Multifunctional Acetamide Additive Combined with LiNO3 Co-Assists Low-Concentration Electrolyte Interfacial Stability for Lithium Metal Batteries.

Lithium metal batteries (LMBs) are expected to upgrade their energy density to meet the growing battery market demand; however, intractable lithium dendrites and prominent electrode-electrolyte interface problems have been the stumbling block to their practical applications. Electrolytes play a crucial role in LMBs and are directly involved in the establishment of the electrode-electrolyte interface. In particular, low-concentration electrolytes (LCEs) can significantly save electrolyte costs, but the interface issue is more noteworthy. Here, multifunctional acetamide (N-methyl-N-(trimethylsilyl)-trifluoroacetamide, MTA) and lithium nitrate (LiNO3) additives were introduced together to enhance the performance of LMBs in LCEs. The MTA additive effectively removes the trace water and corrosive HF from the electrolyte, thus suppressing lithium salt decomposition and enhancing the stability of LCEs. Moreover, the MTA additive can construct an inorganic-rich interphase layer on the cathode/anode surface to protect the electrode. Especially, MTA can cooperate with LiNO3 additive to suppress lithium dendrites and reduce interfacial impedance, thus effectively enhancing lithium metal anode stability. Benefiting from the introduction of MTA and LiNO3 additives in the LCEs, the Li||NMC811 metal battery still has a capacity of 110 mA h g-1 after 500 cycles at room temperature, while the reference batteries have failed. The rate capacity and high temperature (50 °C) performance of the Li||NCM811 batteries have also been significantly improved. Significantly, this research explores a cost-effective method of using multifunctional additives to enhance LMBs' stability in LCEs.

Formaldehyde Decomposition from -20 °C to Room Temperature on a Mn-Mullite YMn2O5 Catalyst.

Large ambient temperature changes (-20->25 °C) bring great challenges to the purification of the indoor pollutant formaldehyde. Within such a large ambient temperature range, we herein report a manganese-based strategy, that is, a mullite catalyst (YMn2O5) + ozone, to efficiently remove the formaldehyde pollution. At -20 °C, the formaldehyde removal efficiency reaches 62% under the condition of 60,000 mL gcat-1 h-1. As the reaction temperature is increased to -5 °C, formaldehyde and ozone are completely converted into CO2, H2O, and O2, respectively. Such a remarkable performance was ascribed to the highly reactive oxygen species generated by ozone on the YMn2O5 surface based on the low temperature-programed desorption measurements. The in situ infrared spectra showed the intermediate product carboxyl group (-COOH) to be the key species. Based on the superior performance, we built a consumable-free air purifier equipped with mullite-coated ceramics. In the simulated indoor condition (25 °C and 30% relative humidity), the equipment can effectively decompose formaldehyde (150 m3 h-1) without producing secondary pollutants, rivaling a commercial removal efficiency. This work provides an air purification route based on the mullite catalyst + ozone to remove formaldehyde in an ambient temperature range (-20->25 °C).

A Thermal Performance Analysis and Comparison of Fiber Coils with the D-CYL Winding and QAD Winding Methods.

The thermal performance under variable temperature conditions of fiber coils with double-cylinder (D-CYL) and quadrupolar (QAD) winding methods is comparatively analyzed. Simulation by the finite element method (FEM) is done to calculate the temperature distribution and the thermal-induced phase shift errors in the fiber coils. Simulation results reveal that D-CYL fiber coil itself has fragile performance when it experiences an axially asymmetrical temperature gradient. However, the axial fragility performance could be improved when the D-CYL coil meshes with a heat-off spool. Through further simulations we find that once the D-CYL coil is provided with an axially symmetrical temperature environment, the thermal performance of fiber coils with the D-CYL winding method is better than that with the QAD winding method under the same variable temperature conditions. This valuable discovery is verified by two experiments. The D-CYL winding method is thus promising to overcome the temperature fragility of interferometric fiber optic gyroscopes (IFOGs).

Preparation of lignosulfonate-acrylamide-chitosan ternary graft copolymer and its flocculation performance.

As flocculant plays an important role in wastewater treatment, searching for high efficient and cost-effective flocculants has always become the challenge in chemical industry. In the current work, lignosulfonate-acrylamide-chitosan ternary copolymer was designed and prepared as a new kind of flocculant. The elemental analysis and structure characterization of FTIR and XRD showed that acrylamide successfully grafted onto the two natural polymers and amorphous macromolecules were formed. The natural polymers-based flocculant was water soluble and pH independent. As it had multiple functional groups from the raw materials, the amphoteric flocculant showed high color removal efficiency to anionic (acid blue 113, >95%), neutral (reactive black 5, >95%) and cationic dyes (methyl orange, >50%) in a wide range of flocculant dosage and pH windows. The ternary flocculant, based on lignosulfonate, chitosan, and acrylamide, might be a promising material in practical applications from the perspective of cost, source and performance.

