Degradation of Perfluoroalkyl Ether Carboxylic Acids with Hydrated Electrons: Structure-Reactivity Relationships and Environmental Implications.

This study explores structure-reactivity relationships for the degradation of emerging perfluoroalkyl ether carboxylic acid (PFECA) pollutants with ultraviolet-generated hydrated electrons (eaq-). The rate and extent of PFECA degradation depend on both the branching extent and the chain length of oxygen-segregated fluoroalkyl moieties. Kinetic measurements, theoretical calculations, and transformation product analyses provide a comprehensive understanding of the PFECA degradation mechanisms and pathways. In comparison to traditional full-carbon-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids, the distinct degradation behavior of PFECAs is attributed to their ether structures. The ether oxygen atoms increase the bond dissociation energy of the C-F bonds on the adjacent -CF2- moieties. This impact reduces the formation of H/F-exchanged polyfluorinated products that are recalcitrant to reductive defluorination. Instead, the cleavage of ether C-O bonds generates unstable perfluoroalcohols and thus promotes deep defluorination of short fluoroalkyl moieties. In comparison to linear PFECAs, branched PFECAs have a higher tendency of H/F exchange on the tertiary carbon and thus lower percentages of defluorination. These findings provide mechanistic insights for an improved design and efficient degradation of fluorochemicals.

Ab initio metadynamics calculations of dimethylamine for probing pKb variations in bulk vs. surface environments.

The basicity constant, or pKb, is an intrinsic physical property of bases that gives a measure of its proton affinity in macroscopic environments. While the pKb is typically defined in reference to the bulk aqueous phase, several studies have suggested that this value can differ significantly at the air-water interface (which can have significant ramifications for particle surface chemistry and aerosol growth modeling). To provide mechanistic insight into surface proton affinity, we carried out ab initio metadynamics calculations to (1) explore the free-energy profile of dimethylamine and (2) provide reasonable estimates of the pKb value in different solvent environments. We find that the free-energy profiles obtained with our metadynamics calculations show a dramatic variation, with interfacial aqueous dimethylamine pKb values being significantly lower than in the bulk aqueous environment. Furthermore, our metadynamics calculations indicate that these variations are due to reduced hydrogen bonding at the air-water surface. Taken together, our quantum mechanical metadynamics calculations show that the reactivity of dimethylamine is surprisingly complex, leading to pKb variations that critically depend on the different atomic interactions occurring at the microscopic molecular level.

Photothermally Active Reduced Graphene Oxide/Bacterial Nanocellulose Composites as Biofouling-Resistant Ultrafiltration Membranes.

Biofouling poses one of the most serious challenges to membrane technologies by severely decreasing water flux and driving up operational costs. Here, we introduce a novel anti-biofouling ultrafiltration membrane based on reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and bacterial nanocellulose (BNC), which incoporates GO flakes into BNC in situ during its growth. In contrast to previously reported GO-based membranes for water treatment, the RGO/BNC membrane exhibited excellent aqueous stability under environmentally relevant pH conditions, vigorous mechanical agitation/sonication, and even high pressure. Importantly, due to its excellent photothermal property, under light illumination, the membrane exhibited effective bactericidal activity, obviating the need for any treatment of the feedwater or external energy. The novel design and in situ incorporation of the membranes developed in this study present a proof-of-concept for realizing new, highly efficient, and environmental-friendly anti-biofouling membranes for water purification.

Confinement Effects on Proton Transfer in TiO2 Nanopores from Machine Learning Potential Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

Improved understanding of proton transfer in nanopores is critical for a wide range of emerging applications, yet experimentally probing mechanisms and energetics of this process remains a significant challenge. To help reveal details of this process, we developed and applied a machine learning potential derived from first-principles calculations to examine water reactivity and proton transfer in TiO2 slit-pores. We find that confinement of water within pores smaller than 0.5 nm imposes strong and complex effects on water reactivity and proton transfer. Although the proton transfer mechanism is similar to that at a TiO2 interface with bulk water, confinement reduces the activation energy of this process, leading to more frequent proton transfer events. This enhanced proton transfer stems from the contraction of oxygen-oxygen distances dictated by the interplay between confinement and hydrophilic interactions. Our simulations also highlight the importance of the surface topology, where faster proton transport is found in the direction where a unique arrangement of surface oxygens enables the formation of an ordered water chain. In a broader context, our study demonstrates that proton transfer in hydrophilic nanopores can be enhanced by controlling pore size, surface chemistry, and topology.

