Ni-Substituted Sr2FeMoO6-δ as an Electrode Material for Symmetrical and Reversible Solid-Oxide Cells.

This work develops a novel perovskite Sr2FeNi0.35Mo0.65O6-δ (SFN0.35M) simultaneously using as a fuel electrode and oxygen electrode in a reversible solid oxide cell (RSOC). SFN0.35M shows outstanding electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen oxidation, hydrogen evolution, oxygen reduction, and oxygen evolution. In situ exsolution and dissolution of Fe-Ni alloy nanoparticles in SFN0.35M is revealed. In a reducing atmosphere, SFN0.35M shows in situ exsolution of Fe-Ni alloy nanoparticles, and then the Fe-Ni alloy is reoxidized into SFN0.35M while converting into an oxidizing atmosphere. The polarization resistances of SFN0.35M electrode are 0.043 Ω cm2 in 20% O2-N2 and 0.064 Ω cm2 in H2 at 850 °C. Moreover, symmetric fuel cells using the SFN0.35M electrode achieves a maximum power density of 0.501 W cm-2 at 850 °C in H2 fuel, while the symmetric electrolysis cell has an electrolysis current density of 0.794 A cm-2 at 1.29 V in 90% H2O-10% H2 at 850 °C. It is the first time we demonstrate that the cell voltage of symmetrical cell at 0.5 A cm-2 in the fuel cell mode and -0.5 A cm-2 in the electrolysis cell mode can be fully recovered in 10 electrode alternating cycles and therefore demonstrate the possibility that SFN0.35M can be used in a fully symmetric RSOC stack with electrode alternating functions.

B-Site Super-Excess Design Sr2V0.4Fe0.9Mo0.7O6-δ-Ni0.4 as a Highly Active and Redox-Stable Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Anode.

In-situ exsolution type perovskites as solid oxide fuel cell (SOFCs) anode materials have received widespread attention because of their excellent catalytic activity. In this study, excessive NiO is introduced to the Sr2V0.4Fe0.9Mo0.7O6-δ (SVFMO) perovskite with the B-site excess design, and in-situ growth of FeNi3 alloy nanoparticles is induced in the reducing atmosphere to form the Sr2V0.4Fe0.9Mo0.7O6-δ-Ni0.4 (SVFMO-Ni0.4) composite anode. Here, with H2 or CH4 as SOFCs fuel gas, the formation of FeNi3 nanoparticles further enhances the catalytic ability. Compared with SVFMO, the maximum power density (Pmax) of Sr2V0.4Fe0.9Mo0.7O6-δ-Ni0.4 (SVFMO-Ni0.4) increases from 538 to 828 mW cm-2 at 850 °C with hydrogen as the fuel gas, and the total polarization resistance (RP) decreases from 0.23 to 0.17 Ω cm2. In addition, the long-term operational stability of the SVFMO-Ni0.4 anode shows no apparent performance degradation for more than 300 h. Compared with SVFMO, the Pmax of SVFMO-Ni0.4 increases from 138 to 464 mW cm-2 with methane as fuel gas, and the RP decreases from 1.21 to 0.29 Ω cm2.

Quantification of Structural Defects Using Pixel Level Spatial Information from Photogrammetry.

Aging infrastructure has drawn increased attention globally, as its collapse would be destructive economically and socially. Precise quantification of minor defects is essential for identifying issues before structural failure occurs. Most studies measured the dimension of defects at image level, ignoring the third-dimensional information available from close-range photogrammetry. This paper aims to develop an efficient approach to accurately detecting and quantifying minor defects on complicated infrastructures. Pixel sizes of inspection images are estimated using spatial information generated from three-dimensional (3D) point cloud reconstruction. The key contribution of this research is to obtain the actual pixel size within the grided small sections by relating spatial information. To automate the process, deep learning technology is applied to detect and highlight the cracked area at the pixel level. The adopted convolutional neural network (CNN) achieves an F1 score of 0.613 for minor crack extraction. After that, the actual crack dimension can be derived by multiplying the pixel number with the pixel size. Compared with the traditional approach, defects distributed on a complex structure can be estimated with the proposed approach. A pilot case study was conducted on a concrete footpath with cracks distributed on a selected 1500 mm × 1500 mm concrete road section. Overall, 10 out of 88 images are selected for validation; average errors ranging from 0.26 mm to 0.71 mm were achieved for minor cracks under 5 mm, which demonstrates a promising result of the proposed study.

In vivo study of effects of artesunate nanoliposomes on human hepatocellular carcinoma xenografts in nude mice.

To investigate the effect of artesunate nanoliposomes on cultured cells in vitro and hepatocellular carcinoma xenografts in BALB/c-nu mice. Fluorescence polarization was applied for measurement of mitochondrial membrane fluidities; inhibition test of tumor cell proliferation in vitro was performed and nude mice xenograft model from human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was established. Cytotoxicity of these compounds was evaluated by MTT assay on hepatocellular carcinoma xenografts in nude mice. Anisotropy (r-value) of blank nanoliposomes didn't change, it had no statistically significance between the blank nanoliposomes group and the control group, it indicated that artesunate had no obvious effect on L-O2 human normal liver cells. IC50 values of artesunate nanoliposomes and artesunate API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) against HepG-2 cells were 15.997 and 19.706 µg/ml; IC50 values of the same drugs against L-O2 normal human liver cells were 100.23 and 105.54 µg/ml, respectively. Tumor growth inhibitory effect of artesunate nanoliposomes was 32.7%, and artesunate API was 20.5%, respectively. HepG-2 cells treated with artesunate nanoliposomes showed dose-dependent apoptosis. The antitumor effect of artesunate nanoliposomes on human hepatoma HepG2 cells were stronger than that of artesunate API at the same concentration.

Effects of artemisinin derivative on the growth metabolism of Tetrahymena thermophila BF5 based on expression of thermokinetics.

The toxic effects of artesunate and dihydroartemisinin on the growth metabolism of Tetrahymena thermophila BF5 were studied by microcalorimetry. The results showed that: (1) low concentrations of artesunate (