Effects of nozzle and fluid properties on the drop formation dynamics in a drop-on-demand inkjet printing

The droplet formation dynamics of a Newtonian liquid in a drop-on-demand (DOD) inkjet process is numerically investigated by using a volume-of-fluid (VOF) method. We focus on the nozzle geometry, wettability of the interior surface, and the fluid properties to achieve the stable droplet formation with higher velocity. It is found that a nozzle with contracting angle of 45° generates the most stable and fastest single droplet, which is beneficial for the enhanced printing quality and high-throughput printing rate. For this nozzle with the optimal geometry, we systematically change the wettability of the interior surface, i.e., different contact angles. As the contact angle increases, pinch-off time increases and the droplet speed reduces. Finally, fluids with different properties are investigated to identify the printability range.

钠离子电池工程化——机遇与挑战

当前,在应对全球能源枯竭与环境恶化之际,可持续且环境友好的可再生能源正迎来重要的发展机遇。以二次电池为代表的电化学储能技术(EES),可实现绿色新能源安全且经济有效的存储和转化,被视为平抑可再生能源间歇性并实现稳定并网输入的最佳解决方案。钠离子电池(SIB),受益于钠资源的丰富性及低成本,是下一代大规模电化学存储系统最具应用前景的选择之一。本文详细讨论了锂离子电池(LIB)和钠离子电池在不同应用场景下的主要区别,并描述了当前对钠离子电池的理解。通过比较锂离子电池、铅酸电池(LAB)和钠离子电池之间的技术发展情况,进一步揭示钠离子电池的优势。本文以基于钠离子电池技术所取得的商业化成就为文章亮点,重点介绍了五家钠离子电池企业和相应的钠离子电池产品,以及各自的钠离子电池化学与技术。最后,讨论了下一代钠离子电池商业化的前景与挑战。

Solar-powered miniature robot for on-site oil spill treatment under magnetic steering

Walking on the water surface is an effective method for miniature robots to transport payloads with dramatically decreased interfacial drag. Current aquatic robots reported are generally actuated by a beam of focused light that can trigger asymmetrical deformation, enabling the directional movement through horizontal momentum transfer of photoinduced actuation force to the water. However, the operations are heavily dependent on manual manipulation of the focused light, making the long-term actuation and application of the aquatic robots in vast scenarios challenging. Herein, we developed a kind of water striderinspired robot that can autonomously manage the motion on the water surface under solar irradiation, with their direction steerable by a magnetic field. The motion of this bioinspired robot on the water surface was achieved by the use of a solar cell panel as a driving module to enable propulsive motion based on the conversion of light-electric-mechanical energies. The superhydrophobic design of its leg surfaces enables the aquatic robots with weight-bearing and drag-reducing abilities. With the assistance of magnetic navigation, the bioinspired robot can continuously and controllably locomote to the oily spill floating on the water body and collect them with high efficiency. For further demonstration, the treatment of oil spills in a campus pool with high efficiency has also been achieved. This on-site oil-spill treating strategy, taking advantage of a home-made bioinspired robot actuated by natural sunlight under magnetic steering, shows great potential applications in water-body remediation.

A Survey of Underwater Multi-Robot Systems

As a cross-cutting field between ocean development and multi-robot system(MRS),the underwater multi-robot system(UMRS)has gained increasing attention from researchers and engineers in recent decades.In this paper,we present a comprehensive survey of cooperation issues,one of the key components of UMRS,from the perspective of the emergence of new functions.More specifically,we categorize the cooperation in terms of task-space,motion-space,measurement-space,as well as their combination.Further,we analyze the architecture of UMRS from three aspects,i.e.,the performance of the individual underwater robot,the new functions of underwater robots,and the technical approaches of MRS.To conclude,we have discussed related promising directions for future research.This survey provides valuable insight into the reasonable utilization of UMRS to attain diverse underwater tasks in complex ocean application scenarios.

