In-situ Construction of Poly(tetraisopentyl acrylate) based Gel Polymer Electrolytes with Lix La2-x TiO3 for High Energy Density Lithium-Metal Batteries.

As promising alternatives to liquid electrolytes, polymer electrolytes attract much research interest recently, but their widespread use is limited by the low ionic conductivity. In this study, we use electrostatic spinning to introduce particles of an ionic conductor into polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers to prepare a porous membrane as the host of gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs). The relevant in-situ produced GPE performs a high ionic conductivity of 6.0×10-3  S cm-1 , and a high lithium transfer number (tLi + ) of 0.85 at 30 °C, respectively. A symmetrical Li cell with this GPE can cycle stably for 550 h at a current density of 0.5 mA cm-2 . While the capacity retention of the NCM|GPE|Li cell is 79.84 % after 500 cycles at 2 C. Even with an increased cut-off voltage of 4.5 V, the 1st coulomb efficiency reaches 91.58 % with a specific discharge capacity of 213.4 mAh g-1 . This study provides a viable route for the practical application of high energy density lithium metal batteries.

Revealing the Effect of High Ni Content in Li-Rich Cathode Materials: Mitigating Voltage Decay or Increasing Intrinsic Reactivity.

Li-rich layered oxides are considered as one of the most promising cathode materials for secondary lithium batteries due to their high specific capacities, but the issue of continuous voltage decay during cycling hinders their market entry. Increasing the Ni content in Li-rich materials is assumed to be an effective way to address this issue and attracts recent research interests. However, a high Ni content may induce increased intrinsic reactivity of materials, resulting in severe side reactions with the electrolyte. Thus, a comprehensive study to differentiate the two effects of the Ni content on the cell performance with Li-rich cathode is carried out in this work. Herein, it is demonstrated that a properly dosed amount of Ni can effectively suppress the voltage decay in Li-rich cathodes, while over-loading of Ni, on the contrary, can cause structural instability, Ni dissolution, and nonuniform Li deposition during cycling as well as severe oxygen loss. This work offers a deep understanding on the impacts of Ni content in Li-rich materials, which can be a good guidance for the future design of such cathodes for high energy density lithium batteries.

Ultrafast and field-based detection of methamphetamine in hair with Au nanocake-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

The disaster and devastation from abuse of Methamphetamine (MAMP) have a serious impact on people's mental and physical health. Developing a rapid and accurate method to screen drug suspects and thus control MAMP abuse is essential to social security. Hair analysis for MAMP detection is considered to be one of the most potential methods for monitoring drug abuse due to its convenient sample collection, easy for storage and long traceability period. However, the current accurate detection of MAMP in hair primarily utilizes hyphenated mass spectrometry (MS) techniques, but it is not suitable for field-based detection due to the bulky instrument. Hence, developing alternative portable detection techniques for rapid on-site detection of MAMP in hair is an urgent problem to be solved. Here, the high-performance Au nanocakes (Au NCs) were constructed as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrates to detect MAMP in hair, realizing 5 min ultrafast and ultrasensitive detection utilizing a portable Raman spectrometer. Experiments and finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations show that Au NCs have stronger enhancement than Au nanospheres (Au NPs), and 0.5 ppb (3.35 × 10-9 M) MAMP standard is stably detected by Au NCs as an enhanced substrate. A strategy of liquid-liquid microextraction was exploited to eliminate the interference of complex matrices in hair. This method exhibited excellent reproducibility and temporal stability across different drug addicts (relative standard deviation was 5.14% within 160 s). Our approach shows great promise in public safety, providing a rapid and accurate method to detect in hair by SERS.

[Determination of residual glycol ethers in leather and leather products by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry].

An effective method was established for the simultaneous determination of residual glycol ethers in leather and leather products by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Glycol ethers in leather and leather products were ultrasonically extracted at 45 °C, using ethyl acetate as the extraction solvent. The extracts were purified by solid phase extraction (SPE) columns, and then analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry in selected ion monitoring mode. The content of each analyte was calibrated by external standard method. The limit of detection of ethylene glycol ethyl ether (EGEE) was 0. 10 mg/kg under the condition of signal to noise (S/N) of 3 and the limits of the other 11 glycol ethers were all less than 0.05 mg/kg. The spiked recoveries varied from 81. 2% to 95. 5% at three different spiked levels with the relative standard deviations (RSDs) ranged from 1.4% to 6. 6%. The proposed method is simple, rapid and accurate, with the limits of detection much less than the requirements of the Regulation Concerning Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) of European Union. It is applicable to the determination of residual glycol ethers in leather and leather products, and provides a reference for the relevant testing standards.

