A Streptomyces species from the ginseng rhizosphere exhibits biocontrol potential.

Plants and their associated microbes live in complicated, changeable, and unpredictable environments. They usually interact with each other in many ways through multidimensional, multiscale, and multilevel coupling manners, leading to challenges in the coexistence of randomness and determinism or continuity and discreteness. Gaining a deeper understanding of these diverse interaction mechanisms can facilitate the development of data-mining theories and methods for complex systems, coupled modeling for systems with different spatiotemporal scales and functional properties, or even a universal theory of information and information interactions. In this study, we use a "closed-loop" model to present a plant-microbe interaction system and describe the probable functions of microbial natural products. Specifically, we report a rhizosphere species, Streptomyces ginsengnesis G7, which produces polyketide lydicamycins and other active metabolites. Interestingly, these distinct molecules have the potential to function both as antibiotics and as herbicides for crop protection. Detailed laboratory experiments conducted in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), combined with a comprehensive bioinformatics analysis, allow us to rationalize a model for this specific plant-microbe interaction process. Our work reveals the benefits of exploring otherwise neglected resources for the identification of potential functional molecules and provides a reference to better understand the system biology of complex ecosystems.

Polar groups promoting in-situ polymerization phase separation for solid electrolytes enabling solid-state lithium batteries.

Plastic-crystal-embedded elastomer electrolytes (PCEEs), produced through polymerization-induced phase separation (PIPS), are gaining popularity as solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs). However, it remains to be investigated whether all monomer molecules can achieve polymerization-induced phase separation and the corresponding differences in lithium metal battery performance. Herein, we prepared PCEEs with different functional groups (OH, CN, F) through in situ polymerization. Research findings show that PCEE containing - CN or - F achieves the separation of the plastic crystalline phase and succinonitrile (SN) phase, whereas PCEE containing OH cannot due to hydrogen bonding with the SN phase. Notably, the PCEE synthesized with the F monomer (FBA-PCEE) exhibited exceptional interfacial stability with lithium metal anodes and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathodes, due to its unique coordination mechanism with lithium ions. The FBA-PCEE demonstrated a high ionic conductivity (2.02 × 10-3 S cm-1) and lithium-ion migration number ( [Formula: see text]  = 0.75). Moreover, lithium symmetric cells incorporating FBA-PCEE demonstrated stable cycling performance for more than 1000 h at a current density of 0.1 mA cm-2, resulting in the development of a solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) rich in LiF, Li3N, and Li2CO3 over time. Additionally, incorporating FBA-PCEE facilitated the stable cycling of LPF over 1000 cycles at 0.5C, maintaining a capacity retention of 77.38 % after 500 cycles. When coupled with high-voltage Nickel Cobalt Manganese Oxide (NCM-622) cathodes and lithium metal anodes, a discharge capacity of 119.70 mAh g-1 at 0.1C was sustained after 100 cycles, exhibiting a capacity retention of 78.95 %. This study elucidates the critical role of monomer design in achieving PIPS, offering valuable insights into developing high-performance polymer composite electrolytes for advanced lithium metal batteries.

Revealing the role of hydrogen bond coupling structure for enhanced performance of the solid-state electrolyte.

Achieving practical applications of PEO-based composite solid electrolyte (CPE) batteries requires the precise design of filler structures at the molecular level to form stable composite interfacial phases, which in turn improve the conductivity of Li+ and inhibit the nucleation growth of lithium dendrites. Some functional fillers suffer from severe agglomeration due to poor compatibility with the polymer base or grain boundary migration, resulting in limited improvement in cell performance. In this paper, ILs@KAP1 is reported as a filler to enhance the performance of PEO-based batteries. Thereinto, the hypercrosslinked phosphorus ligand polymer-containing KAP1, designed at the molecular level, has an abundant porous structure, hydrogen bonding network, and a rigid skeleton structure of benzene rings. These can be used both to improve the flammability with PEO-based and to reduce the crystallinity of the polymer electrolyte. Ionic liquids (ILs) are encapsulated in the nanochannels of KAP1, and thus a 3D Li+ conducting framework could be formed. In this case, it could not only facilitate the wettability of the contact interface with the electrode, significantly promoting its compatibility and providing a fast Li+ transport path, but also facilitate the formation of LiF, Li3N and Li2O rich SEI components, further fostering the uniform deposition/exfoliation of lithium. The LFP||CPE||Li battery assembled with ILs@KAP1-PEO-CPE has a high initial discharge specific capacity about 156 mAh/g at 1C and a remaining capacity about 121.8 mAh/g after 300 cycles (capacity retention of 78.07%).

Efficient capture and conversion of polysulfides by zinc protoporphyrin framework-embedded triple-layer nanofiber separator for advanced Li-S batteries.

The practical application of Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries is significantly inhibited by (i) the notable 'shuttle effect' of lithium polysulfides (LiPS), (ii) the corrosion of the lithium interface, and (iii) the sluggish redox reaction kinetics. The functional separator in the Li-S battery has the potential to provide the perfect solution to these problems. Herein a triple-layer multifunctional PVDF-based nanofiber separator, which contains GoTiN/PVDF layer on the top and bottom and ZnTPP/PVDF layer on the middle, is designed. The polarity and porous structure of this multifunctional separator can greatly improve the wettability of electrolytes and enhance the transportation of Li+. With the zinc-based porphyrin framework (ZnTPP) structure, this separator has a strong chemisorption and LiPS conversion ability, which greatly prevent the 'shuttle effect'. Consequently, the designed multilayer separator showed excellent electrochemical performance. As a result, the cell with GoTiN@ZnTPP@GoTiN nanofiber membrane displayed an initial discharge capacity of 1180 mAh/g with a benign capacity retention of 65.9% at 0.5C and high coulombic efficiency of more than 98.5% after 100 cycles. Even at 2C, it can still release a capacity of 798 mAh/g. Moreover, the remarkable capacity of 591 mAh/g could be achieved with a high sulfur load of 5.76 mg/cm2 under a current density of 0.1C. Based on these merits, this novel and scalable multifunctional separator is a promising candidate to replace the conventional PP separator for advanced Li-S batteries to deal with various challenges.