Two different polymers, with large local electric dipoles, are compared: copolymers of polyvinylidene fluoride with trifluoroethylene [P(VDF-TrFE, 70%:30%)] and polymethylvinylidenecyanide (PMVC). While the different local point group symmetries play a key role, both crystalline polymers exhibit intra-molecular band structure, though the Brillouin zone critical points differ.

Surface structure of ultrathin copolymer films of ferroelectric vinylidene fluoride (70%) with trifluoroethylene (30%) on graphite" (2004 The structure and local structural distortions, through the polarization manipulation, of crystalline films of ferroelectric vinylidene fluoride (70%) with trifluoroethylene (30%) [P(VDF-TrFE)] copolymer on graphite were studied by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). A quasispiral twist in C u C bonds with rotations about the polymer chain axis was observed by high-resolution STM, indicating a surface relaxation of the strained copolymer films. Such a relaxation behavior appears to be linked to the observed local dipole rotations accompanied by the reversal of the local polarization with biasing the STM tip. A structure model is proposed based upon the observations.

This research was conducted to compare chemical and microbiological properties during aerobic composting (AC) and vermicomposting (VC) of green waste. Relative to AC, VC significantly decreased the pH and lignin and cellulose contents, and significantly increased the electrical conductivity and total N and available P contents. For AC, BIrii41_norank (order Myxococcales) was the major bacterial genus at 30 d and again became dominant genus from 90–150 d, with relative abundances of 2.88% and 4.77–5.19%, respectively; at 45 d and 60 d, the dominant bacterial genus was Nitrosomonadaceae_uncultured (order Nitrosomonadales) with relative abundances of 2.83–7.17%. For VC, the dominant bacterial genus was BIrii41_norank (except at 45 d), which accounted for 2.11–7.96% of the total reads. The dominant fungal class was Sordariomycetes in AC (relative abundances 39.2–80.6%) and VC (relative abundances 42.1–69.5%). The abundances of microbial taxa and therefore the bacterial and fungal community structures differed between VC and AC. The quality of the green waste compost product was higher with VC than with AC. These results will also help to achieve further composting technology breakthroughs in reducing the composting time and improving compost quality.

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By taking advantage of the structural affinity between bismuth oxohalide and TiO₂, we successfully prepare a family of hybrid frameworks via the designated growth of bismuth oxohalide nanoplates on TiO₂ nanoribbons, and propose them as sunlight-driven bifunctional photocatalysts for all-weather removal of pollutants. The structural variability of bismuth oxohalide allows the optical absorption of the hybrid framework to be monotonically tuneable across the visible spectrum. Meanwhile, the hybridization greatly increases the surface roughness of the frameworks and enables the frameworks to harvest more photons to participate in photocatalytic reactions. Furthermore, the hybridization establishes two potential gradients to promote the separation of photo-induced electron-hole pairs: the internal electrical field perpendicular to the wide surfaces of bismuth oxohalide nanoplates and across the semiconductor-semiconductor heterojunction. Owing to the synergetic effects of the permeable mesoporous architecture, the intense visible light absorption, and the efficient charge separation, the hybrid frameworks are capable of all-weather removal of pollutants: they utilize the inter-ribbon pores to gather pollutants in the dark (behaving as collectors) and they rapidly degrade the pollutants in the day (behaving as photocatalysts). In particular, the BiOBr@TiO₂ framework exhibits very impressive sunlight-driven photocatalytic activity, which is much higher than commercially available P25 TiO₂ under the same conditions.

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