Formulation of traditional Chinese medicine and its application on intestinal flora of constipated rats.

In this study, the self-extracted constipation treatment of traditional Chinese medicine extracts was applied to constipated rats. To explore the mechanism and role of the Chinese medicine for the treatment of constipation, the 16S rRNA sequencing and qRT-PCR technology were used to analyze the intestinal flora. We found that the relative abundance of Firmicutes with constipation was significantly higher accounted for 86.7%, while the gut microbiota was significantly changed after taking a certain dose of Chinese medicine, greatly increased the relative abundance of Lactobacillus accounted for 23.1%, enhanced the symbiotic relationships of Lactobacillus with other intestinal flora. The total copies of intestinal bacteria in the constipated rats decreased after taking the traditional Chinese medicine. Finally, this study results provides a theoretical basis for the treatment and understand the mechanism and effect of traditional Chinese medicine on rate constipation.

A sulfur-modified pore-blocking method to enhance the electrocatalytic stability of carbon-supported platinum nanoparticles.

Currently, the durability of electrode materials remains a big obstacle to the widespread adoption of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Herein thiourea and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDS) were employed as sulfur source and carbon source to modify the pristine carbon black (Ketjen black EC300 J). A highly durable carbon supported Pt nanosized catalyst with higher platinum utilization for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in PEMFCs was produced by doping elemental sulfur into carbon supports and decreasing the carbon pore sizes and volume through a successive impregnation technique. The catalyst exhibits an initial activity of 0.167 A mgPt -1 at 0.90 V and demonstrates minimal activity loss after acceleration stress test (30,000 cycles of AST). The half-wave potential loss for representative sample (Pt/S-C-3) is only 14 mV with only 21.8 % ECSA decrease, 27.5 % MA loss and 5.9 % SA loss. A sintering test at various temperature shows a minor average size increase for sulfur-doped carbon (S-C) supported one (from 2.09 to 2.52 nm). In single-cell test, the MEA sample employing the platinum catalyst on modified carbon as cathode exhibited almost negligible performance loss after 30,000 cycles of AST.

Synergistic effect of microwave heating and hydrothermal methods on synthesized Ni2CoS4/GO for ultrahigh capacity supercapacitors.

A simple and efficient strategy that takes advantages of the synergistic effect of microwave heating method and hydrothermal method is used to synthesize Ni2CoS4/graphene oxide (MH-Ni2CoS4/GO). Firstly, Ni2CoS4 nanoparticles are observed to grow uniformly on the surface of GO. Then the obtained MH-Ni2CoS4/GO electrode is tested and it demonstrates ultrahigh specific capacitance of 2675.0 F g-1 at the current densities of 2 A g-1, fantastic stability of 95.0% even after 2000 cycles at 30 A g-1 and excellent rate capability of 89.7% with current density increasing from 2 A g-1 to 30 A g-1. Moreover, the assembled AC//MH-Ni2CoS4/GO asymmetric supercapacitor also delivers a good specific capacitance of 126.5 F g-1 at 0.5 A g-1, outstanding stability of 97.0% after 2000 cycles at 5.0 A g-1, and an ultrahigh energy density of 59.6 Wh kg-1 at power density of 497.6 W kg-1. This work provides an approach to synthesize electrode materials with superior excellent performances and it can be easily scaled up for practical applications in supercapacitors.

Porous nanorods of nickel-cobalt double hydroxide prepared by electrochemical co-deposition for high-performance supercapacitors.

Nickel-cobalt double hydroxides (Ni-Co DHs) combined with cost-effectively commercial expanded graphite (EG) was prepared via a facile in-situ electrodeposition in mixed solvents of N,N-dimethylformamide and water. By simply adjust molar ratios of Ni2+/Co2+, a Ni-Co DHs/EG electrode in which Ni-Co DHs showing a porous-nanorod microstructure was fabricated. Thanks to synergistic effects between Ni(OH)2 and Co(OH)2 as well as the unique morphology of porous nanorods, an optimal Ni-Co DHs/EG electrode with a total mass loading of 4.0 mg cm-2 can deliver a specific capacitance of 1246 F g-1 at 1 A g-1, a rate capability of 91.8% as the discharging current density increasing from 1 to 10 A g-1, and a capacitance retention of 80.1% after 1000 cycles charged/discharged at 10 A g-1. Thus we can draw a conclusion that the Ni-Co DHs/EG electrode possesses a satisfactory specific capacitance, extremely superior rate performance, and good cycle stability, therefore it can be very competitive for practical applications in supercapacitors.