Revealing the Influence of Secondary Metals on Redox-Active Palladium Complexes

Incorporation of redox-inactive metals into redox-active complexes and catalysts attracts attention for engendering new reactivity modes, but this strategy has not been extensively investigated beyond the first-row of the transition metals. Here, the isolation and characterization of the first series of heterobimetallic complexes of palladium with mono-, di-, and tri-valent redox-inactive metal ions are reported. A Reinhoudt-type heteroditopic ligand with a salen-derived [N2,O2] binding site for Pd and a crown-ether-derived [O6] site has been used to prepare isolable adducts of the Lewis acidic redox-inactive metal ions (Mn+). Comprehensive data from single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis reveal distinctive trends in the structural properties of the heterobimetallic species, including an uncommon dependence of the Pd•••M distance on Lewis acidity. The reorganization energy associated with reduction of the heterobimetallic species is strongly modulated by Lewis acidity, with the slowest heterogeneous electron transfer kinetics associated with the strongest incorporated Lewis acids. This hitherto unexplored reorganization energy penalty for electron transfer contrasts with prior thermodynamic studies, revealing that kinetic parameters should be considered in studies of reactivity involving heterobimetallic species.

Important powertrain dynamics for developing models for control of connected and automated electrified vehicles

Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAV) technology presents significant opportunities for energy saving in the transportation sector. CAV technology forecasts vehicle and powertrain power needs under various terrain, ambient, and traffic conditions. Integration of the CAV technology in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) provides the opportunity for optimal vehicle operation. Indeed, Hybrid Electric Vehicle powertrains present high degrees of flexibility and possibility for choosing optimum powertrain modes based on the predicted traction power needs. In modeling complex CAV powertrain dynamics, the modeler needs to consider short-time scale powertrain dynamics, such as engine transients, and hysteresis of mode-switching for a multi-mode HEV. Therefore, the powertrain dynamics essential for developing powertrain controllers for a class of connected HEVs is presented. To this end, control-oriented powertrain dynamic models for a test vehicle consisting of full electric, hybrid, and conventional engine operating modes are developed. The resulting powertrain model can forecast vehicle traction torque and energy consumption for the specified prediction horizon of the test vehicle. The model considers different operating modes and associated energy penalty terms for mode switching. Thus, the vehicle controller can determine the optimum powertrain mode, torque, and speed for forecasted vehicle operation via utilizing connectivity data. The powertrain model is validated against the experimental data and shows prediction error of less than 5% for predicting vehicle energy consumption. The model is used to create energy penalty maps that can be used for CAV control, for example fuel penalty map for engine torque changes (10–40 Nm) at each engine speed. The results of model-based optimization show optimum switching delays ranging from 0.4 to 1.4 s to avoid hysteresis in mode switching.

Relative Contributions of Mg Hydration and Molecular Structural Restraints to the Barrier of Dolomite Crystallization: A Comparison of Aqueous and Non-Aqueous Crystallization in (BaMg)CO3 and (CaMg)CO3 Systems

Carbonate mineralization is reasonably well-understood in the Ca–CO2–H2O system but continuously poses difficulties to grasp when Mg is present. One of the outstanding questions is the lack of success in dolomite MgCa(CO3)2 crystallization at atmospheric conditions. The conventional view holds that hydration retards the reactivity of Mg2+ and is supported by solvation shell chemistry. This theory however is at odds with the easy formation of norsethite MgBa(CO3)2, a structural analogue of dolomite, leading to the premise that crystal or molecular structural constrains may also be at play. The present study represents our attempts to evaluate the separate contributions of the two barriers. Crystallization in the Mg–Ba–CO2 system was examined in a non-aqueous environment and in H2O to isolate the effect of hydration by determining the minimal relative abundance of Mg required for norsethite formation. The results, showing an increase from 1:5 to 6:4 in the solution Mg/Ba ratio, represented a ~88% reduction in Mg2+ reactivity, presumably due to the hydration effect. Further analyses in the context of transition state theory indicated that the decreased Mg2+ reactivity in aqueous solutions was equivalent to an approximately 5 kJ/mol energy penalty for the formation of the activated complex. Assuming the inability of dolomite to crystallizes in aqueous solutions originates from the ~40 kJ/mol higher (relative to norsethite) Gibbs energy of formation for the activated complex, a hydration effect was estimated to account for ~12% of the energy barrier. The analyses present here may be simplistic but nevertheless consistent with the available thermodynamic data that show the activated complex of dolomite crystallization reaction is entropically favored in comparison with that of norsethite formation but is significantly less stable due to the weak chemical bonding state.

