Membranes whichallow fast and selective transport of protons and cations are required for aw ide range of electrochemical energy conversion and storage devices,such as proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells (PEMFCs) and redox flowbatteries (RFBs). Herein we report anew approach to designing solution-processable ion-selective polymer membranes with both intrinsic microporosity and ion-conductive functionality.P olymers are synthesized with rigid and contorted backbones,w hich incorporate hydrophobic fluorinated and hydrophilic sulfonic acid functional groups,t op roduce membranes with negatively charged subnanometer-sized confined ionic channels.T he ready transport of protons and cations through these membranes,a nd the high selectivity towards nanometer-sized redox-active molecules,e nable efficient and stable operation of an aqueous alkaline quinone redox flowb attery and ahydrogen PEM fuel cell.

Rotatable spacer increases the motions of ionic side-chain to accelerate both ion and H2O transport during fuel cell operation.

Precise manipulation over the polyelectrolyte self-assembly process, to form the desired microstructure with ion-conducting channels, is of fundamental and technological importance to many fields, such as fuel cells, flow batteries...

The Medium Energy X-ray telescope (ME) is one of the three main telescopes on board the Insight hard X-ray modulation telescope (Insight-HXMT) astronomy satellite. ME contains 1728 pixels of Si-PIN detectors sensitive in 5-30 keV with a total geometrical area of 952 cm 2 . The application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip, VA32TA6, is used to achieve low power consumption and low readout noise. The collimators define three kinds of field of views (FOVs) for the telescope, 1°×4°, 4°×4°, and blocked ones. Combination of such FOVs can be used to estimate the in-orbit X-ray and particle background components. The energy resolution of ME is~3 keV at 17.8 keV (FWHM) and the time resolution is 255 μs. In this paper, we introduce the design and performance of ME.

Highly alkaline stable imidazolium-type membrane has been developed for fuel cells by protection of the imidazolium ring at C2, C4 and C5 positions.

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Highly efficient nonlinear optical organic crystals are very attractive for various photonic applications including terahertz (THz) wave generation. Up to now, only two classes of ionic crystals based on either pyridinium or quinolinium with extremely large macroscopic optical nonlinearity have been developed. This study reports on a new class of organic nonlinear optical crystals introducing electron-accepting benzothiazolium, which exhibit higher electron-withdrawing strength than pyridinium and quinolinium in benchmark crystals. The benzothiazolium crystals consisting of new acentric core HMB (2-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxystyryl)-3-methylbenzo[d]thiazol-3-ium) exhibit extremely large macroscopic optical nonlinearity with optimal molecular ordering for maximizing the diagonal second-order nonlinearity. HMB-based single crystals prepared by simple cleaving method satisfy all required crystal characteristics for intense THz wave generation such as large crystal size with parallel surfaces, moderate thickness and high optical quality with large optical transparency range (580-1620 nm). Optical rectification of 35 fs pulses at the technologically very important wavelength of 800 nm in 0.26 mm thick HMB crystal leads to one order of magnitude higher THz wave generation efficiency with remarkably broader bandwidth compared to standard inorganic 0.5 mm thick ZnTe crystal. Therefore, newly developed HMB crystals introducing benzothiazolium with extremely large macroscopic optical nonlinearity are very promising materials for intense broadband THz wave generation and other nonlinear optical applications.

Artificial counterparts of conical-shaped transmembrane protein channelsa re of interest in biomedical sciences for biomolecule detection and selective ion permeation based on ionic sizea nd/or charge differences.H owever,i ndustrialscale applications such as seawater desalination, separation of mono-from divalent cations,a nd treatment of highly-saline industrial waste effluents are still big challenges for such biomimetic channels.Asimple monomer seeding experimental approach is used to grow ionically conductive biomimetic charged nanocone pores at the surface of an acid-functionalized membrane.T hese readily scalable nanocone membranes enable ultra-fast cation permeation (Na + = 8.4 vs.M g 2+ = 1.4 )a nd high ion charge selectivity (Na + /Mg 2+ = 6 )c ompared to the commercial state-of-the-art permselective membrane (CSO,S elemion, Japan) owingt on egligible surface resistance and positively charged conical pore walls.