Designing noble metal single-atom-loaded two-dimension photocatalyst for N2 and CO2 reduction via anion vacancy engineering

Building highly active and stable noble metal single atom(MSA)catalyst onto photocatalyst materials for nitrogen reduction reaction(NRR)and CO2 reduction reaction(CRR)is a key to future renewable energy conversion and storage technologies.Here we present a design strategy to optimize the stability and electronic property of noble metal single atoms(MSAs,M=Rh,Pd,Ag,Ir,Pt,Au)catalyst supported on g-C3N4 and 2H-MoS2 photocatalysts towards NRR and CRR.Our results indicate that the MSAs tend to be trapped at the anion-vacancy sites of photocatalyst rather than the pristine photocatalyst surface.This anion vacancy can promise the MSAs with an optimized electron-captured ability in the photoexcitation process,thus decreasing the energy barriers of NRR and CRR on MSAs.Especially,it is revealed that the N-vacancy-stabilized Ir SA on g-C3N4 and the S-vacancy-stabilized RhSA on 2H-MoS2 own the lowest energy barrier in NRR.However,for CRR,the HCOOH is the main product on MSAs supported by gC3N4 and 2H-MoS2.The N-vacancy-stabilized PdSA on g-C3N4 and the S-vacancy-stabilized AuSA on 2H-MoS2 show the lowest energy barrier for HCOOH production in CRR.This finding offers an approach to design specific active MSA centres on photocatalysts by the anion vacancy engineering.

A study on equivalence of nonlinear energy dissipation between first-order computational homogenization(FOCH)and re duce d-order homogenization(ROH)methods

Nowadays,studies on the mechanism of macro-scopic nonlinear behavior of materials by accumulation of micro-scopic degradation are attracting more attention from researchers.Among numerous approaches,multiscale methods have been proved as powerful and practical approaches in predicting macro-scopic material status by averaging and homogenizing physical information from associated micro-scopic mate-rial behavior.Usually in mechanical problem,the stress,consistent material modulus,and possible mate-rial state variables are quantities in interest through the upscaling process.However,the energy-related quantities are not studied much.Some initiative work has been done in the early year including but not limited to the Hill-Mandel condition in multiscale framework,which gives that the macro-scopic elastic strain energy density can be computed by volumetric averaging of that in the micro-scale.However,in the nonlinear analysis,the energy dissipation is an important quantity to measure the degradation status.In this manuscript,two typical multiscale methods,the first-order computational homogenization(FOCH)and reduced-order homogenization(ROH),are adopted to numerically analyze a fiber-reinforced compos-ite material with capability in material nonlinearity.With numerical experiments,it can be shown that energy dissipation is the same for both approaches.

Numerical investigation on motion of an ellipsoidal particle inside confined microcavity flow

The behaviors of a neutrally buoyant ellipsoidal particle in vortical flow confined by a microcavity are numerically studied using the Lattice-Boltzmann method.For specific initial position,an isolated ellipsoid may develop a stable limit cycle orbit inside microcavity due to the interaction between particle and the carrier flow.It is observed that ellipsoidal particles of different shapes exhibit two different stable rotational modes depending on the initial orientation and lateral position.A prolate spheroid tends to enter a tumbling mode whereas an oblate spheroid is apt to achieve a rolling mode.The evolution of rotational velocities along the stable orbit is also analyzed for particles of different shapes.

Droplet impact on wetted structured surfaces

In this study,we numerically investigate the droplet impact onto a thin liquid film deposited on a structured surface with square pillars and cavities.The time evolution of crown geometry is strongly affected by the surface structure.When the thickness of the liquid film is larger than the structure height,the expanding speed of the crown base radius is independent of the structure width.However,if the liquid film thickness is equal to the structure height,the crown base expands slower as the structure width increases.Surface structures have strong effects on the crown height and radius,and can prevent ejected filament from breaking into satellite droplets for certain cases.For the liquid film with the thickness equal to the pillar height,both the crown height and the radius exhibit non-monotonic behaviors as the pillar width increases.There exists one pillar width which produces the smallest crown height and the largest crown radius.

Review ： Controllable Synthesis of Two-Dimensional (2D) MoS2 by Chemical Vapor Deposition Process

Atomically thin MoS_2 has draw n tremendous attention due to its great potential in a range of electronic devices such as photodetectors,field effect transistors( FET),and sensors. In the past few years,numerous methods including mechanical cleavage,liquid exfoliation,chemical vapor deposition( CVD)have been devoted to synthesizing tw o dimensional atomically thin MoS_2. Among these methods,CVD is the most promising method for preparing large-size and highly crystalline MoS_2 monolayers,exhibiting relatively good optical and electrical properties. Nevertheless,there are so many experiment parameters in CVD process that w e should take into account,w hich makes it still a challenge for us to grow large-scale,single-crystalline MoS_2 monolayer films suitable for practical applications. This review systematically summarized some synthetic strategies of MoS_2 by CVD in recent years. We also discussed in detail how these vital factors such as substrates,carrier gases,M o precursors,influenced the process of grow th,w hich w as expected to help us to controllably synthesize high-quality MoS_2 and other kinds of transition metal dichalcogenides including WS_2,VS_2,WSe_2 and so forth.