Online technique for detecting state of onboard fiber optic gyroscope.

Although angle random walk (ARW) of fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) has been well modeled and identified before being integrated into the high-accuracy attitude control system of satellite, aging and unexpected failures can affect the performance of FOG after launch, resulting in the variation of ARW coefficient. Therefore, the ARW coefficient can be regarded as an indicator of "state of health" for FOG diagnosis in some sense. The Allan variance method can be used to estimate ARW coefficient of FOG, however, it requires a large amount of data to be stored. Moreover, the procedure of drawing slope lines for estimation is painful. To overcome the barriers, a weighted state-space model that directly models the ARW to obtain a nonlinear state-space model was established for FOG. Then, a neural extended-Kalman filter algorithm was implemented to estimate and track the variation of ARW in real time. The results of experiment show that the proposed approach is valid to detect the state of FOG. Moreover, the proposed technique effectively avoids the storage of data.

Online estimation of Allan variance coefficients based on a neural-extended Kalman filter.

As a noise analysis method for inertial sensors, the traditional Allan variance method requires the storage of a large amount of data and manual analysis for an Allan variance graph. Although the existing online estimation methods avoid the storage of data and the painful procedure of drawing slope lines for estimation, they require complex transformations and even cause errors during the modeling of dynamic Allan variance. To solve these problems, first, a new state-space model that directly models the stochastic errors to obtain a nonlinear state-space model was established for inertial sensors. Then, a neural-extended Kalman filter algorithm was used to estimate the Allan variance coefficients. The real noises of an ADIS16405 IMU and fiber optic gyro-sensors were analyzed by the proposed method and traditional methods. The experimental results show that the proposed method is more suitable to estimate the Allan variance coefficients than the traditional methods. Moreover, the proposed method effectively avoids the storage of data and can be easily implemented using an online processor.

Impact of elevated aspartate and alanine aminotransferase on metabolic syndrome and its components among adult people living in Ningxia, China.

OBJECTIVE: Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a combination of medical disorders that increase the risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus. It suggests an association between an elevated serum aminotransferase level and MS. Little data show the relationship between the levels of serum aminotransferase and the incidence of MS in Ningxia, China. METHODS: A total of 5415 subjects who received medical health checkups from 2007 to 2009 were enrolled in the study. The participants were interviewed by trained health workers under a structured questionnaire. MS was defined according to the modified ATPIII criteria for Asian Americans by the American Heart Association (AHA-ATP III). RESULTS: The prevalence of elevated aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and ALT (>40 U/L) were 7.1% and 22.2% in males, and 2.1% and 4.8% in females respectively. The prevalence of MS was 32.1% in males and 15.4% in females. The components of MS were significantly more in the group with elevated aminotransferase levels than in the group with normal aminotransferase levels. The odds ratios (95% CI) for elevated AST were 1.90 (1.49, 2.42), 2.59 (2.01, 3.39), 1.68 (1.32, 2.15), and 1.81 (1.36, 2.42) in the adults with abdominal obesity, high serum triglycerides levels, high blood pressure, and high plasma glucose levels respectively. After adjustment for age, the odds ratios (95% CI) for elevated ALT were 3.08 (2.63, 3.61), 4.30 (3.64, 5.08), 1.26 (1.08, 1.48), 2.16 (1.93, 2.65) and 2.38 (1.96, 2.87) in adults with abdominal obesity, high serum triglycerides levels, low serum high-density lipoproteincholesterol (HDL-C), high blood pressure, and high plasma glucose levels respectively. The odds ratios (95% CI) for elevated AST were 1.67 (1.06, 2.63), 2.28 (1.46, 3.63), 2.59 (1.59, 4.21) and for elevated ALT 2.02 (1.50, 2.73), 2.68 (1.96, 3.65), 3.94 (2.86, 5.43) for the subjects with 1, 2, and ≥3 risk factors after adjustment for age, gender, and BMI. CONCLUSION: The serum aminotransferase levels were higher in males compared to females, and serum ALT level was more closely associated with MS than the AST level in adults in Ningxia, China. With an increasing the number of components of MS, the aminotransferase levels and the risks for elevated aminotransferase increase, whereas the AST/ALT ratios decrease.