A conductive and sodiophilic Ag coating layer regulating Na deposition behaviors for highly reversible sodium metal batteries.

Sodium metal batteries have attracted increasing interest recently, but suffer from severe dendrite growth caused by uneven Na plating/stripping behavior, which may result in the piercing of the membrane, with short circuiting and even cause explosions. Herein, a conductive and sodiophilic Ag coating layer is introduced to regulate Na deposition behaviors for highly reversible sodium metal batteries. Ag coated Zn foil with enhanced sodiophilicity, rapid Na+ transfer kinetics and superior electronic conductivity guarantee the homogenized Na+ ion and electric field distribution. This enables remarkably low overpotentials and uniform Na plating/stripping behavior with ultrahigh Coulombic efficiency of 99.9% during 500 cycles. As expected, the enhanced electrochemical performance of the anode-less battery and anode-free battery coupled with Prussian blue is achieved with the help of Ag coating. This work emphasizes the role of the conductive and sodiophilic coating layer in regulating the Na deposition behaviors for highly reversible sodium metal batteries.

Prediction of acute pancreatitis complications using routine blood parameters during early admission.

BACKGROUND: There have been many reports on biomarkers for predicting the severity of acute pancreatitis (AP), but few studies on biomarkers for predicting complications; some simple and inexpensive indicators, in particular, are worth exploring. METHODS: We retrospectively collected clinical data of 809 AP patients, including medical history and results of routine blood tests, and grouped them according to the occurrence of complications. Differences in clinical characteristics between groups with and without complications were compared using t-test or χ2 test. Receiver operating curve (ROC) and area under the curve were calculated to evaluate the ability of predicting the occurrence of complications for the routine blood parameters with statistical differences. Then, through univariate and multivariate analyses, independent risk factors closely associated with complications were identified. Finally, we built a three-parameter prediction system and evaluated its ability to predict AP complications. RESULTS: Compared with the group without complications, the patients in the complication group had higher white blood cells, neutrophils, C-reactive protein, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and lower red blood cells and hemoglobin (Hb) (all p < .05), and most of them had severe pancreatitis. In addition, pseudocysts were more common in patients with alcoholic etiology, recurrence, low BMI, and high platelet (PLT) and plateletocrit. Acute respiratory failure was more common in patients with first onset and high mean PLT volume (MPV). Sepsis was more common in patients with lipogenic etiology, high MPV, and low lymphocytes. Infectious pancreatic necrosis was more common in patients with alcoholic etiology. Acute renal failure was more common in patients with monocytes and high MPV and low PLT. Multivariate analysis showed that PLT and ESR were risk factors for pseudocyst development. The ROC showed that the combination of Hb, PLT and ESR had a significantly higher predictive ability for pseudocyst than the single parameter. CONCLUSION: Routine blood parameters can be used to predict the complications of AP. A predictive model combining ESR, PLT, and Hb may be an effective tool for identifying pseudocysts in AP patients.