Electron transfer self-exchange rate constants for a series of three ruthenium ammine complexes have been determined in a range of solvents using deuterium NMR line-broadening measurements. It is found for all three complexes that the observed rates slow dramatically in solvents of strong Lewis basicity as measured by the Gutman donor number. The rates do not correlate significantly with either the dielectric continuum-based Pekar factor, (1/n 2 -1/D s ), or the solvent longitudinal relaxation time known to frequently characterize solvent dynamical effects on electron transfer rates. The nature of the self-exchange rate slow down is discussed within the context of Marcus-Hush theory and is attributed to redox-state-dependent rearrangements of hydrogen bonds between solvent and solute in the second coordination sphere. Quantitative comparisons between the observed donor-number effect on rate and relevant optical electron transfer data from chemically similar systems reveal evidence of an additional donor-number-dependent contribution to the work of reactant preassociation in the bimolecular process.

Application of sewage sludge biochar as an adsorbent for antibiotics treatment has obtained special attention owning to its low cost and surface functionality. Three metal ions were selected to modify sewage sludge biochar through the pyrolysis with the metal loaded method. Fe loaded sewage sludge biochar (BC-Fe), Al loaded sewage sludge biochar (BC-Al) and Mn loaded sewage sludge biochar (BC-Mn) were characterized and used to explore the performance of adsorbing tetracycline (TC), sulfamethoxazole (SMZ) and amoxicillin (AMC). BC-Fe, BC-Al and BC-Mn possessed rougher surfaces, larger specific surface area and better pore structure. Intra-particle diffusion and Langmuir models were more suitable to describe the adsorption process. The maximum adsorption amount of TC, SMZ and AMC could reach 123.35, 99.01 and 109.89 mg/g by BC-Fe. Furthermore, the main mechanism of antibiotics adsorption by metal loaded sewage sludge biochars might be pores filling, Van der Waals forces and H-bonding. The study can not only solve the problems associated with the pollution of antibiotics from wastewater, but also reduced the treatment pressure of sewage sludge effectively.

In this work, GMR multilayer films are deposited and then processed into GMR sensors. The transfer curves of GMR sensor are acquired by sweeping the signal magnetic field in different directions. In addition, the rotation behavior is measured by rotating a magnitude-fixed field around the sensing axis. The results are analyzed and it’s found that the angular dependence of GMR sensor can be characteristic with cosine function.

The effects of different relevant layers, especially the insertion layers (which are between Ta buffer layer and IrMn pinning layer) and free layers, on the magnetic properties of IrMn bottom-pinning spin valves are investigated. Spin valve with a NiFe insertion layer exhibits a higher GMR ratio of ~ 6.0% than that of 2.0% for the spin valve with a Cu insertion layer due to a better pinning strength. The spin valves with a CoFe/NiFe composite free layer have relatively better magnetic properties: a higher GMR ratio compared with the spin valve with a single NiFe free layer and a lower free layer coercivity compared with the spin valve with a single CoFe layer.

Pure and single-phase ceria particles were synthesized by an anodic electrochemical method followed by annealing at 500-900°C for 2h. Many characterization methods have been used to study the ceria nanostructures and electronic structures, including X-ray diffraction, transition electron microscopy and UV-vis spectrophotometer. The average crystallite size was estimated to be the scale of nanometers. While annealing at a low temperature, ceria particles are a little agglomeration and are termed as mesocrystal. It is observed to increase the crystallite size in addition to increase the crystalliminty of the nanoparticles while increasing the annealing temperature. The absorption spectra show that the ceria nanoparticles have direct and indirect band gap structures. There is a red shift of the absorption peak for the particles after annealing. Both the direct and indirect band gap energies are found to decrease with the annealing temperature.