[Simultaneous determination of six organophosphorous flame retardants in textiles by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry combined with microwave assisted extraction].

An effective method was established for the simultaneous determination of six banned organophosphorous flame retardants in textiles by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) combined with microwave assisted extraction (MAE). By investigating the extraction efficiency of 12 different extraction solvents for the target analytes, the optimal conditions were that the sample was extracted by microwave assisted extraction using acetone as the solvent at 76 degrees C for 30 min. Then the extract was analyzed by GC-MS/MS in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode, and the concentration of each analyte was calibrated by external standard method. The linear ranges of tris-(1-aziridinyl) phosphine oxide (TEPA), tris-(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP), tris-(1,3-dichloropropyl) phosphate (TDCP), bis-(2,3-dibromopropyl) phosphate (DDBPP), tri-o-cresyl phosphate (TOCP) and tris-(2,3-dibromopropyl) phosphate (TRIS) were 9.17 - 366.80, 0.95 - 75.98, 1.04 - 83.20, 41.60 - 832.00, 3.80 - 75.90, and 40.48 - 809.60 microg/L, respectively, the correlation coefficients were not less than 0.997 5, while the limits of quantification (LOQ) (S/N = 10) were 3.0, 0.2, 0.3, 25.0, 2.5 and 29.0 microg/kg, respectively. The spiked recoveries varied from 82.62% to 96.88% with the relative standard deviations of 3.80% to 8.79%. The proposed method was successfully applied to the determination of organophosphorous flame retardants in eight commercial textiles. The experimental results demonstrated that the method developed is simple, rapid, sensitive and accurate, which could satisfy the demand of the analysis of banned organophosphorous flame retardants in textiles.

Electric field assisted surface plasmon-coupled directional emission: an active strategy on enhancing sensitivity for DNA sensing and efficient discrimination of single base mutation.

We have demonstrated the proof-of-principle of electric field assisted surface plasmon-coupled directional emission (E-SPCDE). The combination of SPCDE and electric field control produced a significant synergistic effect to amplify the right signal and suppress the wrong signal intelligently in an active strategy. A novel hairpin structured DNA biosensor based on the quenching and enhancing of fluorescence in SPCDE has been designed. With modulation of the fluorescence coupling efficiency, a high discrimination ratio up to more than 20-fold has been achieved by enhancing the signal of match and suppressing that of mismatch. E-SPCDE has shown a successful application in DNA sensing, eliminating false positives and false negatives in the detection. E-SPCDE should provide an opportunity to create a new generation of miniaturized high-performance sensing platforms especially in chip-based microarrays and to make the manipulation of the nanometer-scale processes more accessible and detectable.

Surface plasmon-coupled directional emission based on a conformational-switching signaling aptamer.

We have observed highly polarized and directional surface plasmon-coupled emission of a signaling aptamer due to the binding of a target thrombin with the aptamer, which induces conformational switching.

Adsorption of a protein-porphyrin complex at a liquid-liquid interface studied by total internal reflection synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy.

Interfacial analysis has attracted more and more attention owing to its fundamental and biological importance. Total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) spectroscopy is a useful method to study interfacial properties. The synchronous scanning fluorescence technique provides a selective tool to analyze a specific component in a complex system. The interaction and adsorption of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and meso-tetrakis(4-sulfonatophenyl)porphyrin (TPPS) at toluene-water interface were studied successfully by the coupling technique of total internal reflection synchronous fluorescence (TIRSF). New methods are provided for the determination of the critical micelle concentration (cmc), apparent adsorption equilibrium constant (K(ad)) and maximum amount of adsorption (f(max)) at the liquid-liquid interface. The results indicated that BSA could adsorb onto the toluene-water interface as a complex of BSA-TPPS in a ratio of 1:1 ratio based on Langmuir adsorption isothermal model. The cmc, apparent K(ad) and f(max) for BSA at pH 3.1 were determined to be 1.0 x 10(-4) mol L(-1), 1.15 x 10(5) L mol(-1) and 1.14 x 10(-9) mol cm(-2), respectively.

Fluorescence spectral properties of rhodamine 6G at the silica/water interface.

In this work, total internal reflection synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy (TIRSF) is applied successfully to investigate rhodamine 6G (R6G) at the silica/water interface. In comparison with the bulk spectra, 5 nm red shift is observed in the interface spectra, which is mainly due to the limitation of freedom of rotational movement of R6G molecules at the interface. The increase of R6G concentration induces the self-quenching of adsorbate at the interface. The dependence of interfacial fluorescence on the acidity and ionic strength was studied. Both the acidity and ionic strength affect the adsorptive behaviors of R6G at the silica/water interface.