The disclosure provides a crystalline oxide film that has reduced defects such as dislocations due to a reduced facet growth. Also, the disclosure provides a crystalline oxide film that is useful for semiconductor devices and has an enhanced crystal quality. A crystalline oxide film, including: an epitaxial layer having a corundum structure, the lateral growth area is substantially free from a facet growth area, a growth direction of the lateral growth area that is c-axis direction or substantially c-axis direction, the lateral growth area including a dislocation line extending to the c-axis direction or substantially c-axis direction, a first crystal oxide and a second crystal oxide bonded to each other, that are crystal-grown in a direction parallel or approximately parallel to the x-axis.

A cathode configured to use oxygen as a cathode active material includes: a porous film including a metal oxide, where a porosity of the porous film is about 50 volume percent to about 95 volume percent, based on a total volume of the porous film, and an amount of an organic component in the porous film is 0 to about 2 weight percent, based on a total weight of the porous film.

A method for making iridium oxide nanoparticles includes dissolving an iridium salt to obtain a salt-containing solution, mixing a complexing agent with the salt-containing solution to obtain a blend solution, and adding an oxidating agent to the blend solution to obtain a product mixture. A molar ratio of a complexing compound of the complexing agent to the iridium salt is controlled in a predetermined range so as to permit the product mixture to include iridium oxide nanoparticles.

Extraction of platinum-group elements, e.g. Pd, by adsorption from acidic aqueous solutions, using chelating acrylic fibers having amidoxime substituents followed by recovery by elution with an HCl-thiourea solution. From about 10% to 100% of the acrylic fiber CN are converted to amidoxime by reaction with NH.sub.2OH (hydroxylamine) in H.sub.2O/MeOH solution in the range of 30° C.-90° C. for from 15 min to 72 hrs. The adsorptive loading of elements onto the fiber and the efficiency of elution therefrom is substantially 100%, in multiple cycles of adsorption/elution. The novel fiber/extraction process is rapid, lending it to a continuous recovery operation. A portion of the CN groups of may be converted to carboxylate groups by reaction with NaOH. Short lengths of fiber are loaded into a vertical column and the pregnant solution introduced. Upon breakthrough, the fibers may be eluted, washed and recycled hundreds of times without removal from the column.

An electrical conductor includes a substrate; and a first conductive layer disposed on the substrate and including a plurality of metal oxide nanosheets, wherein adjacent metal oxide nanosheets of the plurality of metal oxide nanosheets contact to provide an electrically conductive path between the contacting metal oxide nanosheets, wherein the plurality of metal oxide nanosheets include an oxide of Re, V, Os, Ru, Ta, Ir, Nb, W, Ga, Mo, In, Cr, Rh, Mn, Co, Fe, or a combination thereof, and wherein the metal oxide nanosheets of the plurality of metal oxide nanosheets have an average lateral dimension of greater than or equal to about 1.1 micrometers. Also an electronic device including the electrical conductor, and a method of preparing the electrical conductor.

An intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFC) includes an anode layer, an electrolyte adjacent to the anode layer, and a cathode layer adjacent to the electrolyte and including a material of formula (I) or (II): Sr.sub.2OsO.sub.4 (I) or Ba.sub.2MO.sub.4 (II), where M is a transition metal or post-transition metal.

Proposed is a two-dimensional nanosheet, which can significantly improve catalytic efficiency by realizing a two-dimensional nanosheet structure with a high specific surface area including a metal material having an amorphous crystal structure as an electrochemical catalyst to fully utilize the characteristics of a metal oxide catalyst material with excellent electrical conductivity and, at the same time, which is easy for mass synthesis in manufacturing method due to its relatively simple manufacturing process, and is easy to realize ultra-thin and large-area.

A ruthenium oxide powder having a rutile crystal structure is provided, wherein a crystallite diameter D1, calculated from a peak of a (110) plane measured by an X-ray diffraction method, is 25 nm or more and 80 nm or less, a specific surface area diameter D2, calculated from a specific surface area, is 25 nm or more and 114 nm or less, and a ratio of the crystallite diameter D1 (nm) to the specific surface area diameter D2 (nm) satisfies a following formula (1).

0.70D1/D21.00 (1)

A ruthenium oxide powder having a rutile crystal structure is provided, wherein a crystallite diameter D1, calculated from a peak of a (110) plane measured by an X-ray diffraction method, is 25 nm or more and 80 nm or less, a specific surface area diameter D2, calculated from a specific surface area, is 25 nm or more and 114 nm or less, and a ratio of the crystallite diameter D1 (nm) to the specific surface area diameter D2 (nm) satisfies a following formula (1).
0.70D1/D21.00(1)

Disclosed herein is a method of manufacturing a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) including directly depositing a liquid suspension containing a platinum precursor onto an ionically conductive membrane (e.g., proton-exchange membrane) that, when the platinum precursor deposit layer is reduced, provides a layer that will scavenge hydrogen that has diffused back through the membrane due to cell stack pressure differential.