Fluoride ion batteries are potential “next-generation” electrochemical storage devices that offer high energy density. At present, such batteries are limited to operation at high temperatures because suitable fluoride ion–conducting electrolytes are known only in the solid state. We report a liquid fluoride ion–conducting electrolyte with high ionic conductivity, wide operating voltage, and robust chemical stability based on dry tetraalkylammonium fluoride salts in ether solvents. Pairing this liquid electrolyte with a copper–lanthanum trifluoride (Cu@LaF3) core-shell cathode, we demonstrate reversible fluorination and defluorination reactions in a fluoride ion electrochemical cell cycled at room temperature. Fluoride ion–mediated electrochemistry offers a pathway toward developing capacities beyond that of lithium ion technology.
In control: A new catalytic vinylogous Mukaiyama aldol reaction provides products with high diastereo‐ and enantioselectivities (up to 99 % de and ee; see scheme). The relative and absolute stereochemistry of a representative product was rigorously assigned by NMR and CD spectroscopies (measured and calculated), X‐ray diffraction, and quantum‐chemical calculations.
No Abstract
The ability to control the shape of metal nanocrystals is critical to applications such as catalysis, magnetism, and plasmonics. Despite significant advances in controlling the shapes of single-metal nanocrystals, rigorous shape control of multimetal nanocrystals remains challenging, and has been limited largely to alloy systems of similar metals. Here we describe a robust strategy that produces shape-controlled intermetallic nanocrystals involving elements of notably different reduction potentials, reduction kinetics, and reactivity. The approach utilizes shape- and size-controlled beta-Sn nanocrystals as reactive templates that can be converted into binary M-Sn (M=Fe, Co, Ni, Pd) intermetallic compounds by reaction with appropriate metal salt solutions under reducing conditions. The result, demonstrated in detail for the FeSn2 system, is a variety of nanostructures with morphologies that include spheres, cubes, hollow squares, U-shaped structures, nanorods, and nanorod dimers. Our experiments demonstrate a size- and shape-dependent reactivity toward the formation of hollow FeSn2 nanostructures and provide empirical guidelines for the formation of other intermetallic nanocrystals. In addition to those of FeSn2, nanocrystals of intermetallic PdSn, CoSn3, and NiSn3 can be formed using this same chemical conversion strategy.
We have studied magnetic properties of a diluted system of ultrafine cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (d∼3.3 nm). From the peak of the zero-field-cooled measurements, we obtained the blocking temperature TB of about 90.5 K and it is virtually independent of the applied magnetic field up to 5 kOe. At the superparamagnetic region T>TB, the system follows the modified Curie-law variation of the magnetic susceptibility χ=χo+C/T. We observed that the saturation magnetization follows a spin-wavelike temperature dependence at temperature above 10 K. In spite of the cubic structure for cobalt ferrite, at 2 K, the reduced remanence Mr/Ms is equal to 0.46 which is close to the theoretical value of 0.5 expected for noninteracting uniaxial single-domain particles with the easy axis randomly oriented. From the ac susceptibility measurements at different frequencies, we obtained a linear dependence of the logarithm of the experimental time window τex as function of inverse blocking temperature (1/TB). The fitting results in the anisotropy constant value K of 3.15×107 erg/cm3 that is one order of magnitude higher than 1.8–3.0×106 erg/cm3 in bulk CoFe2O4 materials.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.