Image-based plasma morphology determination and LIBS spectra correction in combustion environments

Spectra correction is essential for the quantification of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy(LIBS) due to the uncertainties in plasma morphology.In this work,we determined the plasma morphology using a charge-coupled device camera and introduced the spectral correction method based on plasma images to a combustion environment.The plasma length,width,volume,and location were extracted from the plasma images.Using a back-scattering setup,the contribution of plasma location fluctuation to the total spectral fluctuation was mitigated.The integral intensity of the plasma image was used as a proxy of the total number density to correct the spectra.Linear relationships were established between the integral intensities of the plasma images and the spectral intensities,under different laser energy levels and gas temperatures.The image-based correction method could significantly reduce the fluctuation of raw spectral intensities when the laser energy was below 240 mJ.Compared with the correction method based on total spectral areas,the proposed method offered significant improvements in the low energy region,which promises to reduce the signal fluctuations in combustion environments while preserving the spatial resolution and mitigating the flow disturbance.

Isotope effect on the Casimir force

Isotopic dependence of the Casimir force is key to probing new physics and pushing novel technologies at the micro and nanoscale, but is largely unexplored. In 2002, an isotope effect of 10^(-4) was estimated for metals—orders of magnitude beyond the experimental resolution. Here, by employing the Lifshitz theory, we reveal a significant isotope effect of over 10^(-1) for polar dielectrics. This effect arises from the isotope-mass-induced line shift of the zone-center optical phonons and is insensitive to the linewidth. We perform numerical analyses on both the imaginary and real-frequency axes, and derive analytical formulas for predicting the isotope effect. The three-orders-of-magnitude difference between polar dielectrics and metals arises from the distinct isotopic dependence of the phonon and plasma frequencies. Our work opens up a new avenue for engineering forces at small scales and may also facilitate the quest for the fifth force of nature.

Low-frequency blue energy harvesting for sustainable and active anticorrosion

Engineering materials serving in marine surroundings are inevitably corroded.The corrosive marine conditions can also be utilized to harvest kinetic ocean wave energy to solve this problem.Leveraging water–solid triboelectrification to harvest lowfrequency wave energy for active anticorrosion is promising.Existing techniques are efficient in harnessing environmental energy with frequencies higher than 3 Hz,whereas the dominated ocean waves with optimal wave spectral density fluctuate from 0.45 to 1.5 Hz.Herein,we proposed a highly efficient and sustainable blue energy-powered cathodic protection(BECP)strategy by fusing water–solid triboelectric nanogenerators and cathodic protection technology.Leveraging the highly efficient triboelectrification between the moving water and hydrophobic fluorinated ethylene propylene tube,we developed the built-in power module,enabling the harvest of ocean wave energy lower than 1.5 Hz.The generated volumetric current density is 28.9 mA·m^(-3),5–20 times higher than the values of the reported devices.Moreover,the proposed BECP performs comparably to conventional cathodic protection in corrosion inhibition.Significantly,the proposed approach can be easily applied to ships,buoys,and other offshore platforms to simultaneously realize blue energy harvesting and engineering material protection,providing an alternative to traditional active protection technology.

Secondary aerosol formation in winter haze over the BeijingTianjin-Hebei Region,China

Severe haze pollution occurs frequently in the winter over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei(BTH)region(China),exerting profound impacts on air quality,visibility,and human health.The Chinese Government has taken strict mitigation actions since 2013 and has achieved a significant reduction in the annual mean PM2.5 concentration over this region.However,the level of secondary aerosols during heavy haze episodes showed little decrease during this period.During heavy haze episodes,the concentrations of secondary aerosol components,including sulfate,nitrate and secondary organics,in aerosol particles increase sharply,acting as the main contributors to aerosol pollution.To achieve effective control of particle pollution in the BTH region,the precise and complete secondary aerosol formation mechanisms have been investigated,and advances have been made about the mechanisms of gas phase reaction,nucleation and heterogeneous reactions in forming secondary aerosols.This paper reviews the research progress in aerosol chemistry during haze pollution episodes in the BTH region,lays out the challenges in haze formation studies,and provides implications and directions for future research.

