@article{JiaFriebeSchubertetal.2019, author = {Jia, He and Friebe, Christian and Schubert, Ulrich S. and Zhang, Xiaozhe and Quan, Ting and Lu, Yan and Gohy, Jean-Francois}, title = {Core-Shell Nanoparticles with a Redox Polymer Core and a Silica Porous Shell as High-Performance Cathode Material for Lithium-Ion Batteries}, series = {Energy technology : generation, conversion, storage, distribution}, volume = {8}, journal = {Energy technology : generation, conversion, storage, distribution}, number = {3}, publisher = {Wiley-VCH}, address = {Weinheim}, issn = {2194-4288}, doi = {10.1002/ente.201901040}, pages = {8}, year = {2019}, abstract = {A facile and novel method for the fabrication of core-shell nanoparticles (PTMA@SiO2) based on a poly(2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidinyloxy-4-yl methacrylate) (PTMA) core and a porous SiO2 shell is reported. The core-shell nanoparticles are further self-assembled with negatively charged multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), which results in the formation of a free-standing cathode electrode. The porous SiO2 shell not only effectively improves the stability of the linear PTMA redox polymer with low molar mass in organic electrolytes but also leads to the uniform dispersion of PTMA active units in the MWCNTs conductive network. The PTMA@SiO2@MWCNT composite electrode exhibits a specific capacity as high as 73.8 mAh g at 1 C and only 0.11\% capacity loss per cycle at a rate of 2 C.}, language = {en} } @article{JiaQuanLiuetal.2019, author = {Jia, He and Quan, Ting and Liu, Xuelian and Bai, Lu and Wang, Jiande and Boujioui, Fadoi and Ye, Ran and Vald, Alexandru and Lu, Yan and Gohy, Jean-Francois}, title = {Core-shell nanostructured organic redox polymer cathodes with superior performance}, series = {Nano Energy}, volume = {64}, journal = {Nano Energy}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {2211-2855}, doi = {10.1016/j.nanoen.2019.103949}, pages = {9}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Core-shell nanoparticles stabilized by a cationic surfactant are prepared from the poly(2,2,6,6-tetra-methylpiperidinyloxy-4-yl methacrylate) redox polymer. The nanoparticles are further self-assembled with negatively charged reduced graphene oxide nanosheets and negatively charged mull-walled carbon nanotubes. This results in the formation of a free-standing cathode with a layered nanostructure and a high content of redox polymer that exhibits 100\% utilization of the active substance with a measured capacity as high as 105 mAh/g based on the whole weight of the electrode.}, language = {en} } @article{YangZhengTaoetal.2019, author = {Yang, Guang and Zheng, Wei and Tao, Guoqing and Wu, Libin and Zhou, Qi-Feng and Kochovski, Zdravko and Ji, Tan and Chen, Huaijun and Li, Xiaopeng and Lu, Yan and Ding, Hong-ming and Yang, Hai-Bo and Chen, Guosong and Jiang, Ming}, title = {Diversiform and Transformable Glyco-Nanostructures Constructed from Amphiphilic Supramolecular Metallocarbohydrates through Hierarchical Self-Assembly: The Balance between Metallacycles and Saccharides}, series = {ACS nano}, volume = {13}, journal = {ACS nano}, number = {11}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Washington}, issn = {1936-0851}, doi = {10.1021/acsnano.9b07134}, pages = {13474 -- 13485}, year = {2019}, abstract = {During the past decade, self-assembly of saccharide-containing amphiphilic molecules toward bioinspired functional glycomaterials has attracted continuous attention due to their various applications in fundamental and practical areas. However, it still remains a great challenge to prepare hierarchical glycoassemblies with controllable and diversiform structures because of the complexity of saccharide structures and carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions. Herein, through hierarchical self-assembly of modulated amphiphilic supramolecular metallocarbohydrates, we successfully prepared various well-defined glyco-nanostructures in aqueous solution, including vesicles, solid spheres, and opened vesicles depending on the molecular structures of metallocarbohydrates. More attractively, these glyco-nanostructures can further transform into other morphological structures in aqueous solutions such as worm-like micelles, tubules, and even tupanvirus-like vesicles (TVVs). It is worth mentioning that distinctive anisotropic structures including the opened vesicles (OVs) and TVVs were rarely reported in glycobased nano-objects. This intriguing diversity was mainly controlled by