Constructing static two-electron lithium-bromide battery.

Despite their potential as conversion-type energy storage technologies, the performance of static lithium-bromide (SLB) batteries has remained stagnant for decades. Progress has been hindered by the intrinsic liquid-liquid redox mode and single-electron transfer of these batteries. Here, we developed a high-performance SLB battery based on the active bromine salt cathode and the two-electron transfer chemistry with a Br-/Br+ redox couple by electrolyte tailoring. The introduction of NO3- improved the reversible single-electron transition of Br-, and more impressively, the coordinated Cl- anions activated the Br+ conversion to provide an additional electron transfer. A voltage plateau was observed at 3.8 V, and the discharge capacity and energy density were increased by 142 and 159% compared to the one-electron reaction benchmark. This two-step conversion mechanism exhibited excellent stability, with the battery functioning for 1000 cycles. These performances already approach the state of the art of currently established Li-halogen batteries. We consider the established two-electron redox mechanism highly exemplary for diversified halogen batteries.

Halogen-powered static conversion chemistry.

Halogen-powered static conversion batteries (HSCBs) thrive in energy storage applications. They fall into the category of secondary non-flow batteries and operate by reversibly changing the chemical valence of halogens in the electrodes or/and electrolytes to transfer electrons, distinguishing them from the classic rocking-chair batteries. The active halide chemicals developed for these purposes include organic halides, halide salts, halogenated inorganics, organic-inorganic halides and the most widely studied elemental halogens. Aside from this, various redox mechanisms have been discovered based on multi-electron transfer and effective reaction pathways, contributing to improved electrochemical performances and stabilities of HSCBs. In this Review, we discuss the status of HSCBs and their electrochemical mechanism-performance correlations. We first provide a detailed exposition of the fundamental redox mechanisms, thermodynamics, conversion and catalysis chemistry, and mass or electron transfer modes involved in HSCBs. We conclude with a perspective on the challenges faced by the community and opportunities towards practical applications of high-energy halogen cathodes in energy-storage devices.

Perovskite Cathodes for Aqueous and Organic Iodine Batteries Operating Under One and Two Electrons Redox Modes.

Although conversion-type iodine-based batteries are considered promising for energy storage systems, stable electrode materials are scarce, especially for high-performance multi-electron reactions. The use of tin-based iodine-rich 2D Dion-Jacobson (DJ) ODASnI4 (ODA: 1,8-octanediamine) perovskite materials as cathode materials for iodine-based batteries is suggested. As a proof of concept, organic lithium-perovskite and aqueous zinc-perovskite batteries are fabricated and they can be operated based on the conventional one-electron and advanced two-electron transfer modes. The active elemental iodine in the perovskite cathode provides capacity through a reversible I- /I+ redox pair conversion at full depth, and the rapid electron injection/extraction leads to excellent reaction kinetics. Consequently, high discharge plateaus (1.71 V vs Zn2+ /Zn; 3.41 V vs Li+ /Li), large capacity (421 mAh g-1 I ), and a low decay rate (1.74 mV mAh-1 g-1 I ) are achieved for lithium and zinc ion batteries, respectively. This study demonstrates the promising potential of perovskite materials for high-performance metal-iodine batteries. Their reactions based on the two-electron transfer mechanism shed light on similar battery systems aiming for decent operational stability and high energy density.

Bidirectional Confined Redox Catalysis Manipulated Quasi-Solid Iodine Conversion for Shuttle-Free Solid-State Zn-I2 Battery.

Electrochemically reversible conversion of I2/I- redox couple in a controllable iodine speciation manner is the eternal target for practical metal-iodine batteries. This contribution demonstrates an advanced polyiodide-free Zn-I2 battery achieved by the bidirectional confined redox catalysis-directed quasi-solid iodine conversion. A core-shell structured iodine cathode is fabricated by integrating multiporous Prussian blue nanocubes as a catalytic mediator, and the polypyrrole sheath afforded a confinement environment that favored the iodine redox. The zincate Znx+1FeIII/II[Fe(CN)6]y has substantially faster zinc-ion intercalation kinetics and overlapping kinetic voltage profiles compared with the I2/ZnI2 redox, and behave as a redox mediator that catalyze reduction of polyiodides via chemical redox reactions during battery discharging and an exemplary reaction is Zn(I3)2+2Znx+1FeII[Fe(CN)6]y=3ZnI2+2ZnxFeIII[Fe(CN)6]y,ΔG=-19.3 kJ mol-1). During the following recharging process, the electrodeposited ZnI2 can be facially activated by iron redox hotspots, and the ZnxFe[FeIII/II(CN)6]y served as a cation-transfer mediator and spontaneously catalyze polyiodides oxidation (Zn(I3)2+2ZnxFe[FeIII(CN)6]y=3I2+2Znx+1Fe[FeII(CN)6]y,ΔG = -7.72 kJ mol-1), manipulating the reversible one-step conversion of ZnI2 back to I2. Accordingly, a flexible solid-state battery employing the designed cathode can deliver an energy density of 215 Wh kgiodine -1.