Multifunctional V3S4-nanowire/graphene composites for high performance Li-S batteries

Lithium sulfur(Li-S)batteries have been regarded as a promising next-generation energy storage system with high theoretical specific capacity and energy density,but still facing challenges.In order to make Li-S batteries more competitive,combination of trapping sites and electrocatalytic properties for polysulfides is an effective way to improve the battery performance.In this study,we prepare a type of multifunctional V3S4-nanowire/graphene composites(V3S4-G)by uniformly dispersing V3S4 nanowires on the graphene substrate.This structure contributes to the sufficient exposure of multifunctional V3S4 active sites which can anchor polysulfides and accelerate reaction kinetics.Thus,the Li-S batteries based on the multifunctional V3S4-G sulfur cathode deliver a stable cycling performance and good rate capability.Even at sulfur loading of 3 mg cm^−2,the V3S4-G sulfur cathode possesses a low capacity decay rate of 0.186%per cycle at 0.5 C.

Noble metal-free catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction

Developing noble metal-free catalysts with low cost, high performance and stability for oxygen reduction reaction(ORR) in fuel cells is of great interest to promote sustainable energy devices. In this review, we summarized noble metal-free catalysts for ORR,including non-noble metal-based and heteroatom-doped carbon nanomaterials. Mesoporous structure, homogeneous distribution of nanocrystals and synergistic effect of carbon base and nanocrystals/doped heteroatoms have great effect on the ORR property.The noble metal-free nanomaterials showed comparable catalytic property, better stability and methanol tolerance than commercial platinum(Pt)-based catalysts, showing great potential as substitutes for noble metal-based catalysts. In addition, the challenges and chances of developing noble metal-free ORR catalysts are also discussed.

Fabrication of niobium doped titanate nanoflakes with enhanced visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity for efficient ibuprofen degradation

In this study,a novel class of niobium(Nb) doped titanate nanoflakes(TNFs) are fabricated through a onestep hydrothermal method.Nb doping affects the curving of titanate nanosheet,leading to the formation of nanoflake structure.In addition,Nb5+ filled in the interlayers of [TiO6] alters the light adsorption property of pristine titanate.The band gap of Nb-TNFs is narrowed to 2.85 eV,while neat titanate nano tubes(TNTs) is 3.4 eV.The enhanced visible light adsorption significantly enhances the visible-lightdriven activity of Nb-TNFs for ibuprofen(IBP) degradation.The pseudo-first order kinetics constant for Nb-TNFs is calculated to be 1.04 h^-1,while no obvious removal is observed for TNTs.Photo-generated holes(h^+) and hydroxyl radicals(·OH) are responsible for IBP degradation.The photocatalytic activity of Nb-TNFs depends on pH condition,and the optimal pH value is found to be 5.In addition,Nb-TNFs exhibited superior photo-stability during the reuse cycles.The results demonstrated Nb-TNFs are very promising in photocatalytic water purification.

Multi-resolution technique integrated with smoothed particle element method (SPEM) for modeling fluid-structure interaction problems with free surfaces

Free-surface flows, especially those associated with fluid-structure interactions(FSIs), pose challenging problems in numerical simulations. The authors of this work recently developed a smoothed particle element method(SPEM) to simulate FSIs. In this method, both the fluid and solid regions are initially modeled using a smoothed finite element method(S-FEM) in a Lagrangian frame, whereas the fluid regions undergoing large deformations are adaptively converted into particles and modeled with an improved smoothed particle hydrodynamics(SPH) method. This approach greatly improves computational accuracy and efficiency because of the advantages of the S-FEM in efficiently treating solid/fluid regions showing small deformations and the SPH method in effectively modeling moving interfaces. In this work, we further enhance the efficiency of the SPEM while effectively capturing local fluid information by introducing a multi-resolution technique to the SPEM and developing an effective approach to treat multi-resolution element-particle interfaces. Various numerical examples demonstrate that the multiresolution SPEM can significantly reduce the computational cost relative to the original version with a constant resolution.Moreover, the novel approach is effective in modeling various incompressible flow problems involving FSIs.