the subtle structural trade-off of the two major components of the amphiphiles, i.e., the saccharides and metallacycles. To further understand this precise structural control, molecular simulations provided deep physical insights on the morphology evolution and balancing of the contributions from saccharides and metallacycles. Moreover, the multivalency of glyco-nanostructures with different shapes and sizes was demonstrated by agglutination with a diversity of sugarbinding protein receptors such as the plant lectins Concanavalin A (ConA). This modular synthesis strategy provides access to systematic tuning of molecular structure and self-assembled architecture, which undoubtedly will broaden our horizons on the controllable fabrication of biomimetic glycomaterials such as biological membranes and supramolecular lectin inhibitors.}, language = {en} } @article{QuanGoubardBretescheHaerketal.2019, author = {Quan, Ting and Goubard-Bretesche, Nicolas and Haerk, Eneli and Kochovski, Zdravko and Mei, Shilin and Pinna, Nicola and Ballauff, Matthias and Lu, Yan}, title = {Highly Dispersible Hexagonal Carbon-MoS2-Carbon Nanoplates with Hollow Sandwich Structures for Supercapacitors}, series = {Chemistry - a European journal}, volume = {25}, journal = {Chemistry - a European journal}, number = {18}, publisher = {Wiley-VCH}, address = {Weinheim}, issn = {0947-6539}, doi = {10.1002/chem.201806060}, pages = {4757 -- 4766}, year = {2019}, abstract = {MoS2, a typical layered transition-metal dichalcogenide, is promising as an electrode material in supercapacitors. However, its low electrical conductivity could lead to limited capacitance if applied in electrochemical devices. Herein, a new nanostructure composed of hollow carbon-MoS2-carbon was successfully synthesized through an L-cysteine-assisted hydrothermal method by using gibbsite as a template and polydopamine as a carbon precursor. After calcination and etching of the gibbsite template, uniform hollow platelets, which were made of a sandwich-like assembly of partial graphitic carbon and two-dimensional layered MoS2 flakes, were obtained. The platelets showed excellent dispersibility and stability in water, and good electrical conductivity due to carbon provided by the calcination of polydopamine coatings. The hollow nanoplate morphology of the material provided a high specific surface area of 543 m(2) g(-1), a total pore volume of 0.677 cm(3) g(-1), and fairly small mesopores (approximate to 5.3 nm). The material was applied in a symmetric supercapacitor and exhibited a specific capacitance of 248 F g(-1) (0.12 F cm(-2)) at a constant current density of 0.1 Ag-1; thus suggesting that hollow carbon-MoS2 carbon nanoplates are promising candidate materials for supercapacitors.}, language = {en} } @article{ZhangKochovskiLeeetal.2019, author = {Zhang, Su-Yun and Kochovski, Zdravko and Lee, Hui-Chun and Lu, Yan and Zhang, Hemin and Zhang, Jie and Sun, Jian-Ke and Yuan, Jiayin}, title = {Ionic organic cage-encapsulating phase-transferable metal clusters}, series = {Chemical science}, volume = {10}, journal = {Chemical science}, number = {5}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {2041-6520}, doi = {10.1039/c8sc04375b}, pages = {1450 -- 1456}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Exploration of metal clusters (MCs) adaptive to both aqueous and oil phases without disturbing their size is promising for a broad scope of applications. The state-of-the-art approach via ligand-binding may perturb MCs' size due to varied metal-ligand binding strength when shuttling between solvents of different polarity. Herein, we applied physical confinement of a series of small noble MCs (<1 nm) inside ionic organic cages (I-Cages), which by means of anion exchange enables reversible transfer of MCs between aqueous and hydrophobic solutions without varying their ultrasmall size. Moreover, the MCs@I-Cage hybrid serves as a recyclable, reaction-switchable catalyst featuring high activity in liquid-phase NH3BH3 (AB) hydrolysis reaction with a turnover frequency (TOF) of 115 min-1.