RSC Advances Blog

Researchers in Austria have made these three-dimensional hydrogel scaffolds in the shape of tiny frogs. The frogs help demonstrate the efficacy of new water-soluble photoinitiators, developed by Robert Liska from Vienna University of Technology and colleagues, for fabricating micrometre-sized hydrogels quickly in complex, predesigned shapes.

Click here to see the frogs featured on the Chemistry World Facebook page!

Read the full article for free until the 30th August 2013:

Initiation efficiency and cytotoxicity of novel water-soluble two-photon photoinitiators for direct 3D microfabrication of hydrogels, Zhiquan Li, Jan Torgersen, Aliasghar Ajami, Severin Mühleder, Xiaohua Qin, Wolfgang Husinsky, Wolfgang Holnthoner, Aleksandr Ovsianikov, Jürgen Stampfl and Robert Liska, RSC Adv., 2013, Advance Article  DOI: 10.1039/C3RA42918K

Enjoy reading the latest Hot articles in RSC Advances from the Medicinal category – free to access until the 7th August 2013!

I seem to be talking rather a lot about energy just lately, but there is no denying it is a subject that comes up time and again.

Non-aqueous redox flow batteries (RFBs) are a technology aimed at supporting intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, by storing the energy they produce and releasing it on demand. The challenges in developing better batteries of this type are related to optimising their cell potential and designing new membrane materials to minimise cross-mixing and improve selectivity.

This review by researchers at GIST in the Republic of Korea concentrates on reported methods of preparation and characterisation of the anion exchange membranes, and also covers the general principles of RFBs which are necessary to understand the issues involved in membrane development.

They start from the premise that non-aqueous RFBs are better than aqueous RFBs due to the higher energy densities made possible by the wider cell potential range that is available in solvents other than water. Metal-ligand complexes have been the main focus of research as the redox couple.

Redox couples studied in detail have included ruthenium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, nickel, iron, cobalt and uranium based systems. Those based on ruthenium, for example, have improved efficiency since the oppositely charged species generated during charging tend to revert to the same reactive species during discharge, reducing cross-over.

Electrode materials that have been investigated include glassy carbon, platinum or gold.

Read the full review in RSC Advances – free to access for 4 weeks:

A review of current developments in non-aqueous redox flow batteries: characterization of their membranes for design perspective, Sung-Hee Shin, Sung-Hyun Yun and Seung-Hyeon Moon, RSC Adv., 2013, 3, 9095.

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Here are the latest HOT papers published in RSC Advances, as recommended by the referees:

Acidity and basicity of halometallate-based ionic liquids from X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
Alasdair W. Taylor, Shuang Men, Coby J. Clarke and Peter Licence  
RSC Adv., 2013, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C3RA40260F

Parameters in preparation and characterization of cross linked enzyme aggregates (CLEAs)
Sachin Talekar, Asavari Joshi, Gandhali Joshi, Priyanka Kamat, Rutumbara Haripurkar and Shashikant Kambale  
RSC Adv., 2013, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C3RA40818C

Stereoselective approach to aminocyclopentitols from Garner aldehydes
Sanjit Kumar Das and Gautam Panda  
RSC Adv., 2013, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C3RA40648B, Paper

All the papers listed above are free to access for the next 4 weeks!