Detecting tea tree pests in complex backgrounds using a hybrid architecture guided by transformers and multi-scale attention mechanism.

BACKGROUND: Tea pests pose a significant threat to tea leaf yield and quality, necessitating fast and accurate detection methods to improve pest control efficiency and reduce economic losses for tea farmers. However, in real tea gardens, some tea pests are small in size and easily camouflaged by complex backgrounds, making it challenging for farmers to promptly and accurately identify them. RESULTS: To address this issue, we propose a real-time detection method based on TP-YOLOX for monitoring tea pests in complex backgrounds. Our approach incorporates the CSBLayer module, which combines convolution and multi-head self-attention mechanisms, to capture global contextual information from images and expand the network's perception field. Additionally, we integrate an efficient multi-scale attention module to enhance the model's ability to perceive fine details in small targets. To expedite model convergence and improve the precision of target localization, we employ the SIOU loss function as the bounding box regression function. Experimental results demonstrate that TP-YOLOX achieves a significant performance improvement with a relatively small additional computational cost (0.98 floating-point operations), resulting in a 4.50% increase in mean average precision (mAP) compared to the original YOLOX-s. When compared with existing object detection algorithms, TP-YOLOX outperforms them in terms of mAP performance. Moreover, the proposed method achieves a frame rate of 82.66 frames per second, meeting real-time requirements. CONCLUSION: TP-YOLOX emerges as a proficient solution, capable of accurately and swiftly identifying tea pests amidst the complex backgrounds of tea gardens. This contribution not only offers valuable insights for tea pest monitoring but also serves as a reference for achieving precise pest control. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.

Comprehensive Review of Drug-Drug Interaction Prediction Based on Machine Learning: Current Status, Challenges, and Opportunities.

Detecting drug-drug interactions (DDIs) is an essential step in drug development and drug administration. Given the shortcomings of current experimental methods, the machine learning (ML) approach has become a reliable alternative, attracting extensive attention from the academic and industrial fields. With the rapid development of computational science and the growing popularity of cross-disciplinary research, a large number of DDI prediction studies based on ML methods have been published in recent years. To give an insight into the current situation and future direction of DDI prediction research, we systemically review these studies from three aspects: (1) the classic DDI databases, mainly including databases of drugs, side effects, and DDI information; (2) commonly used drug attributes, which focus on chemical, biological, and phenotypic attributes for representing drugs; (3) popular ML approaches, such as shallow learning-based, deep learning-based, recommender system-based, and knowledge graph-based methods for DDI detection. For each section, related studies are described, summarized, and compared, respectively. In the end, we conclude the research status of DDI prediction based on ML methods and point out the existing issues, future challenges, potential opportunities, and subsequent research direction.

Effects of Normalizing Temperature on Microstructure and Impact Toughness of V-N Micro-Alloyed P460NL1 Steel.

In this work, the influence of normalizing temperature on vanadium micro-alloyed P460NL1 steel is studied in terms of microstructures and impact toughness. With the normalizing temperature increased from 850 °C to 950 °C, the V(C,N) particles are dissolved. The dissolution of V(C,N) particles leads to a reduction in their ability to pin the primitive austenite grain boundaries, resulting in the coarsening of the primitive austenite grain. Simultaneously, the number of precipitated particles promoting ferrite nucleation decreased. The combination of these two effects led to the coarsening of ferrite grains in the steel samples. Of note, in the sample normalized at a temperature of 850 °C, the ferrite and pearlite crystals clearly exhibited banded structures. As the normalizing temperature increased, the ferrite-pearlite belt phase weakened. The highly distributed belt phase resulted in poor impact toughness of the steel sample normalized at 850 °C. The belt phase was improved at a normalizing temperature of 900 °C. In addition to that, the microstructure did not undergo significant coarsening at this normalizing temperature, thereby allowing it to achieve the highest toughness among all samples that were prepared for this study. The belt phase almost vanished at the normalizing temperature of 950 °C. However, microstructure coarsening occurred at this temperature, resulting in the deterioration of impact toughness.

Three-Electron Transfer-Based High-Capacity Organic Lithium-Iodine (Chlorine) Batteries.

