Polyoxometalates (POMs) are inorganic nanoclusters that consist of oxygen and transition metals. These nanoclusters serve as excellent precursors for creating electrode materials that contain transition metals. Additionally, the interaction between POMs and carbon substrates produces positive synergistic effects. There has been considerable attention on employing POMs and carbon nanostructures (for example carbon nanotubes, graphene,...

Optical fiber sensorsusing low-coherence interferometry require processing ofthe output spectrum or interferogramto quickly and accurately determine the instantaneous value of the measured quantity, such as temperature.Methods based on machine learning are a good candidate for this application. The application of four such methods in an optical fiber temperature sensoris demonstrated.Using aZnO-coated...

Among the spinel oxides materials, lithium titanate (Li1+xTi2-xO4 where 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.33) could be very interested from pratical applications point of view. Lithium titanate is a II type spinel oxide superconductor with relatively high (~13 K for x = 0) superconducting transition temperature Tc. Above Tc lithium titanate shows metallic behaviour and can be used e.g. as electrodes for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Since the discovery...

An increasing demand for electrochemical energy storage and conversion devices stimulates progress in research on electrode and electrolyte materials. In the field of electrodes materials, silicon is the one of the most promising anode materials for Li-ion batteries. However silicon has the drastic volume variation (around 3 times lower on extraction) during insertion and extraction of lithium ions. As an alternative, nanocomposites...