Wuhan University of Technology

About: Wuhan University of Technology is a education organization based out in Wuhan, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Microstructure & Catalysis. The organization has 40384 authors who have published 36724 publications receiving 575695 citations. The organization is also known as: WUT.

A highly fire-safe and smoke-suppressive single-component epoxy resin with switchable curing temperature and rapid curing rate

Abstract: The design of highly fire-safe and smoke-suppressive single-component epoxy (EP) resins combining modest curing temperature and fast curing rate has been desirable yet very challenging in both academia and industry. Herein, we report a facile design of a phosphorus/imidazole-containing single-component EP system via incorporating 9,10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-phosphaphenanthrene-10-oxide (DOPO) and a flame-retardant curing agent cyclotriphosphazene-modified benzimidazole (BICP) into EP. Our results show that EP/DOPO/BICP exhibits a rapid modest-temperature curing feature because DOPO serves as a switch that triggers BICP to release benzimidazole (BIM) via substitution reaction in the initial curing stage. Moreover, as-prepared EP/DOPO/BICP shows outstanding fire retardancy, reflected by the high limited oxygen index (LOI) of 38.3% and UL-94 V-0 rating. Compared to the control EP system, the peak of heat release rate (PHRR) and total smoke production (TSP) of EP/DOPO/BICP remarkably decrease by ~74.5% and ~50.6%, respectively, which is superior to previously-reported flame-retardant P-containing epoxy counterparts. The significant enhancements in flame retardancy and smoke suppression are mainly due to the formation of a highly intumescent char layer and the reduced burning degree of pyrolysis fragments. This work offers a facile and scalable strategy for creating fast-curing, modest-temperature curable, highly fire-resistant and smoke-suppressive one-component epoxy systems applicable to large-scale industrial production.

Chiral biointerface materials

Abstract: Chiral phenomena are ubiquitous in nature from macroscopic to microscopic, including the high chirality preference of small biomolecules, special steric conformations of biomacromolecules induced by it, as well as chirality-triggered biological and physiological processes. The introduction of chirality into the study of interface interactions between materials and biological systems leads to the generation of chiral biointerface materials, which provides a new platform for understanding the chiral phenomena in biological system, as well as the development of novel biomaterials and devices. This critical review gives a brief introduction to the recent advances in this field. We start from the fabrication of chiral biointerface materials, and further investigate the stereo-selective interaction between biological systems and chiral interface materials to find out key factors governing the performance of such materials in given conditions, then introduce some special functionalities and potential applications of chiral biointerface materials, and finally present our own thinking about the future development of this area (108 references).

Core-shell Ag@Ni cocatalyst on the TiO2 photocatalyst: One-step photoinduced deposition and its improved H2-evolution activity

Abstract: Compared with well-known Pt, metallic Ag usually shows a far low H2-evolution rate due to its serious capacitive property and poor H2-evolution activity for Ag-modified photocatalysts. Herein, low-cost metallic Ni cocatalyst is directionally assembled onto the Ag nanoparticle to generate core-shell Ag@Ni cocatalyst, with an aim of greatly boosting the hydrogen-generation performance of metallic Ag. In this case, the core-shell Ag@Ni cocatalyst can be easily loaded onto the TiO2 surface to prepare the core-shell Ag@Ni/TiO2 photocatalysts by a facile one-step photoinduced deposition method. Photocatalytic results manifeste that compared with Ag/TiO2, all the core-shell Ag@Ni/TiO2 samples display a markedly enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen-production rate. Especially, the Ag@Ni/TiO2(1.5:1.5) sample exhibits the highest hydrogen-generation rate (2933.9 μmol h−1 g-1, AQE = 12.12%) due to the synergistic effect of metallic Ag and Ni, namely, Ag core as electronic capturer to efficiently collect photoexcited electrons while Ni shell as interfacial active center to boost hydrogen-generation rate.