Electrochemical Restoration of Battery Materials Guided by Synchrotron Radiation Technology for Sustainable Lithium-Ion Batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been ubiquitous in modern society, especially in the fields of electronic devices, electric vehicles and grid storage, while raising concerns about a tremendous number of spent batteries in the next five to ten years. As environmental awareness and resource security is gaining increasingly extensive attention, how to effectively deal with spent LIBs has become a challenging issue academically and industrially. Accordingly, the development of battery recycling has surfaced as a highly researched topic in the battery community. Recently, the structural and electrochemical restoration of recycled electrode materials have been proposed as a non-destructive method to save more energy and chemical agents compared with mature metallurgical methods. Such a refurbishment process of electrode materials is also regarded as a reverse process of their degradation in the working condition. Notably, synchrotron radiation technology, which is previously applied to diagnose battery degrade, has started to play major roles in gaining more insight into the structural restoration of electrode materials. Here, the contribution of synchrotron radiation technology to reveal the underlying degradation and regeneration mechanisms of LIBs cathodes is highlighted, providing a theoretical basis and guidance for the direct recycling and reuse of degraded cathodes.

Biofuel production by hydro-thermal liquefaction of municipal solid waste: Process characterization and optimization.

The significant growth of the global population, as well as the increase in energy demand and the limitations of energy generation from fossil fuels, have become a serious challenge over the world. To address these challenges, renewable energies like biofuels are recently found as a proper alternative to conventional fuels. Although biofuel production by using various techniques such as hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is considered one of the most promising methods to provide energy, the challenges correlated to its progression and development are still striking. In this investigation, the HTL method was employed to produce biofuel from municipal solid waste (MSW). In this regard, the effect of various parameters such as temperature, reaction time and waste-to-water ratio on mass and energy yield were assessed. It should be stressed that the optimization of biofuel production has been accomplished by the Box-Behnken method using Design Expert 8 software. Based on the results, biofuel production has an upward trend by increasing temperature to 364.57 °C and reaction time to 88.23 min Whereas, there is an inverse relationship between the biofuel waste-to-waterater ratio, in both the context of mass and energy yield.

Induction and Maintenance of Local Structural Durability for High-Energy Nickel-Rich Layered Oxides.

Nickel-rich layered oxides are one of the most promising cathode candidates for next-generation high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries. However, due to similar ion radius between Li+ and Ni2+ (0.76 and 0.69 Å), the Li+ /Ni2+ mixing phenomenon seriously hinders the migration of Li+ and increases kinetic barrier of Li+ diffusion, resulting in limited rate capability. In this work, the introduction of Ce4+ to effectively improve electrochemical properties of Ni-rich cathode materials is proposed. The LiNi0.8 Co0.15 Al0.05 O2 (LNCA) is modified with an additional precursor oxidization process using an appropriate amount of (NH4 )2 Ce(NO3 )6 . The Ce(NO3 )6 2- easily obtains electrons and generates reduction reactions, while Ni(OH)2 is prone to electron loss and oxidation reaction. The participation of (NH4 )2 Ce(NO3 )6 can promote the oxidation of Ni2+ to Ni3+ , thereby reducing the Li+ /Ni2+ mixing and increasing the structural stability of LNCA samples. Ce4+ cation doping can impede Li+ /Ni2+ mixing of LNCA cathode materials upon the long-term cycles. Both rate performance and long-term cyclability of Li[Ni0.8 Co0.15 Al0.05 ]0.97 Ce0.03 O2 (LNCA-Ce0.03) sample are significantly improved. Besides, a practical pouch cell based on the cathode presents sufficient gravimetric energy density (≈300 Wh kg-1 ) and cycling stability (capacity retention of 81.3% after 500 cycles at 1 C).

Pomegranate-like structured Nb2O5/Carbon@N-doped carbon composites as ultrastable anode for advanced sodium/potassium-ion batteries.

