Opportunities and Limitations of Ionic Liquid- and Organic Carbonate Solvent-Based Electrolytes for Mg-Ion-Based Dual-Ion Batteries.

Dual-ion batteries (DIBs) offer a great alternative to state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries, based on their high promises due to the absence of transition metals and the use of low-cost materials, which could make them economically favorable targeting stationary energy storage applications. In addition, they are not limited by certain metal cations, and DIBs with a broad variety of utilized ions could be demonstrated over the last years. Herein, a systematic study of different electrolyte approaches for Mg-ion-based DIBs was conducted. A side-by-side comparison of Li- and Mg-ion-based electrolytes using activated carbon as negative electrode revealed the opportunities but also limitations of Mg-ion-based DIBs. Ethylene sulfite was successfully introduced as electrolyte additive and increased the specific discharge capacity significantly up to 93±2 mAh g-1 with coulombic efficiencies over 99 % and an excellent capacity retention of 88 % after 400 cycles. In addition, and for the first time, highly concentrated carbonate-based electrolytes were employed for Mg-ion-based DIBs, showing adequate discharge capacities and high coulombic efficiencies.

Ultrasensitive detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in coastal and harbor water using GC-APLI-MS.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are a group of ubiquitous environmental pollutants among which some compounds show carcinogenic properties. The emission of PAH from anthropogenic and natural sources to the aquatic environment demands monitoring. In this study, ten different surface water samples were collected and analyzed for 48 different PAH compounds by gas chromatography-atmospheric-pressure-laser-ionization coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-APLI-MS) after liquid-liquid extraction. Results varied from 9.22 ng/L for fluoranthene in harbor water to 0.01 ng/L for 4-methylchrysene in Rhine river water. Overall low PAH concentrations were found in the samples. Toxic equivalent (TEQ) calculations were used to assess the potential environmental impact of the analyzed compounds. The results showed higher concentrations and TEQ for the samples from harbors in comparison to riverine and estuarine sampling locations. Suspected target analysis indicated the occurrence of alkylated PAH in the surface water samples.

Novel non-targeted analysis of perfluorinated compounds using fluorine-specific detection regardless of their ionisability (HPLC-ICPMS/MS-ESI-MS).

Although perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) have been phased out, there is a plethora of per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) generated and only a small number of these compounds are currently being monitored in environmental and biological sample using molecular mass spectrometry (MS). Total fluorine determination has revealed that a substantial amount of fluorinated organic compounds has not been identified. Due to the small mass deficiency of fluorine, it is not an easy task to screen successfully all fluorinated compounds including those which are not easy ionisable, hence a novel fluorine-specific detector is needed. Here, inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) was used for the first time for the detection of PFAS, by using the novel approach to transfer F- into a detectable [BaF]+ in the argon plasma. A reverse phase-high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method was developed and then online coupled to ICPMS/MS for the fluorine-specific detection and simultaneously to electrospray MS (ESI-MS) to separate perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). The calibration was linear and was element-specific with detection limits of 0.49 mg F L-1 under gradient elution method. As a proof of concept, PFCA standards in methanol were not fully neutralised to force the esterification and those solutions were measured using HPLC-ICPMS/MS-ESI-MS. The methyl esters were not detectable by ESI-MS but by ICPMS/MS. This illustrates that the undetectable fluorine-containing compounds were detected and quantified by the element-specific detection of ICPMS/MS. The analysis of spiked river water at sub-ppb level gave an acceptable recovery using a SPE-based preconcentration method. Since ICPMS/MS method is an element-specific detection, all non-fluorinated compounds interfering in ESI-MS were eliminated. Hence, HPLC-ICPMS/MS can be used as a non-targeted method of fluorinated compounds which helps the identification of novel fluorinated compounds in environmental and biological samples and helps with mining the ESI-MS data.