An in-situ NH_(4)^(+)-etched strategy for anchoring atomic Mo site on ZnIn_(2)S_(4) hierarchical nanotubes for superior hydrogen photocatalysis

Atomic sites co-catalyst (ASC) on photocatalytic materials possesses an attractive prospect to promote charge carrier separation and tune surface reaction kinetics,yet the synthesis of earth-abundant ASC under low temperature remains a great challenge.Here,a novel in-situ NH_(4)^(+)-etched strategy to anchor atomic Mo sites on ZnIn_(2)S_(4)hierarchical nanotubes (HNTs) with abundant mesopores under mild conditions for promoting charge carrier separation and enhancing light multi-reflections is developed for efficient photocatalytic H_(2) evolution.Density functional theory calculations and linear sweep voltammetry demonstrate that the well-defined Mo-S_(2)O_(1) sites with distinctive coordination configuration and electronic property contribute to the enhanced separation of photo-generated charge carriers and reduced Gibbs free energy for H_(2) evolution.Consequently,the well-defined MoSA-ZIS HNTs present an excellent photocatalytic activity with a rate of 29.9μmol h^(-1)(5.98 mmol g^(-1)h^(-1)),which is 7.3 times higher than that of ZnIn_(2)S_(4)nanosheets (NSs),to be among the best ZnIn_(2)S_(4)-based photocatalysts.The present strategy breaks the high-temperature limitation of conventional top-down thermal dissociation/emitting approach for anchoring non-noble metal atomic sites on catalyst support.

Efficient activation of peroxymonosulfate by hollow cobalt hydroxide for degradation of ibuprofen and theoretical study

Hollow microsphere structure cobalt hydroxide(h-Co(OH)2) was synthesized via an optimized solvothermal-hydrothermal process and applied to activate peroxymonosulfate(PMS) for degradation of a typical pharmaceutically active compound,ibuprofen(IBP).The material characterizations confirmed the presence of the microscale hollow spheres with thin nanosheets shell in h-Co(OH)2,and the crystalline phase was assigned to a-Co(OH)2.h-Co(OH)2 could efficiently activate PMS for radicals production,and 98.6% of IBP was degraded at 10 min.The activation of PMS by h-Co(OH)2 was a pHindependent process,and pH 7 was the optimum condition for the activation-degradation system.Scavenger quenching test indicated that the sulfate radical(SO4^·-) was the primary reactive oxygen species for IBP degradation,which contributed to 75.7%.Fukui index(f^-) based on density functional theory(DFT) calculation predicted the active sites of IBP molecule for SO4^·- attack,and then IBP degradation pathway was proposed by means of intermediates identification and theoretical calculation.The developed hollow Co(OH)2 used to efficiently activate PMS is promising and innovative alternative for organic contaminants removal from water and wastewater.

Selective Adsorption and Electrocatalysis of Polysulfides through Hexatomic Nickel Clusters Embedded in N-Doped Graphene toward High-Performance Li-S Batteries

The shuttle effect hinders the practical application of lithium-sulfur(Li-S)batteries due to the poor affinity between a substrate and Li polysulfides(LiPSs)and the sluggish transition of soluble LiPSs to insoluble Li2S or elemental S.Here,we report that Ni hexatomic clusters embedded in a nitrogen-doped three-dimensional(3D)graphene framework(Ni-N/G)possess stronger interaction with soluble polysulfides than that with insoluble polysulfides.The synthetic electrocatalyst deployed in the sulfur cathode plays a multifunctional role:(i)selectively adsorbing the polysulfides dissolved in the electrolyte,(ii)expediting the sluggish liquid-solid phase transformations at the active sites as electrocatalysts,and(iii)accelerating the kinetics of the electrochemical reaction of multielectron sulfur,thereby inhibiting the dissolution of LiPSs.The constructed S@Ni-N/G cathode delivers an areal capacity of 9.43mAhcm^(-2) at 0.1 C at S loading of 6.8 mg cm^(-2),and it exhibits a gravimetric capacity of 1104mAhg^(-1) with a capacity fading rate of 0.045%per cycle over 50 cycles at 0.2 C at S loading of 2.0 mg cm^(-2).This work opens a rational approach to achieve the selective adsorption and expediting of polysulfide transition for the performance enhancement of Li-S batteries.