Vertically Aligned Silicon Carbide Nanowires/Boron Nitride Cellulose Aerogel Networks Enhanced Thermal Conductivity and Electromagnetic Absorbing of Epoxy Composites

With the innovation of microelectronics technology, the heat dissipation problem inside the device will face a severe test. In this work, cellulose aerogel(CA) with highly enhanced thermal conductivity(TC) in vertical planes was successfully obtained by constructing a vertically aligned silicon carbide nanowires(SiC NWs)/boron nitride(BN) network via the ice template-assisted strategy. The unique network structure of SiC NWs connected to BN ensures that the TC of the composite in the vertical direction reaches 2.21 W m^(-1) K^(-1) at a low hybrid filler loading of 16.69 wt%, which was increased by 890% compared to pure epoxy(EP). In addition, relying on unique porous network structure of CA, EP-based composite also showed higher TC than other comparative samples in the horizontal direction. Meanwhile, the composite exhibits good electrically insulating with a volume electrical resistivity about 2.35 × 10^(11) Ω cm and displays excellent electromagnetic wave absorption performance with a minimum reflection loss of-21.5 dB and a wide effective absorption bandwidth(<-10 dB) from 8.8 to 11.6 GHz. Therefore, this work provides a new strategy for manufacturing polymer-based composites with excellent multifunctional performances in microelectronic packaging applications.

Single-Atom Catalysts for Electrochemical Hydrogen Evolution Reaction: Recent Advances and Future Perspectives

Hydrogen,a renewable and outstanding energy carrier with zero carbon dioxide emission,is regarded as the best alternative to fossil fuels.The most preferred route to large-scale production of hydrogen is by water electrolysis from the intermittent sources(e.g.,wind,solar,hydro,and tidal energy).However,the efficiency of water electrolysis is very much dependent on the activity of electrocatalysts.Thus,designing high-effective,stable,and cheap materials for hydrogen evolution reaction(HER)could have a substantial impact on renewable energy technologies.Recently,single-atom catalysts(SACs)have emerged as a new frontier in catalysis science,because SACs have maximum atom-utilization efficiency and excellent catalytic reaction activity.Various synthesis methods and analytical techniques have been adopted to prepare and characterize these SACs.In this review,we discuss recent progress on SACs synthesis,characterization methods,and their catalytic applications.Particularly,we highlight their unique electrochemical characteristics toward HER.Finally,the current key challenges in SACs for HER are pointed out and some potential directions are proposed as well.

Engineering miniature gold nanorods with tailorable plasmonic wavelength in NIR region via ternary surfactants mediated growth

Plasmonic nanoparticles are endowed profound capability for sensing,biomedicine,and cancer therapy.However,the inaccessibly adjustable wavelength in near infrared(NIR)region window and size limit for the particles penetration in tumor strongly hinder their developments.Miniature gold nanorods(mini-Au NRs)with diameter less than 12 nm can effectively address this challenge due to the tiny size and tailorable NIR absorption.Herein,we adopt ternary surfactants(hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide(CTAB),sodium oleate(NaOL),and sodium salicylate(NaSal))mediated growth strategy to precisely synthesize miniature Au NRs under micelle space-confinement.Importantly,the selectively dense accumulation of ternary surfactants can efficiently improve the micellar stacking parameters(p)and lower micellar free energy(F),further tends to achieve the formation of Au NRs with tiny diameter and high purity.Compared with that of conventional methods,the purity of mini-Au NRs up to 100%can be dramatically improved via varying the relative concentration of ternary surfactants.The diameter of Au NRs can be dynamically controlled to 6,8,and 11 nm through regulating the concentration of silver nitrate and the mole ratio of ternary surfactants.Such ternary surfactants system is favorable for the aging of tiny Au NRs,and further enables the aspect ratio-tunable in the region from 2.70 to 7.32,as well as tailorable plasmonic wavelength in wide NIR window from 700 to 1,147 nm.Therefore,our findings shed a light on the precise preparation of small sized plasmonic nanoparticles and pave the way to applications in biomedicine,imaging,and cancer therapy.

