The synthesis of organic nitriles without using toxic cyanides is in great demand but challenging to make. Here we report an environmentally benign and cost-efficient synthesis of nitriles from the direct oxidative cyanation of primary carbon-hydrogen bonds with easily available molecular oxygen and urea. The key to this success is to design and synthesize manganese oxide catalysts fixed inside...

Structurally well-defined hetero-pentanuclear manganese-oxide clusters {MMn4} were successfully synthesized in TBA7Hn[MMn4(OH)2(A-α-SiW9O34)2]·2H2O·C2H4Cl2 (, M = Fe(iii), Co(ii), Ni(ii), Cu(ii), Ga(iii)) by sequential introduction of metal cations into the trivacant lacunary polyoxometalates (POMs). The pentanuclear manganese-oxide cluster {Mn5} showed a small spin ground state and a low energ...

Synthesis of new efficient catalysts inspired by Nature is a key goal in the production of clean fuel. Different compounds based on manganese oxide have been investigated in order to find their water-oxidation activity. Herein, we introduce a novel engineered polypeptide containing tyrosine around nano-sized manganese-calcium oxide, which was shown to be a highly active catalyst toward water ox...

The interaction of ligand-free manganese oxide nanoclusters with water is investigated, aiming at uncovering phenomena which could aid the design of artificial water-splitting molecular catalysts. Gas phase measurements in an ion trap in conjunction with first-principles calculations provide new mechanistic insight into the water splitting process mediated by bi- and tetra-nuclear singly charge...

Due to its low-cost and environmental friendliness, birnessite-type manganese oxide has attracted wide interest for use as a cathode material in electrochemical energy storage applications.

Temperature-dependence and magnetic field-dependence of the Hall effect and the magnetic property in manganese-oxide thin films are studied. The spontaneous magnetization and the Hall resistivity are obtained for a various of magnetic fields over all the temperature. It is shown that the Hall resistivity in small magnetic field is to exhibit maximum near the Curie point, and strong magnetic fie...

Magnetic core/shell nanospheres (MCS) were synthesized by a novel and facile one-step hydrothermal method. Supported manganese oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4/C/Mn) were obtained from various methods (including redox, hydrothermal and impregnation) using MCS as the support material and potassium permanganate as the precursor of manganese oxide. The Mn/MCS catalysts were characterized by a variety of...

Microbatteries are increasingly important for powering electronic systems, however, the volumetric energy density of microbatteries lags behind that of conventional format batteries. This paper reports a primary microbattery with energy density 45.5 mWh cm 2 mm 1 and peak power 5300 mW cm 2 mm 1, enabled by the integration of large volume fractions of high capacity anode and cathode chemistry i...

Manganese dioxide cathodes are inexpensive and have high theoretical capacity (based on two electrons) of 617 mAh g-1, making them attractive for low-cost, energy-dense batteries. They are used in non-rechargeable batteries with anodes like zinc. Only ∼10% of the theoretical capacity is currently accessible in rechargeable alkaline systems. Attempts to access the full capacity using additives h...

The safety of lithium-ion battery (LIB) becomes increasingly critical as the specific energy and cell capacity rapidly increase. Based on the modified current collector technique recently developed for nickel–cobalt– manganese active materials, here we investigate high-energy LIBs based on functional current collectors (FCC). Two high-voltage active materials were tested in our experiments: lit...