Engineering Electronic Structure of Nitrogen-Carbon Sites by sp -Hybridized Carbon and Incorporating Chlorine to Boost Oxygen Reduction Activity.

Development of efficient and easy-to-prepare low-cost oxygen reaction electrocatalysts is essential for widespread application of rechargeable Zn-air batteries (ZABs). Herein, we mixed NaCl and ZIF-8 by simple physical milling and pyrolysis to obtain a metal-free porous electrocatalyst doped with Cl (mf-pClNC). The mf-pClNC electrocatalyst exhibits a good oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity (E =0.

Virtual differential phase-contrast and dark-field imaging of x-ray absorption images via deep learning.

Weak absorption contrast in biological tissues has hindered x-ray computed tomography from accessing biological structures. Recently, grating-based imaging has emerged as a promising solution to biological low-contrast imaging, providing complementary and previously unavailable structural information of the specimen. Although it has been successfully applied to work with conventional x-ray sources, grating-based imaging is time-consuming and requires a sophisticated experimental setup.

Lithium Fluoride in Electrolyte for Stable and Safe Lithium-Metal Batteries.

Electrolyte engineering via fluorinated additives is promising to improve cycling stability and safety of high-energy Li-metal batteries. Here, an electrolyte is reported in a porous lithium fluoride (LiF) strategy to enable efficient carbonate electrolyte engineering for stable and safe Li-metal batteries. Unlike traditionally engineered electrolytes, the prepared electrolyte in the porous LiF nanobox exhibits nonflammability and high electrochemical performance owing to strong interactions between the electrolyte solvent molecules and numerous exposed active LiF (111) crystal planes.

Reduced Local Symmetry in Lithium Compound LiSrSiO Distinguished by an Eu Spectroscopy Probe.

Research on lithium compounds has attracted much attention nowadays. However, to elucidate the precise structure of lithium compounds is a challenge, especially when considering the small ions that may be transferred between the interstitial voids. Here, the discovery of reduced local symmetry (symmetry breaking) in small domains of LiSrSiO is reported by employing Eu as a spectroscopic probe, for which X-ray, neutron, and electron diffraction have confirmed the average long-range structure with the space group 321.

A Novel Ultra-Sensitive Semiconductor SERS Substrate Boosted by the Coupled Resonance Effect.

Recent achievements in semiconductor surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates have greatly expanded the application of SERS technique in various fields. However, exploring novel ultra-sensitive semiconductor SERS materials is a high-priority task. Here, a new semiconductor SERS-active substrate, TaO, is developed and an important strategy, the "coupled resonance" effect, is presented, to optimize the SERS performance of semiconductor materials by energy band engineering.

Anchoring Pt Single Atoms on Te Nanowires for Plasmon-Enhanced Dehydrogenation of Formic Acid at Room Temperature.

Formic acid (HCOOH), as a promising hydrogen carrier, is renewable, safe, and nontoxic. However, the catalytic dehydrogenation of HCOOH is typically conducted at elevated temperature. Here, HCOOH decomposition is successfully achieved for hydrogen production on the developed Pt single atoms modified Te nanowires with the Pt mass loading of 1.

Technical Note: Single-shot phase retrieval method for synchrotron-based high-energy x-ray grating interferometry.

Purpose: X-ray grating interferometry (XGI) provides substantially increased contrast over conventional absorption-based imaging methods and therefore shows great potential for future biomedical applications. In this work, we propose a single-shot phase retrieval method for synchrotron-based high-energy x-ray grating interferometry. Contrary to existing retrieval methods, the presented novel approach enables direct retrieval of the object's phase map quantitatively from a single projection image, thus significantly simplifying the experimental procedure and reducing data acquisition times.

Roaming-Mediated CHNH Elimination from the Ionization of Aromatic Ethylamines.

The ionization of aromatic ethylamines by photons or electrons leads to elimination of CHNH fragments, supposedly deriving from the McLafferty rearrangement involving intramolecular γ-hydrogen transfer. Using tryptamine and phenethylamine as examples, the results reported here suggest that the McLafferty mechanism is inadequate for interpreting the observations of CHNH elimination due to much higher calculated appearance energy than experimentally measured values. Furthermore, by considering the roaming-mediated effect, the calculated appearance energy for the elimination of CHNH fragments is reduced and matches well with the experimental results and verifies the existence of roaming-mediated effect.