Rubidium Antimony Iodide (Rb3Sb2I9) is on the frontier of perovskite-inspired halide semiconductor research, with its lead-free nature and optoelectronic properties pointing to its significant potential for various energy harvesting and sensing applications. However, the performance bottlenecks that have emerged from Rb3Sb2I9 device studies to date highlight the importance of identifying its defect states that act as recombination centers. Here we examine the structure, energetics and electronic properties of intrinsic point defects using ab initio density functional methods. Rubidium vacancies and interstitials are found to be common defects, but they have very shallow gap states and may not enhance recombination significantly beyond that of bulk effects. In contrast, iodine vacancies are also common but are deep defects whose recombination behavior may be important in many circumstances. Our energy calculations for iodine vacancies quantitatively match several experiments. Strategies are suggested for ameliorating these defects in order to move Rb3Sb2I9 toward realizing its full potential.
Menopause literacy is gaining in visibility, particularly thanks to social media. This article explores menopause literacy within the emerging subgenre of menomoir, a non-fiction subgenre hybridising memoir, lifestyle recommendations, and health advice. Popularised by contemporary celebrity women, menomoir uses a wry and intimate voice to chronicle a famous woman's menopausal struggles and triumphs. These multi-modal texts challenge the dominant cultural narrative that menopause is an era of brake-screeching decline, and encourage the reader to prioritise their own bodily autonomy during menopausal transition. However, the texts also typically utilise healthist frameworks like longevity discourse to shift the burden of health to the individual and downplay systemic factors. Nonetheless, in a culture where older women's contributions are often minimised, celebrity menopause advocates can play important roles to normalise menopause and enable citizen readers to write their own stories.
The authors of this study investigate the effectiveness of literacy programs created by Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF). Using a sample of 5,838 students from 354 schools in 42 states during the 2022-23 class year, they find that NGPF programs are highly effective in improving financial literacy across all measured categories for all participant groups. Female students experience greater improvements across all measures, except financial behavior, than their male peers. All ethnic groups benefit significantly from the programs offered, with no significant differences among subgroups. There are mixed results when comparing students in in-person training to those in an online/hybrid format. States mandating financial literacy programs experience smaller, significant improvements in most measures compared to students in states that do not mandate such programs.
Shearing an isotactic polypropylene melt, even above its equilibrium melting temperature (T m° ∼ 187 °C) leads to the formation of stable flow-induced precursors. Anisotropic structures result from shearing at temperatures as high as 220 °C (>30 °C above T m°), and are no longer generated at shearing temperatures exceeding 230 °C. The long periods increase with deformation, accompanied by a change in structural morphology. The crystallization kinetics were strongly affected by flow at shearing temperatures near T m° and persist at even higher shearing temperatures, as chains continue to be aligned and stretched with large deformations, perhaps further stabilized by stretched chains adsorbing onto heterogeneous impurities from polymerization.
Polystyrene (PS) accounts for 16% of global plastic waste, but its high aromaticity and low thermal conductivity make chemical upcycling energy-intensive. A homogeneous Mn(III)-salen complex is reported that directly converts PS into benzoic acid under additive-free conditions at 180 degrees C and 20 bar O-2, achieving 60% isolated yield from commercial PS. Mixed plastic feeds (ABS, PET, PP, PE) maintain >50% selectivity for PS oxidation. Radical-quenching experiments and DFT calculations indicate a self-propagating mechanism initiated by singlet-oxygen-mediated hydrogen abstraction, followed by iterative beta-scission and oxidation cycles. Only OH-radical-producing steps show Delta G > 0, while all other transformations and the overall pathway are exergonic. The process operates without strong acids, bases, or photoirradiation, offering a scalable, low-toxicity route to convert PS waste into benzoic acid and advancing circular-economy strategies for commodity plastics.
