Electrode is where electricity is generated. Its quality is important to the entire battery performance. In this study, we are going to establish a stable and automatic process for making electrodes as well as required equipment. By this way, the instability in the electrode process can be improved. Electrospray technology is developed to spray the catalyst and reduce the agglomeration. It is shown that the electrode performance is 37% better than before after electrospray is adopted for producing catalyst layer. If we check the catalyst grains by AFM and TEM, we can find that the electrospray does scatter the polymers containing Nafion effectively. Under SEM, the catalyst grains are small and well proportioned on the carbon cloth. Obviously, catalysts are better utilized. All of the above can be used to explain the performance boost.

No description available.

Electrospray atomization is a method that uses electrical stresses as the means of generating charged droplets. The fundamental working principles of electrospray have previously been extensively studied and demonstrated to have monodisperse droplet size distribution, good stability and scalability. Electrospray is a bottom-up deposition method which opens up the possibility of a roll-to-roll compatible process and is functional at regular atmospheric conditions. Due to this set of positive qualities, this atomization method holds promise as a means of solution based material processing that is cost effective and scalable. Conjugated polymers are among the solution processable materials of most interest, poly(3-hexylthiophene)(P3HT) standing out as one of the most extensively studied. Applications of P3HT as a p-type semiconductor have been demonstrated in devices like organic solar cells, light emitting diodes and transistors. Improvements in the performance of the mentioned devices have been correlated with a higher degree of crystallinity as well as the film structure in the case of organic solar cells. The effects of different electrospray process parameters are investigated and various P3HT film structures are presented in this study. Electric repulsion present within the droplets in electrospray and evaporation of the solvent were used to obtain high aspect ratio features on the P3HT films. A clever design for the electrospray nozzle devised to improve the process stability is presented. Also, the crystallinity of the films was characterized using grazing incidence x-ray diffraction (GIXRD) and ultraviolet visible spectroscopy. All results in this study are presented as a comparison to spin coated control process. The GIXRD results suggest that the electrospray process produces crystallites that have an orientation opposite of the orientation observed in the spin coated process. Analysis of the ultraviolet visible spectroscopy absorption spectrum shows a red-shift, signaling an increase in the crystallinity. Lastly, good contact between the deposited P3HT and the substrate was confirmed using conductive atomic force microscopy (CAFM).

This thesis reports the design, fabrication, and operation of silicone based multiplexed electrospray (MES) emitters. After reviewing the feasibility of utilizing electrospray as a scalable thin film deposition technique as well as the advantages and limitations of prior MES emitters, we present a design rationale for MES suitable for highly conductive and corrosive fluids. Then we customized a 1064nm fiber laser micromachining system to precisely and rapidly machine silicone sheet and silicon wafers. Laser energy and path are judicially chosen to create clean and round micro posts that form the external structure of the nozzles. For MES with low flow rate per nozzle, it is of vital importance to evenly distribute the liquid into each nozzle on the entire MES array by controlling the pressure drop inside each fluid flow channel. To this end, we modeled the dimension of microfluidic channels that introduce flow impedance overwhelming surface tension at the nozzle tip. We presented laser microfabrication techniques for fabricating two typical types of microfluidic channels: the through-hole array on conductive silicone sheets and the in-plane microfluidic channel on silicon wafers. Next, we developed a convenient assemble process for the integration of three layers (distributor layer, extractor layer, and collector layer) of the MES emitter. The uniformity of the flow rate among nozzles on MES emitters was investigated by observing the overall spray profiles and measuring the diameter of each jet. The results suggest that the silicone-based MES emitters are feasible for spraying highly conductive and corrosive liquids. The MES emitter developed in this thesis may become a promising tool in the scalable manufacturing of thin film perovskite solar cells. / Master of Science

Orientador: Jose Augusto Rosario Rodrigues / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Quimica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-10T08:48:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Milagre_CintiaDuartedeFreitas_D.pdf: 13975648 bytes, checksum: c19e1f34ffddd6515caebefac654ec04 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: As nikkomicinas são um grupo de antibióticos nucleosídeos dipeptídeos isoladas como metabólitos secundários de culturas de Streptomyces sp. Estes compostos são potentes inibidores da quitina sintetase, a enzima que atua na biossíntese da quitina e, exibem atividades fungicidas, inseticidas e acaricidas. Neste trabalho realizamos a síntese enantio- e diastereosseletiva do esqueleto de um análogo do resíduo N-terminal da nikkomicina B que contém três centros assimétricos contíguos através de duas rotas lineares distintas. As etapas chave em ambas as rotas consistiram na redução de compostos carbonílicos mediada por microorganismos e na otimização de reações de a-metilenação direta tipo Mannich para a obtenção de compostos carbonílicos a,b-insaturados. Enquanto a rota A gerou exclusivamente o esqueleto com configuração 3R,4R,5S (98% ee, 11,5% de rendimento global em 7 etapas), pela rota B obtivemos o esqueleto com configuração 3R,4R,5S e 3R,4S,5R (razão diastereoisomérica 1:12, 98% ee, 20% de rendimento global em 6 etapas) / Abstract: Nikkomycins are a group of nucleoside dipeptide antibiotics which have been isolated from Spretpomyces sp cultures as a secondary metabolites. These compounds are potent chitin synthetase inhibitors and they exhibit fungicidal, insecticidal and acaricidal activities. Herein we developed an enantio- and diastereoselective synthesis of a Nikkomycin B analogue skeletal, which contains three stereogenic centers, through two linear and distinct routes. The key steps in both routes consisted in carbonyl compounds reduction mediated by microorganisms and optimizations of direct Mannich-type a-methylenation reactions in order to obtain a,b-unsaturated carbonyl compounds. While the route A gave exclusively the skeletal with 3R,4R,5S configuration (99% ee and 11.5% global yield under 7 steps) the route B gave the skeletal with 3R,4R,5S and 3R,4S,5R configurations (d.r. 1:12, 98% ee and 20% global yield under 5 steps) / Doutorado / Quimica Organica / Doutor em Ciências

