Accelerating the Rate-Determining Steps of Sulfur Conversion Reaction for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries Working at an Ultrawide Temperature Range.

Wide operation temperature is the crucial objective for an energy storage system that can be applied under harsh environmental conditions. For lithium-sulfur batteries, the "shuttle effect" of polysulfide intermediates will aggravate with the temperature increasing, while the reaction kinetics decreases sharply as the temperature decreasing. In particular, sulfur reaction mechanism at low temperatures seems to be quite different from that at room temperature. Here, through in situ Raman and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy studies, the newly emerged platform at cryogenic temperature corresponds to the reduction process of Li2S8 to Li2S4, which will be another rate-determining step of sulfur conversion reaction, in addition to the solid-phase conversion process of Li2S4 to Li2S2/Li2S at low temperatures. Porous bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) spheres are designed as sulfur host material, which achieve the rapid snap-transfer-catalytic process by shortening lithium-ion transport pathway and accelerating the targeted rate-determining steps. Such promoting effect greatly inhibits severe "shuttle effect" at high temperatures and simultaneously improves sulfur conversion efficiency in the cryogenic environment. The cell with the porous BiVO4 spheres as the host exhibits excellent rate capability and cycle performance under wide working temperatures.

Advancements in Battery Monitoring: Harnessing Fiber Grating Sensors for Enhanced Performance and Reliability.

Batteries play a crucial role as energy storage devices across various industries. However, achieving high performance often comes at the cost of safety. Continuous monitoring is essential to ensure the safety and reliability of batteries. This paper investigates the advancements in battery monitoring technology, focusing on fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). By examining the factors contributing to battery degradation and the principles of FBGs, this study discusses key aspects of FBG sensing, including mounting locations, monitoring targets, and their correlation with optical signals. While current FBG battery sensing can achieve high measurement accuracies for temperature (0.1 °C), strain (0.1 µÎµ), pressure (0.14 bar), and refractive index (6 × 10-5 RIU), with corresponding sensitivities of 40 pm/°C, 2.2 pm/µÎµ, -0.3 pm/bar, and -18 nm/RIU, respectively, accurately assessing battery health in real time remains a challenge. Traditional methods struggle to provide real-time and precise evaluations by analyzing the microstructure of battery materials or physical phenomena during chemical reactions. Therefore, by summarizing the current state of FBG battery sensing research, it is evident that monitoring battery material properties (e.g., refractive index and gas properties) through FBGs offers a promising solution for real-time and accurate battery health assessment. This paper also delves into the obstacles of battery monitoring, such as standardizing the FBG encapsulation process, decoupling multiple parameters, and controlling costs. Ultimately, the paper highlights the potential of FBG monitoring technology in driving advancements in battery development.

Accurate wavelet thresholding method for ECG signals.

Current wavelet thresholding methods for cardiogram signals captured by flexible wearable sensors face a challenge in achieving both accurate thresholding and real-time signal denoising. This paper proposes a real-time accurate thresholding method based on signal estimation, specifically the normalized ACF, as an alternative to traditional noise estimation without the need for parameter fine-tuning and extensive data training. This method is experimentally validated using a variety of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals from different databases, each containing specific types of noise such as additive white Gaussian (AWG) noise, baseline wander noise, electrode motion noise, and muscle artifact noise. Although this method only slightly outperforms other methods in removing AWG noise in ECG signals, it far outperforms conventional methods in removing other real noise. This is attributed to the method's ability to accurately distinguish not only AWG noise that is significantly different spectrum of the ECG signal, but also real noise with similar spectra. In contrast, the conventional methods are effective only for AWG noise. In additional, this method improves the denoising visualization of the measured ECG signals and can be used to optimize other parameters of other wavelet methods to enhancing the denoised periodic signals, thereby improving diagnostic accuracy.

Adaptive Interacting Multiple Model Algorithm Based on Information-Weighted Consensus for Maneuvering Target Tracking.

Networked multiple sensors are used to solve the problem of maneuvering target tracking. To avoid the linearization of nonlinear dynamic functions, and to obtain more accurate estimates for maneuvering targets, a novel adaptive information-weighted consensus filter for maneuvering target tracking is proposed. The pseudo measurement matrix is computed with unscented transform to utilize the information form of measurements, which is necessary for consensus iterations. To improve the maneuvering target tracking accuracy and get a unified estimation in each sensor node across the entire network, the adaptive current statistical model is exploited to update the estimate, and the information-weighted consensus protocol is applied among neighboring nodes for each dynamic model. Based on posterior probabilities of multiple models, the final estimate of each sensor is acquired with weighted combination of model-conditioned estimates. Experimental results illustrate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm with respect tracking accuracy and agreement of estimates in the whole network.

Hydrolysis of nicosulfuron under acidic environment caused by oxalate secretion of a novel Penicillium oxalicum strain YC-WM1.

A novel Penicillium oxalicum strain YC-WM1, isolated from activated sludge, was found to be capable of completely degrading 100 mg/L of nicosulfuron within six days when incubated in GSM at 33 °C. Nicosulfuron degradation rates were affected by GSM initial pH, nicosulfuron initial concentration, glucose initial concentration, and carbon source. After inoculation, the medium pH was decreased from 7.0 to 4.5 within one day and remained at around 3.5 during the next few days, in which nicosulfuron degraded quickly. Besides, 100 mg/L of nicosulfuron were completely degraded in GSM medium at pH of 3.5 without incubation after 4 days. So, nicosulfuron degradation by YC-WM1 may be acidolysis. Based on HPLC analysis, GSM medium acidification was due to oxalate accumulation instead of lactic acid and oxalate, which was influenced by different carbon sources and had no relationship to nicosulfuron initial concentration. Furthermore, nicosulfuron broke into aminopyrimidine and pyridylsulfonamide as final products and could not be used as nitrogen source and mycelium didn't increase in GSM medium. Metabolomics results further showed that nicosulfuron degradation was not detected in intracellular. Therefore, oxalate secretion in GSM medium by strain YC-WM1 led to nicosulfuron acidolysis.

Chlorpyrifos is estrogenic and alters embryonic hatching, cell proliferation and apoptosis in zebrafish.

The potential interference of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on aquatic animals and humans has drawn wide attention in recent years. Reports have shown that some organophosphorus pesticides were a kind of EDCs, but their effects on fish species are still under research. In present study, flow cytometry data of HEC-1B cell line showed that chlorpyrifos (CPF) could increase cell proliferation index like 17ß-estradiol (E2), but the effect of CPF was weaker than of E2 in the same concentration. Moreover, CPF altered the expression pattern of estrogen-responsive gene VTG and ERα in zebrafish embryos. When exposed to CPF at various concentrations (0, 0.10, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 and 1.00mg/L) for 48h during the embryo stage, compared with controls, the hatching rate of treated groups significantly increased at the same time and the hatching rate of embryos was proportional to CPF concentration. The mRNA expression levels of c-myc, cyclin D1, Bax and Bcl-2, which are closely related to cell proliferation and cell apoptosis, were disturbed by CPF in zebrafish embryos after exposure treated for 48h. In addition, acridine orange (AO) staining of zebrafish embryos showed that cell apoptosis was appeared in the 0.75, 1.00mg/L CPF treated groups. Taken together, the results obtained in the present study indicated that chlorpyrifos is estrogenic and alters embryonic hatching, cell proliferation and apoptosis in zebrafish.