Conversion-type batteries apply the principle that more charge transfer is preferable. The underutilized electron transfer mode within two undermines the electrochemical performance of halogen batteries. Here, we realised a three-electron transfer lithium-halogen battery based on I- /I+ and Cl- /Cl0 couples by using a common commercial electrolyte saturated with Cl- anions. The resulting Li||tetrabutylammonium triiodide (TBAI3 ) cell exhibits three distinct discharging plateaus at 2.97, 3.40, and 3.85 V. Moreover, it has a high capacity of 631 mAh g-1 I (265 mAh g-1 electrode , based on entire mass loading) and record-high energy density of up to 2013 Wh kg-1 I (845 Wh kg-1 electrode ). To support these findings, experimental characterisations and density functional theory calculations were conducted to elucidate the redox chemistry involved in this novel interhalogen strategy. We believe our paradigm presented here has a foreseeable inspiring effect on other halogen batteries for high-energy-density pursuit.

Maximizing Terahertz Energy Absorption with MXene Absorber.

Achieving high absorption in broad terahertz bands has long been challenging for terahertz electromagnetic wave absorbers. Recently in Nature Photonics, Xiao et al. reported the high absorption approaching the theoretical upper limit across the whole terahertz band of MXene-based terahertz absorbers and, on this basis, constructed an applicable, updated alternating current impedance matching model.

Anion chemistry in energy storage devices.

Anions serve as an essential component of electrolytes, whose effects have long been ignored. However, since the 2010s, we have seen a considerable increase of anion chemistry research in a range of energy storage devices, and it is now understood that anions can be well tuned to effectively improve the electrochemical performance of such devices in many aspects. In this Review, we discuss the roles of anion chemistry across various energy storage devices and clarify the correlations between anion properties and their performance indexes. We highlight the effects of anions on surface and interface chemistry, mass transfer kinetics and solvation sheath structure. Finally, we conclude with a perspective on the challenges and opportunities of anion chemistry for enhancing specific capacity, output voltage, cycling stability and anti-self-discharge ability of energy storage devices.

Thermostability enhancement of Escherichia coli phytase by error-prone polymerase chain reaction (epPCR) and site-directed mutagenesis.

Phytase efficiently hydrolyzes phytate to phosphate; thus, it is widely used to increase phosphorus availability in animal feeds and reduce phosphorus pollution through excretion. Phytase is easily inactivated during feed pelleting at high temperature, and sufficient thermostability of phytase is essential for industrial applications. In this study, directed evolution was performed to enhance phytase thermostability. Variants were initially expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 for screening, then in Pichia pastoris for characterization. Over 19,000 clones were generated from an error-prone Polymerase Chain Reaction (epPCR) library; 5 mutants (G10, D7, E3, F8, and F9) were obtained with approximately 9.6%, 10.6%, 11.5%, 11.6%, and 12.2% higher residual activities than the parent after treatment at 99°C for 60 min. Three of these mutants, D7, E3, and F8, exhibited 79.8%, 73.2%, and 92.6% increases in catalytic efficiency (kcat/Km), respectively. In addition, the specific activities of D7, E3, and F8 were 2.33-, 1.98-, and 2.02-fold higher than parental phytase; they were also higher than the activities of all known thermostable phytases. Sequence analysis revealed that all mutants were substituted at residue 75 and was confirmed that the substitution of cysteine at position 75 was the main contribution to the improvement of thermostability of mutants by saturation mutagenesis, indicating that this amino acid is crucial for the stability and catalytic efficiency of phytase. Docking structure analysis revealed that substitution of the C75 residue allowed the mutants to form additional hydrogen bonds in the active pocket, thereby facilitating binding to the substrate. In addition, we confirmed that the intrinsic C77-C108 disulfide bond in E. coli phytase is detrimental to its stability.

Development of rechargeable high-energy hybrid zinc-iodine aqueous batteries exploiting reversible chlorine-based redox reaction.

The chlorine-based redox reaction (ClRR) could be exploited to produce secondary high-energy aqueous batteries. However, efficient and reversible ClRR is challenging, and it is affected by parasitic reactions such as Cl2 gas evolution and electrolyte decomposition. Here, to circumvent these issues, we use iodine as positive electrode active material in a battery system comprising a Zn metal negative electrode and a concentrated (e.g., 30 molal) ZnCl2 aqueous electrolyte solution. During cell discharge, the iodine at the positive electrode interacts with the chloride ions from the electrolyte to enable interhalogen coordinating chemistry and forming ICl3-. In this way, the redox-active halogen atoms allow a reversible three-electrons transfer reaction which, at the lab-scale cell level, translates into an initial specific discharge capacity of 612.5 mAh gI2-1 at 0.5 A gI2-1 and 25 °C (corresponding to a calculated specific energy of 905 Wh kgI2-1). We also report the assembly and testing of a Zn | |Cl-I pouch cell prototype demonstrating a discharge capacity retention of about 74% after 300 cycles at 200 mA and 25 °C (final discharge capacity of about 92 mAh).