}, language = {en} } @article{GuRisseLuetal.2019, author = {Gu, Sasa and Risse, Sebastian and Lu, Yan and Ballauff, Matthias}, title = {Mechanism of the oxidation of 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine catalyzed by peroxidase-like Pt nanoparticles immobilized in spherical polyelectrolyte brushes}, series = {ChemPhysChem}, volume = {21}, journal = {ChemPhysChem}, number = {5}, publisher = {Wiley-VCH}, address = {Weinheim}, issn = {1439-4235}, doi = {10.1002/cphc.201901087}, pages = {450 -- 458}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Experimental and kinetic modelling studies are presented to investigate the mechanism of 3,3 ',5,5 '-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) oxidation by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) catalyzed by peroxidase-like Pt nanoparticles immobilized in spherical polyelectrolyte brushes (SPB-Pt). Due to the high stability of SPB-Pt colloidal, this reaction can be monitored precisely in situ by UV/VIS spectroscopy. The time-dependent concentration of the blue-colored oxidation product of TMB expressed by different kinetic models was used to simulate the experimental data by a genetic fitting algorithm. After falsifying the models with abundant experimental data, it is found that both H2O2 and TMB adsorb on the surface of Pt nanoparticles to react, indicating that the reaction follows the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism. A true rate constant k, characterizing the rate-determining step of the reaction and which is independent on the amount of catalysts used, is obtained for the first time. Furthermore, it is found that the product adsorbes strongly on the surface of nanoparticles, thus inhibiting the reaction. The entire analysis provides a new perspective to study the catalytic mechanism and evaluate the catalytic activity of the peroxidase-like nanoparticles.}, language = {en} } @article{AlNakeebKochovskiLietal.2019, author = {Al Nakeeb, Noah and Kochovski, Zdravko and Li, Tingting and Zhang, Youjia and Lu, Yan and Schmidt, Bernhard V. K. J.}, title = {Poly(ethylene glycol) brush-b-poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone)-based double hydrophilic block copolymer particles crosslinked via crystalline alpha-cyclodextrin domains}, series = {RSC Advances}, volume = {9}, journal = {RSC Advances}, number = {9}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {2046-2069}, doi = {10.1039/c8ra10672j}, pages = {4993 -- 5001}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Self-assembly of block copolymers is a significant area of polymer science. The self-assembly of completely water-soluble block copolymers is of particular interest, albeit a challenging task. In the present work the self-assembly of a linear-brush architecture block copolymer, namely poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone)-b-poly(oligoethylene glycol methacrylate) (PVP-b-POEGMA), in water is studied. Moreover, the assembled structures are crosslinked via alpha-CD host/guest complexation in a supramolecular way. The crosslinking shifts the equilibrium toward aggregate formation without switching off the dynamic equilibrium of double hydrophilic block copolymer (DHBC). As a consequence, the self-assembly efficiency is improved without extinguishing the unique DHBC self-assembly behavior. In addition, decrosslinking could be induced without a change in concentration by adding a competing complexation agent for alpha-CD. The self-assembly behavior was followed by DLS measurement, while the presence of the particles could be observed via cryo-TEM before and after crosslinking.}, language = {en} } @article{YuQuanMeietal.2019, author = {Yu, Hongtao and Quan, Ting and Mei, Shilin and Kochovski, Zdravko and Huang, Wei and Meng, Hong and Lu, Yan}, title = {Prompt Electrodeposition of Ni Nanodots on Ni Foam to Construct a High-Performance Water-Splitting Electrode}, series = {Nano-Micro Letters}, volume = {11}, journal = {Nano-Micro Letters}, number = {41}, publisher = {Shanghai JIAO TONG univ press}, address = {Shanghai}, issn = {2311-6706}, doi = {10.1007/s40820-019-0269-x}, pages = {13}, year = {2019}, abstract = {HighlightsFacile electrodeposition for fabricating active Ni nanodots (NiNDs) on Ni foam (NF) is shown.Binder- and heteroatom-free recyclable NiO/NiNDs@NF electrodes are efficiently made.NiO/NiNDs@NF bifunctional catalytic electrodes are used for water splitting. AbstractIn past decades, Ni-based catalytic materials and electrodes have been intensively explored as low-cost hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts for water splitting. With increasing demands for Ni worldwide, simplifying the fabrication process, increasing Ni recycling, and reducing waste are tangible sustainability goals. Here, binder-free, heteroatom-free, and recyclable Ni-based bifunctional catalytic electrodes were fabricated via a one-step quick electrodeposition method. Typically, active Ni nanodot (NiND) clusters are electrodeposited