Harnessing Semi-Supervised Machine Learning to Automatically Predict Bioactivities of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs).

Many per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) pose significant health hazards due to their bioactive and persistent bioaccumulative properties. However, assessing the bioactivities of PFASs is both time-consuming and costly due to the sheer number and expense of in vivo and in vitro biological experiments. To this end, we harnessed new unsupervised/semi-supervised machine learning models to automatically predict bioactivities of PFASs in various human biological targets, including enzymes, genes, proteins, and cell lines. Our semi-supervised metric learning models were used to predict the bioactivity of PFASs found in the recent Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report list, which contains 4730 PFASs used in a broad range of industries and consumers. Our work provides the first semi-supervised machine learning study of structure-activity relationships for predicting possible bioactivities in a variety of PFAS species.

Electron/Hole Mobilities of Periodic DNA and Nucleobase Structures from Large-Scale DFT Calculations.

Electron/hole transfer mechanisms in DNA and polynucleotide structures continue to garner considerable interest as emerging charge-transport systems and molecular electronics. To shed mechanistic insight into these electronic properties, we carried out large-scale density functional theory (DFT) calculations (up to 650 atoms) to systematically analyze the structural and electron/hole transport properties of fully periodic single- and double-stranded DNA. We examined the performance of various exchange-correlation functionals (LDA, BLYP, B3LYP, and B3LYP-D) and found that single-stranded thymine (T) and cytosine (C) are predominantly hole conductors, whereas single-stranded adenine (A) and guanine (G) are better electron conductors. For double-stranded DNA structures, the periodic A-T and G-C electronic band structures undergo a significant renormalization, which causes hole transport to only occur on the A and G nucleobases. Our calculations (1) provide new benchmarks for periodic nucleobase structures using dispersion-corrected hybrid functionals with large basis sets and (2) highlight the importance of dispersion effects for obtaining accurate geometries and electron/hole mobilities in these extended systems.

Tuning Metal-Dihydrogen Interaction in Metal-Organic Frameworks for Hydrogen Storage.

Inspired by a recently reported metal-organic framework (MOF), V2Cl2.8(btdd) [H2btdd = bis(1H-1,2,3-triazolo[4,5-b],[4',5'-i])dibenzo[1,4]dioxin], that shows a greatly improved H2 adsorption enthalpy, we employ density functional theory to probe how the number of d electrons and the mixed valences influence the M-H2 interaction inside the M2Clx(btdd) MOFs. We find a cliff in the H2 adsorption energy: the interaction strength remains strong from Sc to V and then falls sharply at Cr. Our results confirm V2Cl2.8(btdd) as one of the best performing hydrogen adsorbents and predict that Ti2Cl2.8(btdd) is equally promising while Sc2Cl2(btdd) and Ti2Cl2(btdd) may be even better. Our analysis indicates that an empty dx2-y2 orbital is the key to the much stronger binding of H2 at the open M(II) site (M = Sc, Ti, or V), whereas a partially filled dx2-y2 orbital in Cr(II) and later M(II) greatly weakens H2 binding. Our findings will be useful in designing MOFs to enhance H2 adsorption.

Nanoarchitectonics of Metal-Free Porous Polyketone as Photocatalytic Assemblies for Artificial Photosynthesis.

The main component of natural gas is methane, whose combustion contributes to global warming. As such, sustainable, energy-efficient, nonfossil-based methane production is needed to satisfy current energy demands and chemical feedstocks. In this article, we have constructed a metal-free porous polyketone (TPA-DPA PPK) with donor-acceptor (D-A) groups with an extensive π-conjugation by facile Friedel-Crafts acylation reaction between triphenylamine (TPA) and pyridine-2,6-dicarbonyl dichloride (DPA). TPA-DPA PPK is a metal-free catalyst for visible-light-driven CO2 photoreduction to CH4, which can be used as a solar fuel in the absence of any cocatalyst and sacrificial agent. CH4 production (152.65 ppm g-1) is ∼5 times greater than that of g-C3N4 under the same test conditions. Charge-density difference plots from excited-state time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations indicate a depletion and accumulation of charge density among the donor/acceptor functional groups upon photoexcitation. Most notably, binding energies from DFT demonstrate that H2O is more strongly bound with the pyridinic nitrogen group than CO2, which shed insight into mechanistic pathways for photocatalytic CO2 reduction.