Manipulating Coulombic Efficiency of Cathodes in Aqueous Zinc Batteries by Anion Chemistry.

Electrolyte environments, including cations, anions, and solvents are critical for the performance delivery of cathodes of batteries. Most works focused on interactions between cations and cathode materials, in contrast, there is a lack of in-depth research on the correlation between anions and cathodes. Here, we systematically investigated how anions manipulate the coulombic efficiency (CE) of cathodes of zinc batteries. We take intercalation-type V2 O5 and conversion-type I2 cathodes as typical cases for profound studies. It was found that electronic properties of anions, including charge density and its distribution, can tune conversion or intercalation reactions, leading to significant CE differences. Using operando visual Raman microscopy and theoretical simulations, we confirm that competitive coordination between anions and I- can regulate CEs by modulating polyiodide diffusion rates in Zn-I2 cells. In Zn-V2 O5 cells, anion-tuned solvation structures vastly affect CEs through varying Zn2+ intercalation kinetics. Conversion I2 cathode achieves a 99 % CE with highly electron-donating anions, while anions with preferable charge structures that interact strongly with Zn2+ afford an intercalation V2 O5 a nearly 100 % CE. Understanding the mechanism of anion-governed CEs will help us evaluate compatibility of electrolytes with electrodes, thus providing a guideline for anion selection and electrolyte design for high-energy, long-cycling zinc batteries.

Expanding individualized therapeutic options via genoproteomics.

Clinical next-generation sequencing (NGS) tests have enabled treatment recommendations for cancer patients with driver gene mutations. Targeted therapy options for patients without driver gene mutations are currently unavailable. Herein, we performed NGS and proteomics tests on 169 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples of non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC, 65), colorectal cancers (CRC, 61), thyroid carcinomas (THCA, 14), gastric cancers (GC, 2), gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST, 11), and malignant melanomas (MM, 6). Of the 169 samples, NGS detected 14 actionable mutated genes in 73 samples, providing treatment options for 43% of the patients. Proteomics identified 61 actionable clinical drug targets approved by the FDA or undergoing clinical trials in 122 samples, providing treatment options for 72% of the patients. In vivo experiments demonstrated that the Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase (MEK) inhibitor could block lung tumor growth in mice with overexpression of Map2k1 protein. Therefore, protein overexpression is a potentially feasible indicator for guiding targeted therapies. Collectively, our analysis suggests that combining NGS and proteomics (genoproteomics) could expand the targeted treatment options to 85% of cancer patients.

Structural identification and comprehensive comparison of saponin-related impurities present in the three different compound glycyrrhizin tablets.

Compound Glycyrrhizin Tablet (CGT) is a glycyrrhizin-containing (monoammonium glycyrrhizate, MAG) preparation, which has been widely used in clinical treatment of chronic liver diseases, eczema, atopic dermatitis and other conditions. However, the impurity profile of CGT has not yet been completely elucidated. In this study, eight main saponin-related impurity compounds were initially isolated and identified. Thereafter, based on the characteristic MS/MS fragmentation pathways analysis of the isolated compounds, a novel strategy for characterization and identification of saponin-related impurities was proposed. Then, a total of 41 saponin-related impurities were identified or tentatively characterized in CGTs. Furthermore, principal component analysis (PCA), Wayne diagram and heatmap analysis revealed that the process-related impurity profile in CGTs from three different manufacturers was significantly different. Overall, our findings provided additional technological support for evaluating saponin-related impurities, thereby laying a solid foundation to develop strategies for future product quality improvement.

Regulating Inorganic and Organic Components to Build Amorphous-ZnFx Enriched Solid-Electrolyte Interphase for Highly Reversible Zn Metal Chemistry.

The introduction of inorganic crystallites into a solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) is an effective strategy for improving the reversibility of the Zn metal anode (ZMA). However, the structure-performance relationship of the SEI is not fully understood because the existing forms of its inorganic and organic components in their pristine states are not resolved. Here, a highly effective SEI is constructed for ZMA using a bisolvent electrolyte and resolved its composition/structure by cryogenic transmission electron microscopy. This highly fluorinated SEI with amorphous inorganic ZnFx uniformly distributed in the organic matrix is largely different from the common mosaic and multilayer SEIs with crystalline inorganics. It features improved structural integrity, mechanical toughness, and Zn2+ ion conductivity. Consequently, the ZMA exhibits excellent reversibility with an enhanced plating/stripping Coulombic efficiency of 99.8%. The ZMA-based full cell achieves a high Zn utilization ratio of 54% at a practical areal capacity of 3.2 mAh cm-2 and stable cycling over 1800 h during which the accumulated capacity reached 5600 mAh cm-2 . This research highlights the detailed structure and composition of amorphous SEIs for highly reversible metal anodes.

