Scalable fabrication of SnO2/eo-GO nanocomposites for the photoreduction of CO2 to CH4

Artificial photosynthesis uses a catalyst to convert CO2 into valuable hydrocarbon products by cleaving the C--O bond. However, this technology is strongly limited by two issues, namely insufficient catalytic efficiency and complicated catalyst-fabrication processes. Herein, we report the development of a novel spray-drying photocatalyst-engineering process that addresses these two issues. Through one-step spray drying, with a residence time of 1.5 s, nanocomposites composed of tin oxide （SnO2） nanoparticles and edge-oxidized graphene oxide （eo-GO） sheets were fabricated without post-treatment. These nanocomposites exhibited 28-fold and five-fold enhancements in photocatalytic efficiency during CO2 reduction compared to SnO2 and commercialized TiO2 （P25）, respectively, after irradiation with simulated sunlight for 4 h. This scalable approach, based on short residence times and facile equipment setup, promotes the practical application of artificial photosynthesis through the potential mass production of efficient photocatalysts.

Optimized sintering and mechanical properties of Y-TZP ceramics for dental restorations by adding lithium disilicate glass ceramics

The novel dental ceramics can be fabricated at lower temperatures when sol-gel derived lithium disilicate glass ceramics(LDGC)was used as an additive for yttria stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystalline(Y-TZP)ceramics.The effect of LDGC on the sintering,mechanical,and translucent properties of Y-TZP ceramics was investigated in the present study.The results showed that the LDGC additive effectively improved the densification of Y-TZP at 1100℃,which was much lower than the sintering temperature for pure Y-TZP.When sintered at 1100℃,the Y-TZP with 1 wt%LDGC reached a relative density of 95.45%,and prossessed a flexural strength of 482.4 MPa and a fracture toughness of 5.94 MPa-m12.Moreover,its translucency was also improved.While,the addition of LDGC could result in an escape of yttrium atoms from the grain lattice of zirconia,which induced the tetragonal-monoclinic transformation of zirconia and abnormal growth of monoclinic grains.The escaped yttrium atoms diffused into the intergranular glass phase.The results indicated that the novel Y-TZP-LDGC ceramics has a great potential to be used for all-ceramic restorations.

An intelligent market making strategy in algorithmic trading

Market making （MM） strategies have played an important role in the electronic stock market. However, the MM strategies without any forecasting power are not safe while trading. In this paper, we design and implement a twotier framework, which includes a trading signal generator based on a supervised learning approach and an event-driven MM strategy. The proposed generator incorporates the information within order book microstructure and market news to provide directional predictions. The MM strategy in the second tier trades on the signals and prevents itself from profit loss led by market trending. Using half a year price tick data from Tokyo Stock Exchange （TSE） and Shanghai Stock Exchange （SSE）, and corresponding Thomson Reuters news of the same time period, we conduct the back-testing and simulation on an industrial near-to-reality simulator. From the empirical results, we find that 1） strategies with signals perform better than strategies without any signal in terms of average daily profit and loss （PnL） and sharpe ratio （SR）, and 2） correct predictions do help MM strategies readjust their quoting along with market trending, which avoids the strategies triggering stop loss procedure that further realizes the paper loss.

Transition metal on topological chiral semimetal PdGa with tailored hydrogen adsorption and reduction

The difficulties in designing high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction(HER)catalysts lie in the manipulation of adsorption behaviors of transition metals(TMs).Topological chiral semimetals with super-long Fermi arc surface states provide an ideal platform for engineering the catalytic performance of TMs through the metal-support interaction.We found the adsorption trends of TMs can be modified significantly when deposited at the surface of the PdGa chiral crystal.The electron transfer from the TMs to the surface states of the PdGa reshapes the d band structure of TMs and weakens the hydrogen intermediate bonding.Especially,W/PdGa is expected to be a good HER catalyst with close to zero Gibbs free energy.Experimentally,we found a Pt-like exchange current density and tumover frequency when depositing W atoms at the PdGa nanostructures surface.The findings provide a way to develop high-efficient electrocatalysts by the interplay between topological surface states and metal-support interaction.