A Novel Organophosphorus Hybrid with Excellent Thermal Stability: Core-Shell Structure, Hybridization Mechanism, and Application in Flame Retarding Semi-Aromatic Polyamide.
An organophosphorous hybrid (BM@Al-PPi) with unique core-shell structure was prepared through hybridization reaction between boehmite (BM) as the inorganic substrate and phenylphosphinic acid (PPiA) as the organic modifier. Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR), solid state (31)P and (27)Al magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance, X-ray diffraction, and element analysis were used to investigate the chemical structure of the hybrids, where the microrod-like core was confirmed as Al-PPi aggregates generated from the reaction between BM and PPiA, and those irregular nanoparticles in the shell belonged to residual BM. Compared with the traditional dissolution-precipitation process, a novel analogous suspension reaction mode was proposed to explain the hybridization process and the resulting product. Scanning electronic microscopy further proved the core-shell structure of the hybrids. BM exhibited much higher initial decomposition temperature than that of Al-PPi; therefore, the hybrid showed better thermal stability than Al-PPi, and it met the processing temperature of semi-aromatic polyamide (HTN, for instance) as an additive-type flame retardant. Limiting oxygen index and cone calorimetric analysis suggested the excellent flame-retardant performance and smoke suppressing activity by adding the resulting hybrid into HTN.
Highly Ordered Mesostructured Vanadium Phosphonate toward Electrode Materials for Lithium-Ion Batteries.
Highly ordered mesostructured vanadium phosphonates (VP) have been synthesized in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a structure-directing agent. Nitrilotris(methylene)triphosphonic acid (NMPA) and (ammonium/sodium) metavanadate (NH4 VO3 /NaVO3 ) have been used for the construction of pore walls. The CTAB templates are removed from the materials by an extraction process without destroying the parent mesostructure. The formation mechanism for the ordered mesoporous structure and its impact on electrochemical application in lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are explained by considering the structural and electrochemical stability of the framework. The results demonstrate that the counter cations (NH4+ /Na+ ) of the metavanadate precursors have a crucial role in stabilizing the mesoporous structure of the mesoporous VP materials. Mesoporous VP materials with highly ordered structure have great applicability as high-performance electrode materials in LIBs due to the advantages of their large contact area with electrolyte and short transport paths for lithium ions. Mesoporous VP electrodes exhibit high reversible specific capacity with superb cycling stability (100 cycles) and excellent retention of capacity (92 %).
An automated retinal image quality grading algorithm
This paper introduces an algorithm for the automated assessment of retinal fundus image quality grade. Retinal image quality grading assesses whether the quality of the image is sufficient to allow diagnostic procedures to be applied. Automated quality analysis is an important preprocessing step in algorithmic diagnosis, as it is necessary to ensure that images are sufficiently clear to allow pathologies to be visible. The algorithm is based on standard recommendations for quality analysis by human screeners, examining the clarity of retinal vessels within the macula region. An evaluation against a reference standard data-set is given; it is shown that the algorithm's performance correlates closely with that of clinicians manually grading image quality.