Rigid POSS Nanofiller Regulated the Interfacial Self-assembly of Particles into 2D Monolayer Superlattice with Fixed Interparticle Spacing

Plasmonic superlattices of nanoparticles(NPs)possess unique“surface lattice resonances”properties that facilitates their wide applications in plasmonic sensing,photocatalysis,and nanoscale light manipulation.However,it is still challenging to manufacture superlattices with precisely controllable NPs distance and break the size limitation of NPs.Herein,we provided an effective strategy to construct NPs superlattices via shape-persistent polyhedral oligosilsesquioxane(POSS)molecular nanoparticles govern interfacial assembly.As a nanoscale molecule with diameter of 1.5 nm,the POSS-SH molecule provides sufficient rigid steric hindrance and hydrophobic effect for tailoring the uniformity and controllable distance between NPs in superlattices.Interestingly,synergistically with hydrophilic ligands of polyethylene glycol(PEG-SH)with optimized ratio,the rigid POSS ligands can effectively regulate the distance between NPs in a fixed range of 2.3—2.8 nm,which is independent of ligands molecular weight and particle size.Furthermore,the effective approach can be universal to anisotropic NPs for manufacturing monolayer films with high NPs density.We believe this nanoscale molecule tailored interfacial self-assembly strategy can effectively break the size of NPs and assembly obstacles for superlattice monolayer film.Additionally,the definite distance between NPs in superlattices can minimize optical energy attenuation and facilitates the applications such as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and photocatalysis.

Polymer composites designed with 3D fibrous CNT“tracks”achieving excellent thermal conductivity and electromagnetic interference shielding efficiency

The rapid improvement in the running speed,transmission efficiency,and power density of miniaturized devices means that multifunctional flexible composites with excellent thermal management capability and high electromagnetic interference(EMI)shielding performance are urgently required.Here,inspired by the fibrous pathways of the human nervous system,a“core–sheath”fibers structured strategy was proposed to prepare thermoplastic polyurethane/polydopamine/carbon nanotube(TPU/PDA/CNT)composites film with thermal management capability and EMI shielding performance.Firstly,TPU@PDA@CNT fibers with CNT shell were prepared by a facile polydopamine-assisted coating on electrospun TPU fibers.Subsequently,TPU/PDA/CNT composites with three-dimensional(3D)fibrous CNT“tracks”are obtained by a hot-pressing process,where CNTs distributed on adjacent fibers are compactly contacted.The fabricated TPU/PDA/CNT composites exhibit a high in-plane thermal conductivity(TC)of 9.6 W/(m·K)at low CNT loading of 7.6 wt.%.In addition,it also presents excellent mechanical properties and excellent EMI shielding effectiveness of 48.3 dB as well as multi-source driven thermal management capabilities.Hence,this study provides a simple yet scalable technique to prepare composites with advanced thermal management and EMI shielding performance to develop new-generation wireless communication technologies and portable intelligent electronic devices.

A double crosslinking MXene/cellulose nanofiber layered film for improving mechanical properties and stable electromagnetic interference shielding performance

With the discovery of the two-dimensional(2D) MXene, it shows a great application potential in the field of electromagnetic interference(EMI) shielding, but the mechanical brittleness and easy oxidation of MXene limit its wide application. For this reason, a double crosslinking strategy is provided to solve the above problems in a nacre-like “brick-mortar” layered MXene/cellulose nanofiber(MXene/CNF) film.Typically, the film was firstly suffered by dopamine modification, then was further reinforced by secondary Ca^(2+)bridging, so as to obtain excellent mechanical properties and antioxidative EMI shielding performance. Comparing with the single crosslinking, the double crosslinking strategy reveals a higher efficiency in improving the mechanical property. The mechanical strength and toughness of the double crosslinking MXene/CNF film can increase to 142.2 MPa and 9.48 MJ/m^(3), respectively. More importantly, while achieving good mechanical properties, the MXene composite film still holds a very stable EMI shielding performance of more than 44.6 dB when suffering from the oxidation treatment of hightemperature annealing, showing excellent anti-oxidation ability and environment tolerance. Therefore,this work provides a universal but effective double crosslinking strategy to solve the mechanical brittleness and easy oxidation of MXene-based composites, thus showing a huge potential in flexible EMI shielding applications.