Extremely Stable and Durable Mixed Fe–Mn Oxides Supported on ZrO2 for Practical Utilization in CLOU and CLC Processes

This paper contains the results of research on a promising combustion technology known as chemical looping combustion (CLC) and chemical looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU). The remarkable advantages of CLC are, among others, that concentrated CO2 stream can be obtained after water condensation without any energy penalty for its separation or significant decrease of NOx emissions. The objective of this work was to prepare a novel bi-metallic Fe–Mn supported on ZrO2 oxygen carriers. Performance of these carriers for the CLOU and CLC process with nitrogen/air and hard coal/air was evaluated. One-cycle CLC tests were conducted with supported Fe–Mn oxygen carriers in thermogravimetric analyzer utilizing hard coal as a fuel. The effects of the oxygen carrier chemical composition and process temperature on the reaction rates were determined. Our study proved that for CLOU, properties formation of bixbyite and spinel forms are responsible. Among iron ferrites, we concluded that iron-rich compounds such as Fe2MnO4 over FeMn2O4 spinel type oxides are more effective for CLOU applications.

Structural and thermodynamic properties for the BaMn(Fe=V)F7 Fluoride glass system by using the Hybrid Reverse Monte Carlo simulation

The Hybrid Reverse Monte Carlo (HRMC) simulation has been widely used as a very useful method for displaying the pair partial distribution functions (PDFs) g(r) eliminating as soon as possible the artificial satellite peaks appear by the RMC simulation. The HRMC is an extension of the RMC algorithm, which introduces an energy penalty term (potential) in the acceptance criteria.The glass retains the structure presented by the liquid at the glass transition temperature Tg, and the thermodynamic properties are influenced by these structural modifications. We are interested in this study to apply the structural parameters g(r), obtained from HRMC simulation, to determine some structural and thermodynamic properties for the BaMn(Fe=V)F7 Fluoride glass.The calculated structural properties such as the running coordination number n(r) were in good agreement with coordination constraint. We suggest also that the structural parameters g(r) is a good tool to determine the thermodynamic properties as the energy of the system.

Energy penalties enhance flexible receptor docking in a model cavity

Protein flexibility remains a major challenge in library docking because of difficulties in sampling conformational ensembles with accurate probabilities. Here, we use the model cavity site of T4 lysozyme L99A to test flexible receptor docking with energy penalties from molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Crystallography with larger and smaller ligands indicates that this cavity can adopt three major conformations: open, intermediate, and closed. Since smaller ligands typically bind better to the cavity site, we anticipate an energy penalty for the cavity opening. To estimate its magnitude, we calculate conformational preferences from MD simulations. We find that including a penalty term is essential for retrospective ligand enrichment; otherwise, high-energy states dominate the docking. We then prospectively docked a library of over 900,000 compounds for new molecules binding to each conformational state. Absent a penalty term, the open conformation dominated the docking results; inclusion of this term led to a balanced sampling of ligands against each state. High ranked molecules were experimentally tested by Tm upshift and X-ray crystallography. From 33 selected molecules, we identified 18 ligands and determined 13 crystal structures. Most interesting were those bound to the open cavity, where the buried site opens to bulk solvent. Here, highly unusual ligands for this cavity had been predicted, including large ligands with polar tails; these were confirmed both by binding and by crystallography. In docking, incorporating protein flexibility with thermodynamic weightings may thus access new ligand chemotypes. The MD approach to accessing and, crucially, weighting such alternative states may find general applicability.

Optimization of a H2 Liquefaction Pre-Cooling Process & Estimate of Liquefaction Performance with Varying Ambient Temperature

Hydrogen used as an energy carrier can provide an important route to the decarbonization of energy supplies. However, realizing this opportunity requires a significant increase in both production and transportation capacity. Part of the increase in transportation capacity could be provided by the shipping of liquid hydrogen, but this introduces an energy-intensive liquefaction step into the supply-chain. The energy required for liquefaction can be reduced by developing improved process designs, but since all low-temperature processes are affected by the available heat-sink temperature, local ambient conditions will also affect the energy penalty. This work studies how the energy consumption associated with liquefaction varies with heat-sink temperature through the optimization of design parameters for a typical next-generation hydrogen liquefaction process. The results show that energy consumption increases by around 20%, across the cooling temperature range 5 to 50 °C. Considering just the range 20 to 30 °C there is a 5% increase, illustrating the significant impact ambient temperature can have on energy consumption.