Tuning the Interface Stability of Nickel-Rich NCM Cathode Against Aggressive Structural Collapse via the Synergistic Effect of Additives.

Nickel-rich layered oxides are envisaged as one of the most promising alternative cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries, considering their capabilities to achieve ultrahigh energy density at an affordable cost. Nonetheless, with increasing Ni content in the cathodes comes a severe extent of Ni4+ redox side reactions on the interface, leading to fast capacity decay and structural stability fading over extended cycles. Herein, dual additives of bis(vinylsulfonyl)methane (BVM) and lithium difluorophosphate (LiDFP) are adopted to synergistically generate the F-, P-, and S-rich passivation layer on the cathode, and the Ni4+ activity and dissolution at high voltage are restricted. The sulfur-rich layer formed by the polymerization of BVM, combined with the Li3PO4 and LiF phases derived from LiDFP, alleviates the problems of increased impedance, cracks, and an irreversible H2-H3 phase transition. Consequently, the Ni-rich LiNixM1-xO2 (x > 0.95) button half-cell cycled in LiDFP + BVM electrolyte exhibits a significant discharging capacity of 181.4 mAh g-1 at 1 C (1 C = 200 mA g-1) with retention of 83.7% after 100 cycles, surpassing the performance of the commercial electrolyte (160.7 mAh g-1) with retention of 53.3%. Remarkably, the NCM95||graphite pouch cell exhibits a remarkable capacity retention of 95.5% after 200 cycles. This work inspires the rational design of electrolyte additives for ultrahigh-energy batteries with nickel-rich layered oxide cathodes.

Tailoring Intermolecular Interactions Towards High-Performance Thermoelectric Ionogels at Low Humidity.

Development of ionic thermoelectric (iTE) materials is of immense interest for efficient heat-to-electricity conversion due to their giant ionic Seebeck coefficient (Si ), but challenges remain in terms of relatively small Si at low humidity, poor stretchability, and ambiguous interaction mechanism in ionogels. Herein, a novel ionogel is reported consisting of polyethylene oxide (PEO), polyethylene oxide-polypropylene oxide-polyethylene oxide (P123), and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate (Emim:OAC). By delicately designing the interactions between ions and polymers, the migration of anions is restricted due to their strong binding with the hydroxyl groups of polymers, while the transport of cations is facilitated through segmental motions due to the increased amorphous regions, thereby leading to enlarged diffusion difference between the cations and anions. Moreover, the plasticizing effect of P123 and Emim:OAC can increase the elongation at break. As a consequence, the ionogel exhibits excellent properties including high Si (18 mV K-1 at relative humidity of 60%), good ionic conductivity (1.1 mS cm-1 ), superior stretchability (787%), and high stability (over 80% retention after 600 h). These findings show a promising strategy to obtain multifunctional iTE materials by engineering the intermolecular interactions and demonstrate the great potential of ionogels for harvesting low-grade heat in human-comfortable humidity environments.

Integrated microarray analysis of key genes and a miRNA­mRNA regulatory network of early­onset preeclampsia.

Early­onset preeclampsia (EOPE) is a serious threat to maternal and foetal health. The present study aimed to identify potential biomarkers and targets for the treatment of EOPE. Expression profiles of placenta from patients with EOPE and healthy controls (GSE103542, GSE74341 and GSE44711) were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. Integrated analysis revealed 246 genes and 28 microRNAs (miRNAs) that were differentially expressed between patients with EOPE and healthy controls. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were primarily enriched in 'biological processes', such as 'cell adhesion', 'female pregnancy', 'extracellular matrix organization' and 'response to hypoxia'. Significant pathways associated with DEGs primarily included 'focal adhesion', 'ECM­receptor interaction', 'PI3K­Akt signaling' and 'ovarian steroidogenesis'. A Protein­Protein Interaction network of DEGs was constructed using the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins online database, and epidermal growth factor receptor, collagen α­1(I) chain, secreted phosphoprotein 1, leptin (LEP), collagen α­2(I) chain (COL1A2), plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (SERPINE1), Thy­1 membrane glycoprotein, bone morphogenetic protein 4, vascular cell adhesion protein 1 and matrix metallopeptidase 1 were identified as hub genes. The alterations of hsa­miR­937, hsa­miR­148b*, hsa­miR­3907, hsa­miR­367*, COL1A2, LEP and SERPINE1 in placenta were validated using our local samples. Our research showed that the expression of hsa­miR­937, hsa­miR­1486*, hsa­miR­3907, hsa­miR­367* and hub genes in the placenta were closely associated with the pathophysiology of EOPE. hsa­miR­937, hsa­miR­1486*, hsa­miR­3907, hsa­miR­367* and hub genes could serve as biomarkers for diagnosis and as potential targets for the treatment of EOPE.

