almost invisible and the mitigation technology of air pollutants is new to hoteliers, consumers and researchers in the tourism. Hence, the search and understanding of the relationship of signals communicating hotel's effort on air quality enhancement and booking intention plus the mediating and moderating factors becomes the main objective of the research and can fill the knowledge gap plus meet the practical need. The study found that the more reinforced IAQ effort included in the website presentation, the higher the travelers' booking intention. The travelers' trust belief on hotel partially mediated the relationship between travelers' perception of reinforced IAQ effort input by hoteliers and their booking intention. Further, the study finds that enhancement of online booking intention do exist in segment of travelers who are high health-conscious. Also, the influence of health-conscious traveler's perception of hotel IAQ enhancement effort via portal on dependent variable-hotel booking was statistically significant. The findings enable hotel managers to have a deeper understanding of the relationship between the potential customers' booking intention on hotel rooms and the online marketing communication signals mediated by their trust on hotel's cleaning air effort. The results can serve as a reference for designing more effective 2 marketing communication programs and channels for hotels' endeavor to improve indoor air quality, especially sustaining the tourism development in the post epidemic era. Also, the study unveils some applied measures in improving hotel air quality not being documented in hospitality and tourism journals

Interaction of Amino Acids and Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes

In this article, we investigated the interactions between oxidized single-wall carbon nanotubes and three amino acids. A simple and environmental benign method to realize solubility of oxidized single-wall carbon nanotubes (OSWNT) in water was described. The amino acids used in this study include l-glycine (Gly), l-lysine (Lys), and l-phenylalanine (Phe). The OSWNT became soluble in water under ambient conditions and formed a stable suspension when amino acids (AA) were adsorbed on it. The interactions between OSWNT and three AA were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results indicate that there is an increasing in the diameter of OSWNT after AA adsorption. The OSWNT with different diameters were separated as a result of AA adsorption. The smaller the diameter of OSWNT, the more the AA adsorption amount is. The adsorbed amount of different AA on OSWNT follows the trend: Lys > Phe > Gly. The Π–Π stacking is an important factor to realizing adsorption of Phe zwitterions on the sidewall of OSWNT; but for Gly and Lys zwitterions, polar interaction is a determinant factor to realizing adsorption on the sidewall of OSWNT. The AA zwitterions were adsorbed on the surface of OSWNT by conjunct interaction of the Π–Π stacking, polar interaction, hydrogen bond, and covalent bonding. Hydrogen bond and covalent bond, formed with oxygen containing groups, is dominant at the end of OSWNT. The catalysis property of OSWNT makes a noticeable reduction of decomposition temperature for AA adsorbed on OSWNT

Two-dimensional vermiculite nanosheets-modified porous membrane for non-aqueous redox flow batteries

Funding Information: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21636007 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Elsevier B.V. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.The non-aqueous redox flow batteries (NARFBs) are promising for large-scale energy storage. However, the crossover contamination of active materials seriously imparts the performance. Here, two-dimensional (2D) vermiculite nanosheets modified Celgard porous membrane is prepared by the filtration method. The 2D vermiculite nanosheet layers stacked on the surface of Celgard membrane effectively reduce the crossover effect by sieving electrolytes and active materials through the nanoscale intercalation channels. Furthermore, the surface-governed transport behavior of the 2D vermiculite nanosheets is conducive to the exchange of supporting electrolyte. The resultant NARFB with the modified membrane exhibits higher Coulombic efficiency (95.3% vs. 87.6%) and larger discharge capacity (0.104 vs. 0.093 Ah L−1) without obvious impact on voltage efficiency (90.1% vs. 90.5%) at 2 mA cm−2. This work provides an efficient strategy to alleviate the crossover effect in NARFBs.Peer reviewe

Porous poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membrane with 2D vermiculite nanosheets modification for non-aqueous redox flow batteries