Stability of Calcium Ion Battery Electrolytes: Predictions from Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

Multivalent batteries, such as magnesium-ion, calcium-ion, and zinc-ion batteries, have attracted significant attention as next-generation electrochemical energy storage devices to complement conventional lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Among them, calcium-ion batteries (CIBs) are the least explored due to difficult reversible Ca deposition-dissolution. In this work, we examined the stability of four different Ca salts with weakly coordinating anions and three different solvents commonly employed in existing battery technologies to identify suitable candidates for CIBs. By employing Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics (BOMD) simulations on salt-Ca and solvent-Ca interfaces, we find that the tetraglyme solvent and carborane salt are promising candidates for CIBs. Due to the strong reducing nature of the calcium surface, the other salts and solvents readily decompose. We explain the microscopic mechanisms of salt/solvent decomposition on the Ca surface using time-dependent projected density of states, time-dependent charge-transfer plots, and climbing-image nudged elastic band calculations. Collectively, this work presents the first mechanistic assessment of the dynamical stability of candidate salts and solvents on a Ca surface using BOMD simulations, and provides a predictive path toward designing stable electrolytes for CIBs.

Indirect but Efficient: Laser-Excited Electrons Can Drive Ultrafast Polarization Switching in Ferroelectric Materials.

To enhance the efficiency of next-generation ferroelectric (FE) electronic devices, new techniques for controlling ferroelectric polarization switching are required. While most prior studies have attempted to induce polarization switching via the excitation of phonons, these experimental techniques required intricate and expensive terahertz sources and have not been completely successful. Here, we propose a new mechanism for rapidly and efficiently switching the FE polarization via laser-tuning of the underlying dynamical potential energy surface. Using time-dependent density functional calculations, we observe an ultrafast switching of the FE polarization in BaTiO3 within 200 fs. A laser pulse can induce a charge density redistribution that reduces the original FE charge order. This excitation results in both desirable and highly directional ionic forces that are always opposite to the original FE displacements. Our new mechanism enables the reversible switching of the FE polarization with optical pulses that can be produced from existing 800 nm experimental laser sources.

Evaluation of thin film fuel cells with Zr-rich BaZr x Ce0.8-x Y0.2O3-δ electrolytes (x ≥ 0.4) fabricated by a single-step reactive sintering method.

This paper reports a survey of power generation characteristics of anode-supported thin film fuel cells with Zr-rich BaZr x Ce0.8-x Y0.2O3-δ (x = 0.4, 0.6, 0.7, and 0.8) proton-conducting electrolytes, which were fabricated by single step co-firing with Zn(NO3)2 additives at a relatively low temperature (1400 °C). The grain sizes significantly increased to several µm for x = 0.4 and 0.6, whereas the grain sizes remained in the sub-µm ranges for x = 0.7 and 0.8, which resulted in large gaps of the fuel cell performances at x over and below 0.6. The cells for x = 0.4 and 0.6 exhibited efficient power generation, yielding peak powers of 279 and 336 mW cm-2 at 600 °C, respectively, which were higher than those of the corresponding cells previously reported. However, the performances abruptly deteriorated with the increasing x to more than 0.7 because the electrolyte films were highly resistive due to the coarse-grained microstructures. Impedance spectroscopy for the dense sintered BaZr x Ce0.8-x Y0.2O3-δ discs confirmed that the total proton conductivity of BaZr0.6Ce0.2Y0.2O3-δ was higher than that of BaZr0.4Ce0.4Y0.2O3-δ at temperatures above 500 °C despite relatively small grain sizes. In addition, BaZr0.6Ce0.2Y0.2O3-δ cells could gain a stable current throughout a continuous run for a few days under CO2-containing fuel supply, which was due to high fraction of thermodynamically stable BaZrO3 matrices. It was demonstrated that BaZr0.6Ce0.2Y0.2O3-δ is a promising electrolyte for proton-conducting ceramic fuel cells with excellent proton conductivity and CO2 tolerance at intermediate temperatures.