Stimuli-Responsive Polymer Actuator for Soft Robotics.

Polymer actuators are promising, as they are widely used in various fields, such as sensors and soft robotics, for their unique properties, such as their ability to form high-quality films, sensitivity, and flexibility. In recent years, advances in structural and fabrication processes have significantly improved the reliability of polymer sensing-based actuators. Polymer actuators have attracted considerable attention for use in artificial or biohybrid systems, as they have the potential to operate under diverse conditions with high durability.

Evaluation of local oxygen flux produced by photoelectrochemical hydroxide oxidation by scanning electrochemical microscopy.

Several in-situ electrochemical approaches have been developed for performing a localized photoelectrochemical investigation of the photoanode. One of the techniques is scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), which probes local heterogeneous reaction kinetics and fluxes of generated species. In traditional SECM analysis of photocatalysts, evaluation of the influence of radiation on the rate of studied reaction requires an additional dark background experiment.

Spatially Controlled CO Conversion Kinetics in Natural Leaves for Motion Generation.

Living systems that can spontaneously exhibit directional motion belong to diverse classes such as bacteria, sperm and plankton. They have fascinated scientists in recent years to design completely artificial or biohybrid mobile objects. Natural ingredients, like parts of plants, have been used to elaborate miniaturized dynamic objects, which can move when they are combined with other, non-natural, building blocks.

Designing tubular conducting polymer actuators for wireless electropumping.

Rational design and shaping of soft smart materials offer potential applications that cannot be addressed with rigid systems. In particular, electroresponsive elastic materials are well-suited for developing original active devices, such as pumps and actuators. However, applying the electric stimulus requires usually a physical connection between the active part and a power supply.

Light and electric field induced unusual large-scale charge separation in hybrid semiconductor objects.

Separation of electric charges is the most crucial phenomenon in natural photosynthesis, and is also extremely important for many artificial energy conversion systems based on semiconductors. The usual roadblock in this context is the fast recombination of electrons and holes. Here we demonstrate that the synergy of light and electric fields allows separating very efficiently electric charges over an unusually large distance in TiO2.

M-Au/TiO2 (M = Ag, Pd, and Pt) nanophotocatalyst for overall solar water splitting: role of interfaces.

M-Au/TiO2 (M = Ag, Pd, Pt) composites were prepared through a facile one-pot photodeposition synthesis and evaluated for solar water splitting (SWS) with and without a sacrificial agent. The M-Au combination exhibits a dominant role in augmenting the H2 generation activity by forming a bi-metallic system. Degussa P25 was used as a TiO2 substrate to photodeposit Au followed by Au + M (M = Ag/Pd/Pt).

Electrocatalyst on insulating support?: Hollow silica spheres loaded with Pt nanoparticles for methanol oxidation.

Electrocatalytic oxidation of methanol on silica hollow spheres, loaded with platinum nanoparticles (Pt-SiO2-HS), is reported. The functionalized hollow silica spheres were prepared by the surfactant (lauryl ester of tyrosine) template-assisted synthesis. These spheres were loaded with platinum nanoparticles by γ-radiolysis.

A facile methodology for the design of functionalized hollow silica spheres.

A new amino acid derived amphiphile, lauryl ester of tyrosine (LET) is shown to provide a facile methodology for the preparation of hollow silica spheres. In a previous study on the interface adsorption, it was shown that phenolic OH group in LET plays a key role in the formation and stabilization of close packed structures, typically at the oil/water interface. Drawing an analogy between the air/water and the oil/water interface, we detail here a procedure where air droplets are capped with LET aggregated structures, and in turn they are utilized as viable templates in the production of hollow silica spheres.