The present invention provides a cathode active material for a secondary battery, which includes a lithium metal oxide particle having a form of a secondary particle in which a plurality of primary particles are agglomerated, wherein the primary particles comprise a particle having a triangular shape which has a size of a minimum internal angle of 45° or more and a maximum height of 0.5 μm or more.

Semiconductor structures having a nanocrystalline core and corresponding nanocrystalline shell and insulator coating, wherein the semiconductor structure includes an anisotropic nanocrystalline core composed of a first semiconductor material, and an anisotropic nanocrystalline shell composed of a second, different, semiconductor material surrounding the anisotropic nanocrystalline core. The anisotropic nanocrystalline core and the anisotropic nanocrystalline shell form a quantum dot. An insulator layer encapsulates the nanocrystalline shell and anisotropic nanocrystalline core.

A method for producing a nickel cobalt complex hydroxide includes first crystallization of supplying a solution containing Ni, Co and Mn, a complex ion forming agent and a basic solution separately and simultaneously to one reaction vessel to obtain nickel cobalt complex hydroxide particles, and a second crystallization of, after the first crystallization, further supplying a solution containing nickel, cobalt, and manganese, a solution of a complex ion forming agent, a basic solution, and a solution containing said element M separately and simultaneously to the reaction vessel to crystallize a complex hydroxide particles containing nickel, cobalt, manganese and said element M on the nickel cobalt complex hydroxide particles crystallizing a complex hydroxide particles comprising Ni, Co, Mn and the element M on the nickel cobalt complex hydroxide particles.

A nickel manganese cobalt composite hydroxide, which is a precursor of positive electrode active material, and composed of secondary particles wherein primary particles containing nickel, manganese, and cobalt are aggregated, or composed of primary and secondary particles, wherein sodium content contained in nickel manganese cobalt composite hydroxide is less than 0.0005% by mass, and void ratio of particles of nickel manganese cobalt composite hydroxide is 20% to 50%. Also, ratio of average particle size of lithium nickel manganese cobalt composite oxide divided by average particle size of nickel manganese cobalt composite hydroxide, which is a precursor, is 0.95 to 1.05, and further, when observing 100 or more particles of lithium nickel manganese cobalt composite oxide selected randomly by scanning electron microscope, number that aggregation of secondary particles is observed is 5% or less with respect to total number of observed secondary particles.

According to one embodiment, provided is a composite oxide containing lithium, niobium, and tantalum. A mass ratio of tantalum with respect to niobium is in a range of from 0.01% to 1.0%.

Provided are a self-cleaning coating, a self-cleaning fiber, a self-cleaning carpet and uses thereof. The self-cleaning coating is provided with a porous structure where pores communicate with one another; the volume of the pores comprised in the coating makes up 20%-98% of the total volume of the coating; and the pore diameter of the pores in the porous structure is between 0.5 nm-50 nm. The self-cleaning coating is mainly prepared from host materials; the host materials are one or more of titanium oxide, zirconia, titanium nitride, silicon oxide, tungsten oxide, g-C.sub.3N.sub.4 semiconducting polymer, perovskite semiconductor, silver, iron, gold, aluminum, copper, zinc, tin and platinum.

Disclosed is a method and system for recovering at least rare earth elements from within an object A consisting of at least one first rare earth portion or a mixture of rare earth elements and a second metal portion. The method includes a solvothermal treatment step that places the object in contact with a fluid for causing at least one rare earth portion and/or mixture of rare earth elements and the metal portion to oxidize in order to separate same, the value of the reaction temperature Tr is selected according to the nature of the object, the reaction following a R-M.fwdarw.R(X)x+M(X)y scheme, where R is the rare earth element or a mixture of rare earth elements, M is the transition metal, and (X) is a group which depends on the fluid used.

Systems, devices, and techniques for manufacturing a crystalline material (e.g., large crystal material) through the solid state conversion of a polycrystalline material are described. A device may be configured to concurrently heat a volume of ribbon, such as an alumina ribbon, using multiple heat sources. For example, a first heat source may heat a first volume of the ribbon and a second heat source may concurrently heat a second volume, for example, within the first volume, where the ribbon may comprise polycrystalline material. The concurrent heating may drive grain growth in the polycrystalline material in at least the second volume, which may convert the polycrystalline material to crystalline material having one or more grains that are larger than one or more grains of the polycrystalline material. The processed ribbon may include a large crystal material or a single crystal material.

A method of producing carbon nanofibers is disclosed that substantially impacts the carbon nanofibers' chemical and physical properties. Such carbon nanofibers include a semi-graphitic carbon material characterized by wavy graphite planes ranging from 0.1 nm to 1 nm and oriented parallel to an axis of a respective carbon nanofiber, the semi-graphitic carbon material also being characterized by an inclusion of 4 to 10 atomic percent of nitrogen heteroatoms, the nitrogen heteroatoms including a combined percentage of quaternary and pyridinic nitrogen groups equal to or greater than 60% of the nitrogen heteroatoms. The method of manufacture includes, for example, preparing a Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) based precursor solution, providing the PAN-based precursor solution to a spinneret and then performing an electro-spinning operation on the PAN-based precursor solution to create the one or more PAN-based nanofibers. The electro-spinning operation includes passing the PAN-based precursor solution from the spinneret to a collector at a distance between 1 cm to 30 cm while providing an Alternating Current (AC) voltage between the spinneret and the collector, the AC voltage including a frequency ranging from 20 Hz to 100,000 Hz and either a Peak-to-Peak (P-P) voltage ranging from 100 V to 30,000 V or a Root-Mean-Square (RMS) voltage ranging from 100 V to 30,000 V. Afterwards, post-electro-spinning operations, stabilizing treatments and pyrolysis treatments are performed.

Use of a porous precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) to retain volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a method of reducing emission of VOCs from a composition, the method comprising adding a porous PCC to the composition, said compositions such as polymer compositions and methods of making said compositions.