The distinctive pomegranate-like Nb2O5/Carbon@N-doped carbon (Nb2O5/C@NC) composites are fabricated using hydrothermal method integrated with nitrogen doped carbon coating procedure. For the SIBs anode, the Nb2O5/C@NC composites present superior rate character and sustainable capacity (117 mAh g-1 upon 1000 cycles at 5 A g-1). The in-situ X-ray diffraction (XRD) is utilized to research its sodium storage mechanism. Furthermore, for PIBs, the Nb2O5/C@NC composites present sustainable capacity (81 mAh g-1 upon 1000 cycles at 1 A g-1). The outstanding performance of Nb2O5/C@NC composites is ascribed to its unique architecture, in which Nb2O5 nanocrystals embedded in porous carbon can restrain agglomeration of Nb2O5 nanocrystals, enhance electron/ion diffusion kinetics, and ensure electrolyte accessibility, and moreover, NC shell layer can provide effective active sites and further increase ions/electrons transfer.

[Efficacy of Recombinant Human Thrombopoietin and Recombinant Human Interleukin 11 for Treatment of Chemotherapy Indu-ced Thrombocytopenia in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia Patients].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate and compare the clinical efficacy and safety of recombinant human thrombopoietin(rhTPO) and recombinant human interleukin11(rhIL-11) for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia in adult acute myeloid leukaemia patients. METHODS: Total of 96 adult acute myeloid leukaemia patients were divided into 3 groups according to randomized controlled method: rhTPO group, rhIL-11 group and control group, 32 cases in each group. The patients in rhTPO group and rhIL-11 received rhTPO of 15000 IU/d and rhIL-11 of 1.5 mg/d, respectively after the standard combined chemotherapy within 24 hours, and patients in control group, received nothing drugs to promote thrombocyte recovery. And rhTPO and rhIL-11 should be stopped when the Plt≥100× 109/L. After chemotherapy, the platelet recovery degree, duration of Plt<50× 109/L, ≥50× 109/L and ≥100× 109/L, the count of infusion thrombocytes, and incidence of adverse reactions all were compared. RESULTS: The duration of Plt<50× 109/L was obviously less than that in control group(P<0.01). The duration of rhIL-11 was less than that in control group, but there was no statistical significance(P>0.05). As compared with that in control group, the Plt count in rhTPO and rhIL-11 groups can faster increase to Plt≥50× 109/L (P<0.01, P<0.05), among them the Plt count in rhTPO group faster increase, but there was no statistical signiticance. As compared with that in control group, the Plt count in rhTPO group and rhIL-11 group can increase to Plt≥100× 109/L (P<0.01), the Plt count in rhTPO group was more obviously increase than that in rhIL-11 group(P<0.05). The count of infusion Plt in rhTPO and rhIL-11 groups was lese than that in control group(P<0.01, P<0.05), and the count of infusion Plt in rhTPO group was less than that in rhIL-11 group(P<0.05). After using rhTPO and rhIL-11, the adverse reactions, such as low fever, induration of injection site, athralgia, nausea and vomiting occured in rhTPO group and rhIL-11 group, but all can be tolerated. CONCLUSION: Both rhTPO and rhIL-11 can reduce the duration of thrombocytopenia and the amount of infused thrombocyte, promote platelet recovery in the patients with acute myeloid leukaemia after chemotherapy, to decreae the risk of bleeding, and reduce incidence of adverse reactions, both of them can be tolerated by patients, and rhTPO is more advantage than rhIL-11, worthy of clinical popularization and application.

Comprehensive Detection of Gas Plumes from Multibeam Water Column Images with Minimisation of Noise Interferences.

Multibeam echosounder systems (MBES) can record backscatter strengths of gas plumes in the water column (WC) images that may be an indicator of possible occurrence of gas at certain depths. Manual or automatic detection is generally adopted in finding gas plumes, but frequently results in low efficiency and high false detection rates because of WC images that are polluted by noise. To improve the efficiency and reliability of the detection, a comprehensive detection method is proposed in this paper. In the proposed method, the characteristics of WC background noise are first analyzed and given. Then, the mean standard deviation threshold segmentations are respectively used for the denoising of time-angle and depth-angle images, an intersection operation is performed for the two segmented images to further weaken noise in the WC data, and the gas plumes in the WC data are detected from the intersection image by the morphological constraint. The proposed method was tested by conducting shallow-water and deepwater experiments. In these experiments, the detections were conducted automatically and higher correct detection rates than the traditional methods were achieved. The performance of the proposed method is analyzed and discussed.