Brevetoxins are natural neurotoxins that are produced by "red tide" algae. In this study, brevetoxin-1 and brevetoxin-2 were incubated with rat liver hepatocytes and rat liver microsomes, respectively. After clean-up steps, samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography (LC) coupled with electrospray mass spectrometry (LC-MS). For the incubation sample of brevetoxin- 1, two metabolites were found: brevetoxin-1-M1 and brevetoxin- 1-M2. The tandem mass spectrometry study of the [brevetoxin-1- M1+H]+ led to the conclusion that it was formed by converting one double bond in the E or F ring of brevetoxin-1 into a diol. The second metabolite (brevetoxin-1-M2) is proposed to be a hydrolysis product of brevetoxin-1 involving opening of the lactone ring with the addition of a water molecule. The study of incubation of brevetoxin-2 found two metabolites: brevetoxin-2- M1 gave a large [M-H]- peak, and its product ion mass spectrum allowed the deduction that this metabolite was the hydrolysis product of brevetoxin-2; the second metabolite (brevetoxin-2-M2) was deduced to have the same structure as that of brevetoxin-3.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2007. Graduate Programme in Chemistry. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-75). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR38780

No description available.

Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESIMS) is widely used to characterize neutral and ionic species in solvents. Typically, electrical, thermal, and pneumatic potentials are applied to create electrosprays from which charged ionic species are ejected for downstream analysis by mass spectrometry. Most recently, ESIMS has been exploited to investigate ambient proton transfer reactions at air-water interfaces in real time. We assessed the validity of these experiments via complementary laboratory experiments. Specifically, we characterized the products of two reaction scenarios via ESIMS and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR): (i) emulsions of pH-adjusted water and isoprene (C5H8) that were mechanically agitated, and (ii) electrosprays of pH-adjusted water that were collided with gas-phase isoprene. Our experiments unambiguously demonstrate that, while isoprene does not oligomerize in emulsions, it does undergo protonation and oligomerization in electrosprays, both with and without pH-adjusted water, confirming that C-C bonds form along myriad high-energy pathways during electrospray ionization. We also compared our experimental results with some quantum mechanics simulations of isoprene molecules interacting with hydronium at different hydration levels (gas versus liquid phase). In agreement with our experiments, the kinetic barriers to protonation and oligomerization of isoprene were inaccessible under ambient conditions. Rather, the gas-phase chemistries during electrospray ionization drove the oligomerization of isoprene. Therefore, we consider that ESIMS could induce artifacts in interfacial reactions. These findings warrant a reassessment of previous reports on tracking chemistries under ambient conditions at liquid-vapor interfaces via ESIMS. Further, we took some high-speed images of electrosprays where it was possible to observe the main characteristics of the phenomena, i.e. Taylor cone, charge separation, and Coulomb fission. Finally, we took the freedom to speculate on possible mechanisms that take place during electrospray ionization that affected our system and possibly may influence other common analytical techniques on ESIMS.

A novel electrochemical probe has been designed, built, and used to characterize the distribution in solution potential within the metal capillary and Taylor cone of the electrospray (ES) device. Results show that the measured potential difference increases as the internal probe travels toward the ES capillary exit, with values rising sharply as the base of the Taylor cone is penetrated. Higher conductivity solutions exhibit potentials of higher magnitude at longer distances away from the counter electrode, but these same solutions show lower potentials near the ES capillary exit. Removal of easily oxidizable species from the solution causes the measured potential difference to have nonzero values at distances further within the capillary, and the values measured at all points are raised. The influence of the diameter of the spray tip employed for nano-electrospray mass spectrometry (nano-ES-MS) upon mass spectral charge state distributions was investigated. A detailed comparison of charge state distributions obtained for nanospray capillaries of varying diameters was undertaken while systematically varying experimental parameters such as sample flow rate, analyte concentration, solvent composition, and electrospray current. The general tendency to obtain higher charge states from narrow diameter capillaries was conserved throughout, but tips with smaller orifices were more sensitive to sample flow rate, while tips with larger orifices were more sensitive to analyte concentration and pH of the solution. Electrospray mass spectrometry (ES-MS) has been employed to study noncovalent associations between lipids and fusion peptides. Detailed binding specificities between selected phospholipids and model fusion peptides were investigated. Strong evidence has been compiled to demonstrate the importance of the initial hydrophobic interaction to the observation of lipid-peptide binding by ES-MS. Initial hydrophobic interactions in solution contributed heavily to the formation of these peptide-lipid complexes, particularly for [peptide+PC] complexes, whereas electrostatic interactions played a larger role for [peptide+PG] complexes. The influence of solution pH and degree of unsaturation of lipids upon the binding strength of [peptide+PC] complexes were also investigated. These experiments help to establish ES-MS as a viable new biotechnology tool capable of providing valuable information regarding the strength of hydrophobically driven, noncovalent interactions.