Permselectivity and Ionic Conductivity Study of Na and Br Ions in Graphene Oxide-Based Membranes for Redox Flow Batteries.

Permselectivity of a membrane is central for the development of electrochemical energy storage devices with two redox couples, such as redox flow batteries (RFBs). In RFBs, Br/Br couple is often used as a catholyte which can cross over to the anolyte, limiting the battery's lifetime. Naturally, the development of permselective membranes is essential to the success of RFBs since state-of-the-art perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) is too costly.

Core-Shell Gold/Silver Nanoparticles for Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance-Based Naked-Eye Toxin Biosensing.

The localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) phenomenon provides a versatile property for biodetection. Herein, this unique feature was employed to build a homogeneous optical biosensor to detect staphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA) in solution down to very low levels by naked-eye readout. If the initial position of the LSPR band is located in the cyan region, even a small red shift (∼2-3 nm) induced by a refractive index change close to the surface of nanoparticles (NPs) could make the light absorption transit from cyan to green and become visually detectable via a concomitant change in the complementary colors.