An Air-Rechargeable Zn Battery Enabled by Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Cathode.

Self-charging power systems collecting energy harvesting technology and batteries are attracting extensive attention. To solve the disadvantages of the traditional integrated system, such as highly dependent on energy supply and complex structure, an air-rechargeable Zn battery based on MoS2/PANI cathode is reported. Benefited from the excellent conductivity desolvation shield of PANI, the MoS2/PANI cathode exhibits ultra-high capacity (304.98 mAh g-1 in N2 and 351.25 mAh g-1 in air). In particular, this battery has the ability to collect, convert and store energy simultaneously by an air-rechargeable process of the spontaneous redox reaction between the discharged cathode and O2 from air. The air-rechargeable Zn batteries display a high open-circuit voltage (1.15 V), an unforgettable discharge capacity (316.09 mAh g-1 and the air-rechargeable depth is 89.99%) and good air-recharging stability (291.22 mAh g-1 after 50 air recharging/galvanostatic current discharge cycle). Most importantly, both our quasi-solid zinc ion batteries and batteries modules have excellent performance and practicability. This work will provide a promising research direction for the material design and device assembly of the next-generation self-powered system.

Inducing Fe 3d Electron Delocalization and Spin-State Transition of FeN4 Species Boosts Oxygen Reduction Reaction for Wearable Zinc-Air Battery.

Transition metal-nitrogen-carbon materials (M-N-Cs), particularly Fe-N-Cs, have been found to be electroactive for accelerating oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) kinetics. Although substantial efforts have been devoted to design Fe-N-Cs with increased active species content, surface area, and electronic conductivity, their performance is still far from satisfactory. Hitherto, there is limited research about regulation on the electronic spin states of Fe centers for Fe-N-Cs electrocatalysts to improve their catalytic performance. Here, we introduce Ti3C2 MXene with sulfur terminals to regulate the electronic configuration of FeN4 species and dramatically enhance catalytic activity toward ORR. The MXene with sulfur terminals induce the spin-state transition of FeN4 species and Fe 3d electron delocalization with d band center upshift, enabling the Fe(II) ions to bind oxygen in the end-on adsorption mode favorable to initiate the reduction of oxygen and boosting oxygen-containing groups adsorption on FeN4 species and ORR kinetics. The resulting FeN4-Ti3C2Sx exhibits comparable catalytic performance to those of commercial Pt-C. The developed wearable ZABs using FeN4-Ti3C2Sx also exhibit fast kinetics and excellent stability. This study confirms that regulation of the electronic structure of active species via coupling with their support can be a major contributor to enhance their catalytic activity.

Low follistatin level is a causal risk factor for spontaneous abortion: a two-sample mendelian randomization study.

Background: Recurrent pregnancy loss is a distressing event during pregnancy, and understanding its causal factors is crucial. Follistatin, a glycoprotein involved in folliculogenesis and embryogenesis, has been implicated as a potential contributor to the risk of spontaneous abortion. However, establishing a causal relationship requires rigorous investigation using robust methods. Methods: In this study, we utilized mendelian randomization (MR), a powerful genetic epidemiological approach, to examine the causal relationship between follistatin levels and spontaneous abortion. We obtained instrumental variables strongly associated with follistatin levels from large-scale genome-wide association from the IEU database. The inverse variance weighting (IVW) method was taken as gold standard. We also performed sensitivity test to evaluate the robustness of our result. Results: MR analysis revealed a significant causal relationship between low follistatin levels and spontaneous abortion (p = 0.03). Sensitivity analyses, including pleiotropy test, heterogeneity test, and leave-one-out analysis, all supported the robustness of our findings. Conclusion: Our study provides compelling evidence supporting the causal relationship between low follistatin levels and increased risk of spontaneous abortion. These findings underscore the importance of follistatin in the etiology of spontaneous abortion and suggest potential preventive interventions. Modulating follistatin levels or relevant pathways could hold promise for reducing the incidence of spontaneous abortion and improving reproductive outcomes. The utilization of MRs strengthens the validity of our results by mitigating confounding and reverse causality biases. Further research is needed to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms and explore therapeutic strategies targeting follistatin levels.