Funding Information: The work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China ( 21636007 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier B.V.Lack of high-performance membrane seriously limits the performance of non-aqueous redox flow batteries (NARFBs). Here, a porous poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membrane with 2D vermiculite nanosheets modification is proposed and prepared. The vermiculite nanosheets act as barriers to alleviate the crossover of active species. The hydrogen bonding between vermiculite and PVDF skeleton effectively mitigates the swelling rate and increases the mechanical strength of the membrane. The resultant battery constructed with the new porous membrane exhibits higher Coulombic efficiency (97.9% vs 84.6%) and large average discharge capacity (0.132 vs 0.088 Ah L−1) compared with the one with pristine PVDF membrane at 2 mA cm−2. The vermiculite nanosheets have little effect on the voltage efficiency (90.6% vs 92.7%).Peer reviewe

Tuning the high-temperature hydrothermal stability of one-pot derived Cu-SSZ-13 in the presence of SO2 for selective catalytic reduction of NOx by ammonia

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier B.V.The high temperature hydrothermal stability in the presence of SO2 of the one-pot synthesized Cu-SSZ-13 was investigated for selective catalytic reduction of NOx by NH3 (NH3-SCR). The uncalcined samples were treated with HNO3 (pH = 1.0–1.1) with different duration (3, 6, and 9 h) and then calcined, finally subjected to 750 oC hydrothermal aging without/with the presence of SO2. Various characterization results indicate that different duration of HNO3 treatment results in dealumination but has almost no effect on the distribution of Al and Si species. In contrast, it leads to difference in the content of Cu species and finally in their distribution. The 6 and 9 h samples contain higher content of more stable Cu species, which contribute to the high hydrothermal stability in the presence of SO2. H2-temperature programmed reduction (H2-TPR) is a powerful technique to reveal the properties of Cu-SSZ-13; the reduction behavior at lower temperatures (Cu2+ → Cu+) determines the NH3-SCR activity whilst the case at higher temperatures (Cu+ → Cu0) determines the high-temperature hydrothermal stability in the presence of SO2. This work demonstrates that the hydrothermal stability of Cu-SSZ-13 in the presence of SO2 can be tuned by engineering the distribution of Cu species via post HNO3 treatment.Peer reviewe

Tailoring the BaCoO3-CeO2 catalyst for NO direct decomposition: Factors determining catalytic activity

Funding Information: This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51702230) and the Program of Innovative Research Teams in Universities (No. IRT 0641). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Elsevier Inc.The 5%BaCoO3-CeO2 catalysts show excellent catalytic performance for NO direct decomposition; however, the reasons for the high activity remain to be explored. Here, the catalyst was prepared by different methods (citric acid–nitrate one-pot method, impregnation method and mechanical mixing method), aiming to reveal the factors determining the catalytic activity. The results show that the one-pot derived materials display superior activity and oxygen resistance, which is stemmed from the smaller grains and uniform distribution of components, higher surface area, larger interface, better redox activity, faster oxygen desorption kinetics and better NO sorption capability. The catalytic mechanism was discussed based on the diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy and kinetic study. This work demonstrates that the one-pot method is promising to synthesize high performance heterogeneous catalysts and the derived 5%BaCoO3-CeO2 is a competitive candidate for NO direct decomposition.Peer reviewe

A rational design of highly active and coke-resistant anode for methanol-fueled solid oxide fuel cells with Sn doped Ni-Ce0.8Sm0.2O2−δ

A crucial challenge in the commercialization of Ni-based materials as the anode of solid oxide fuel cell is the fast voltage drop due to carbon deposition and structural degradation during cell operation. Herein, Sn-doped Ce0.8Sm0.2O2−δ (SDC) supported Sn-Ni alloy anode is rationally designed and prepared, via a simple and convenient dual-modification strategy. The substitution of Sn of Ce in the oxide phase enhances the mobility of lattice oxygen in SDC. Meanwhile, Sn exsolves partially from the oxide phase and forms Ni3Sn and Ni3Sn2 intermetallic compounds with Ni after reduction. The composite anode thus formed achieves unprecedent activity in the electrochemical oxidation of H2 and CH3OH. The maximum power densities of a cell supported by 500 μm-thick Ce0.8Sm0.2O2−δ-carbonate electrolyte layer with the Ni-Ce0.7Sn0.1Sm0.2O2−δ (Ni-SSn10DC) anode reach 1.99 and 2.11 W cm−2 at 700 °C, respectively for using H2 and methanol as fuels. The doping of Sn also remarkably enhances the coking resistance of the anode.This work opens a path on the design of high-performance SOFC anode.Peer reviewe