on Ni foam (NF) in Ni(NO3)(2) acetonitrile solution. After drying in air, NiO/NiND composites are obtained, leading to a binder-free and heteroatom-free NiO/NiNDs@NF catalytic electrode. The electrode shows high efficiency and long-term stability for catalyzing hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions at low overpotentials ((10)(HER)=119mV and (50)(OER)=360mV) and can promote water catalysis at 1.70V@10mAcm(-2). More importantly, the recovery of raw materials (NF and Ni(NO3)(2)) is quite easy because of the solubility of NiO/NiNDs composites in acid solution for recycling the electrodes. Additionally, a large-sized (S similar to 70cm(2)) NiO/NiNDs@NF catalytic electrode with high durability has also been constructed. This method provides a simple and fast technology to construct high-performance, low-cost, and environmentally friendly Ni-based bifunctional electrocatalytic electrodes for water splitting.}, language = {en} } @article{RotheZhaoKewesetal.2019, author = {Rothe, Martin and Zhao, Yuhang and Kewes, G{\"u}nter and Kochovski, Zdravko and Sigle, Wilfried and van Aken, Peter A. and Koch, Christoph and Ballauff, Matthias and Lu, Yan and Benson, Oliver}, title = {Silver nanowires with optimized silica coating as versatile plasmonic resonators}, series = {Scientific reports}, volume = {9}, journal = {Scientific reports}, publisher = {Nature Publ. Group}, address = {London}, issn = {2045-2322}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-019-40380-5}, pages = {12}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Metal nanoparticles are the most frequently used nanostructures in plasmonics. However, besides nanoparticles, metal nanowires feature several advantages for applications. Their elongation offers a larger interaction volume, their resonances can reach higher quality factors, and their mode structure provides better coupling into integrated hybrid dielectric-plasmonic circuits. It is crucial though, to control the distance of the wire to a supporting substrate, to another metal layer or to active materials with sub-nanometer precision. A dielectric coating can be utilized for distance control, but it must not degrade the plasmonic properties. In this paper, we introduce a controlled synthesis and coating approach for silver nanowires to fulfill these demands. We synthesize and characterize silver nanowires of around 70 nm in diameter. These nanowires are coated with nm-sized silica shells using a modified Stober method to achieve a homogeneous and smooth surface quality. We use transmission electron microscopy, dark-field microscopy and electron-energy loss spectroscopy to study morphology and plasmonic resonances of individual nanowires and quantify the influence of the silica coating. Thorough numerical simulations support the experimental findings showing that the coating does not deteriorate the plasmonic properties and thus introduce silver nanowires as usable building blocks for integrated hybrid plasmonic systems.}, language = {en} } @article{KhodeirErnouldBrassinneetal.2019, author = {Khodeir, Miriam and Ernould, Bruno and Brassinne, Jeremy and Ghiassinejad, Sina and Jia, He and Antoun, Sayed and Friebe, Christian and Schubert, Ulrich S. and Kochovski, Zdravko and Lu, Yan and Van Ruymbeke, Evelyne and Gohy, Jean-Francois}, title = {Synthesis and characterisation of redox hydrogels based on stable nitroxide radicals}, series = {Soft matter}, volume = {15}, journal = {Soft matter}, number = {31}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {1744-683X}, doi = {10.1039/c9sm00905a}, pages = {6418 -- 6426}, year = {2019}, abstract = {The principle of encapsulation/release of a guest molecule from stimuli responsive hydrogels (SRHs) is mainly realised with pH, temperature or light stimuli. However, only a limited number of redox responsive hydrogels have been investigated so far. We report here the development of a SRH that can release its guest molecule upon a redox stimulus. To obtain this redox hydrogel, we have introduced into the hydrogel the 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxy (TEMPO) stable nitroxide radical, which can be reversibly oxidized into an oxoammonium cation (TEMPO+). Water solubility is provided by the presence of the (oligoethyleneglycol)methacrylate (OEGMA) comonomer. Electrochemical and mechanical characterization showed that those gels exhibit interesting physicochemical properties, making them very promising candidates for practical use in a wide range of applications.}, language = {en} }