High loading carbon nanotubes deposited onto porous nickel yarns by solution imbibition as flexible wire-shaped supercapacitor electrodes

The deposition of active materials directly onto metal wires is a general strategy to prepare wire-shaped electrodes for flexible and wearable energy storage devices. However, it is still a critical challenge to coat active materials onto the aimed metal wires because of their smooth surface and small specific surface area. In this work, high porous nickel yarns（PNYs） was fabricated using commercial nylon yarns as templates through step-wise electroless plating, electroplating and calcination processes. The PNYs are composed of multiplied fibers with hollow tubular structure of 5–10 μm in diameter, allowing the imbibition of carbon nanotubes（CNTs） solution by a facile capillary action process. The prepared CNTs/PNY electrodes showed a typical electrochemical double layer capacitive performance and the constructed allsolid flexible wire-shaped symmetric supercapacitors provided a specific capacitance of 4.67 F/cm3 with good cycling stability at a current density of 0.6 A/cm3.

Particles dispersion on fluid-liquid interfaces

This paper is concerned with the dispersion of particles on the fluid-liquid interface. In a previous study we have shown that when small particles, e.g., flour, pollen, glass beads, etc., contact an air-liquid interface, they disperse rapidly as if they were in an explosion. The rapid dispersion is due to the fact that the capillary force pulls particles into the interface causing them to accelerate to a large velocity. In this paper we show that motion of particles normal to the interface is inertia dominated; they oscillate vertically about their equilibrium position before coming to rest under viscous drag. This vertical motion of a particle causes a radially-outward lateral （secondary） flow on the interface that causes nearby particles to move away. The dispersion on a liquid-liquid interface, which is the primary focus of this study, was relatively weaker than on an air-liquid interface, and occurred over a longer period of time. When falling through an upper liquid the particles have a slower velocity than when falling through air because the liquid has a greater viscosity. Another difference for the liquid-liquid interface is that the separation of particles begins in the upper liquid before the particles reach the interface. The rate of dispersion depended on the size of the particles, the densities of the particle and liquids, the viscosities of the liquids involved, and the contact angle. For small particles, partial pinning and hysteresis of the three-phase contact line on the surface of the particle during adsorption on liquid-liquid interfaces was also important. The frequency of oscillation of particles about their floating equilibrium increased with decreasing particle size on both air-water and liquid-liquid interfaces, and the time to reach equilibrium decreased with decreasing particle size. These results are in agreement with our analysis.