The present study reports Bi5FeTi3O15 (BFTO) nanofibers/graphene (Gr) nanocomposites (BGr) as counter electrodes (CEs) in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). BFTO nanofibers with diameters of 40-100 nm were fabricated by sol-gel based electrospinning technique. The microstructure and surface morphology of the BFTO nanofibers and the BGr nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray diffraction, sc...

Halonium ions, in which formally positively charged halogens (chlorine, bromine, and iodine) are equivalently attached to two carbon atoms through three-center bonds, are well established in the synthetic chemistry of organochlorides, bromides, and iodides. Mechanistic studies of these ions have generated numerous insights into the origins of stereoselectivity in addition and displacement react...

Pursuing a high power conversion efficiency with no sacrifice of cost-effectiveness has been a persistent objective for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). One promising solution to this impasse is increased light harvesting. Previous efforts in light harvesting have been made on setting blocking layers or reflecting layers, or adding a light harvester, resulting in tedious procedures without r...

We report on the synthesis of a new hybrid material, i.e. benzo-18-crown-6 covalently linked to multi-wall carbon nanotubes, and its use in solid-state ion-selective electrodes both as a receptor and an ion-to-electron transducer. This new concept leads to potentiometric sensors with extremely high selectivity.

A novel impedance-based thermoplastic flow-through immunosensor is presented which integrates a porous polymer monolith capture element with an interdigitated electrode array (IDA). The technique employs a volumetric impedance sensing zone and a direct assay with secondary antibody labeled gold nanoparticles (Ab-AuNP). The captured gold nanoparticles are silver enhanced causing an impedance dro...

The group of Egorov has recently proposed an elegant method to determine unbiased selectivity coefficients of ion-selective electrodes (Egorov et al. Anal. Chem. 2014, 86, 3693). Once the electrode is exposed to a solution containing only interfering ions, the time-dependent experimental selectivity coefficients are plotted as a function of the inverse fourth root of time and extrapolated to ze...

Standard laboratory methods for measurement of soil nitrate (NO3–N) use various procedures and instruments to analyze soil samples taken from the field and transported to the laboratory. Concerns with these procedures range from delays in measurement time, the high cost of soil sampling and analysis, high labour requirements, and the need to aggregate samples. With recent advances in using the ...

T.-S. Wei, Prof. J. A. Lewis School of Engineering and Applied Science Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering Joint Center for Energy Storage Research Harvard University Cambridge , MA 02138 , USA E-mail: [email protected] F. Y. Fan, Prof. Y.-M. Chiang Department of Materials Science and Engineering Joint Center for Energy Storage Research Massachusetts Institute of Technol...

This paper discusses the theory and experiments of heating and air cooling of battery modules. The heating mechanisms are shown first. Then, cooling of a single battery is examined. Optimum air flow speed is discussed. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of IICST 2014.

The pH-sensitive chromoionophores brought the dream of the ion-selective membrane scientist close to realization. With the help of these molecules, one can build pH-sensitive, ion-selective electrodes and look into the bulk of solvent polymeric membranes during potentiometric measurements (spectropotentiometry) and image concentration profiles in situ with high spatial and temporal resolution. ...