Synthesis of polypyrrole coated melamine foam by in-situ interfacial polymerization method for highly compressible and flexible supercapacitor.

Compressible and flexible supercapacitors have aroused enormous interest of many scientific researchers for potential applications in wearable electronic products. However, the design and construction of the electrode with superior mechanical as well as electrical properties still face a lot of challenges. In present work, melamine foam/polypyrrole (MF/PPy) electrode with high deformation-tolerance and excellent electrochemical performance is prepared by in-situ interfacial polymerization of polypyrrole on commercial melamine foam, where PPy nanoparticles with size of 700 nm are uniformly anchored on the MF skeletons. The electrochemical characterizations show that the electrode exhibits excellent specific area capacitance of 2.685 F cm-2 at 2 mA cm-2 and good cyclic stability with more than 80% of capacitance remained after 3000 cycles. Furthermore, a symmetrical aqueous supercapacitor is assembled and exhibits an excellent energy density up to 75.95 µWh cm-2 at the power density of 5.82 mW cm-2 and excellent cycling stability as the current density increases by 10 times. Even under a high strain of 70%, about 95.76% of the initial capacitance is retained after 500 consecutive compressions. These outstanding performances enable the MF/PPy composite a promising candidate for potential applications in compressible and flexible electrochemical energy storage devices.

Recent Advances in Functional-Polymer-Decorated Transition-Metal Nanomaterials for Bioimaging and Cancer Therapy.

In this review, we focus on recent advances in the synthesis of polymer-functionalized transition-metal-based nanomaterials and follow this up by discussing their applications in bioimaging diagnosis and cancer therapy. Transition-metal-based nanomaterials show great potential in cancer therapy owing to their intensive near-IR absorption, excellent photothermal conversion efficiency, strong X-ray attenuation, and magnetic properties. Functional polymers are usually introduced by a one-step or multistep method to further endow these nanomaterials with great biocompatibility and physiological stability. Polymer-decorated transition-metal nanomaterials show great potential in multimodal imaging diagnosis (photoacoustic imaging, computed tomography, photoluminescence imaging, positron emission tomography, etc.) and cancer therapy (chemotherapy, photothermal therapy, microwave therapy, radiotherapy, photodynamic therapy). At the end of this review, the prospects of these polymer-decorated transition-metal-based nanomaterials are also discussed.

Transferrin-decorated, MoS2-capped hollow mesoporous silica nanospheres as a self-guided chemo-photothermal nanoplatform for controlled drug release and thermotherapy.

To improve cancer therapeutic efficacy and avoid side effects on normal tissues, a targeted chemo-photothermal nanoplatform was designed based on transferrin-decorated and MoS2-capped hollow mesoporous silica nanospheres. MoS2 nanosheets acted as a gatekeeper to prevent the leakage of DOX from the drug delivery system as well as the photothermal agent (PTA) to improve the therapeutic effect and facilitate the NIR-triggered endosomal escape. In this work, MoS2 nanosheets were anchored on the surface of hollow mesoporous silica nanospheres (HMSNs) via the formation of disulfide bonds (-S-S), which could be easily cleaved in the presence of the intracellular GSH, leading to stimuli-responsive drug release from the hollow mesoporous silica nanocarriers. Moreover, to further improve the tumor specificity and cellular uptake of the anti-cancer drug, the nanocarrier surface was also modified with the targeting ligand transferrin via-S-S linkage. The results demonstrated that the transferrin-decorated, MoS2-capped HMSNs can be utilized as a targeting chemo-photothermal synergetic system with high therapeutic efficacy.