Search NASA⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Yuan, Rui

Publications and source records attributed to Yuan, Rui.

Assemblies of Polyacrylonitrile-Derived Photoactive Polymers as Blue and Green Light Photo-Cocatalysts for Cu-Catalyzed ATRP in Water and Organic Solvents

Photoluminescent nanosized quasi-spherical polymeric assemblies prepared by the hydrothermal reaction of polyacrylonitrile (PAN), ht-PLP PAN , were demonstrated to have the ability to photo-induce atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) catalyzed by low, parts per million concentrations of Cu II complex with tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine (TPMA). Such photo induced ATRP reactions of acrylate and methacrylate monomers were performed in water or organic solvents, using ht-PLP PAN as the photo-cocatalyst under blue or green light irradiation. Mechanistic studies indicate that ht-PLP PAN helps to sustain the polymerization by facilitating the activation of alkyl bromide species by two modes: 1) green or blue light-driven photoreduction of the Cu II catalyst to the activating Cu I form, and 2) direct activation of dormant alkyl bromide species which occurs only under blue light. The photoreduction of the Cu II complex by ht-PLP PAN was confirmed by linear sweep voltammetry performed under illumination. Analysis of the polymerization kinetics in aqueous media indicated even though Cu I complexes comprised only 1–1.4% of all Cu species at equilibrium, they exhibited high activation rate constant and activated the alkyl bromide initiators five to six orders of magnitude faster than ht-PLP PAN .

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Atomic imaging of the coherent interface between orientedly-attached Mn{sub 3}O{sub 4} nanoparticles

In this paper, coherent interfaces between orientedly-attached (OA) Mn{sub 3}O{sub 4} nanoparticles are fully reconstructed based on atomic-scale high angle annular dark field (HAADF) - scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) direct imaging technique. According to the characterization, five characteristics of the oriented attachment between Mn{sub 3}O{sub 4} are proposed: (1) [100]{sub Mn3O4} direction sharing; (2) crystallographic plane sharing for every two attached particles; (3) preference for O{sup 2−} close-packed crystallographic planes to form the OA interface; (4) “defect transfers” compensating the deviation between the macroscopic interface and the atomic interface; (5) possible chemical state changes of the interfacial atoms. - Highlights: • Advanced Cs-corrected STEM is applied to obtain atomic-scale images. • The complex interfaces between orientedly-attached Mn{sub 3}O{sub 4} nanoparticles are fully reconstructed. • “Defect transfer” phenomenon is observed for the first time.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Coupled crystal orientation-size effects on the strength of nano crystals

We study the combined effects of grain size and texture on the strength of nanocrystalline copper (Cu) and nickel (Ni) using a crystal-plasticity based mechanics model. Within the model, slip occurs in discrete slip events exclusively by individual dislocations emitted statistically from the grain boundaries. We show that a Hall-Petch relationship emerges in both initially texture and non-textured materials and our values are in agreement with experimental measurements from numerous studies. We find that the Hall-Petch slope increases with texture strength, indicating that preferred orientations intensify the enhancements in strength that accompany grain size reductions. These findings reveal that texture is too influential to be neglected when analyzing and engineering grain size effects for increasing nanomaterial strength.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