Medium‐entropy (Ti,Zr,Hf)C ceramics were prepared by hot pressing a dual‐phase medium‐entropy carbide powder with low oxygen content (0.45 wt%). The results demonstrate that the medium‐entropy ...(Ti,Zr,Hf)C ceramics sintered at 2100°C had a relative density of 99.2% and an average grain size of 1.9 ± 0.6 μm. The flexural strength of (Ti,Zr,Hf)C carbide ceramics at room temperature was 579 ± 62 MPa. With an increase in temperature to 1600°C, the flexural strength showed an increase up to 619 ± 57 MPa, and had no significant degradation even up to 1800°C. The high‐temperature flexural strengths of (Ti,Zr,Hf)C were obviously higher than those of the monocarbide ceramics (TiC, ZrC, and HfC). The primary strengthening mechanism in (Ti,Zr,Hf)C could be attributed to the high lattice parameter mismatch effects between TiC and ZrC, which not only inhibited the fast grain coarsening of (Ti,Zr,Hf)C ceramics, but also increased the grain‐boundary strength of the obtained ceramics.
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A tandem phospha‐Michael addition/N‐acylation/intramolecular Wittig reaction of in situ formed aza‐o‐QMs is disclosed. This approach features high functional group tolerance and provides a convenient ...and practical access to biologically significant indole derivatives (37 examples, up to 91% yield) under mild reaction conditions.
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Sodium (Na)‐ion batteries (NIBs) are considered promising alternative candidates to the well‐commercialized lithium‐ion batteries, especially for applications in large‐scale energy storage systems. ...The electrochemical performance of NIBs such as the cyclability, rate capability, and voltage profiles are strongly dependent on the structural and morphological evolution, phase transformation, sodium‐ion diffusion, and electrode/electrolyte interface reconstruction during charge–discharge cycling. Therefore, in‐depth understanding of the structure and kinetics of electrode materials and the electrode/electrolyte interfaces is essential for optimizing current NIB systems and exploring new materials for NIBs. Recently, rapid progress and development in spectroscopic, microscopic, and scattering techniques have provided extensive insight into the nature of structural evolution, morphological changes of electrode materials, and electrode/electrolyte interface in NIBs. In this review, a comprehensive overview of both static (ex situ) and real‐time (in situ or in operando) techniques for studying the NIBs is provided. Special focus is placed on how these techniques are applied to the fundamental investigation of NIB systems and what important results are obtained.
Advanced characterization techniques are applied for a fundamental investigation of sodium‐ion batteries (NIBs) from different perspectives at various dimensions and scales during an electrochemical process. By summarizing the comprehensive overview of both static (ex situ) and real‐time (in situ or in operando) techniques, it is hoped that this review is helpful for scientists in the research field of NIBs.
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Metallic zinc is an ideal anode due to its high theoretical capacity (820 mAh g
), low redox potential (-0.762 V versus the standard hydrogen electrode), high abundance and low toxicity. When used in ...aqueous electrolyte, it also brings intrinsic safety, but suffers from severe irreversibility. This is best exemplified by low coulombic efficiency, dendrite growth and water consumption. This is thought to be due to severe hydrogen evolution during zinc plating and stripping, hitherto making the in-situ formation of a solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) impossible. Here, we report an aqueous zinc battery in which a dilute and acidic aqueous electrolyte with an alkylammonium salt additive assists the formation of a robust, Zn
-conducting and waterproof SEI. The presence of this SEI enables excellent performance: dendrite-free zinc plating/stripping at 99.9% coulombic efficiency in a Ti||Zn asymmetric cell for 1,000 cycles; steady charge-discharge in a Zn||Zn symmetric cell for 6,000 cycles (6,000 h); and high energy densities (136 Wh kg
in a Zn||VOPO
full battery with 88.7% retention for >6,000 cycles, 325 Wh kg
in a Zn||O
full battery for >300 cycles and 218 Wh kg
in a Zn||MnO
full battery with 88.5% retention for 1,000 cycles) using limited zinc. The SEI-forming electrolyte also allows the reversible operation of an anode-free pouch cell of Ti||Zn
VOPO
at 100% depth of discharge for 100 cycles, thus establishing aqueous zinc batteries as viable cell systems for practical applications.
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LiNixCoyMnzO2 (x+y+z=1)||graphite lithium‐ion battery (LIB) chemistry promises practical applications. However, its low‐temperature (≤ −20 °C) performance is poor because the increased resistance ...encountered by Li+ transport in and across the bulk electrolytes and the electrolyte/electrode interphases induces capacity loss and battery failures. Though tremendous efforts have been made, there is still no effective way to reduce the charge transfer resistance (Rct) which dominates low‐temperature LIBs performance. Herein, we propose a strategy of using low‐polarity‐solvent electrolytes which have weak interactions between the solvents and the Li+ to reduce Rct, achieving facile Li+ transport at sub‐zero temperatures. The exemplary electrolyte enables LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.1O2||graphite cells to deliver a capacity of ≈113 mAh g−1 (98 % full‐cell capacity) at 25 °C and to remain 82 % of their room‐temperature capacity at −20 °C without lithium plating at 1/3C. They also retain 84 % of their capacity at −30 °C and 78 % of their capacity at −40 °C and show stable cycling at 50 °C.
Low‐polarity‐solvent electrolytes (LPSEs) 1) enable the formation of the anion‐derived interphases on both electrodes and 2) have weak interactions between the solvent molecules and Li+, which provide fast Li+ transport kinetics and reduced resistance in both charge transfer process and Li+ transport in electrode/electrolyte interphases, achieving excellent battery performance under both fast‐charge and low‐temperature conditions.
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Rapeseed (Brassica napus) is the second most important oilseed crop in the world but the genetic diversity underlying its massive phenotypic variations remains largely unexplored. Here, we report the ...sequencing, de novo assembly and annotation of eight B. napus accessions. Using pan-genome comparative analysis, millions of small variations and 77.2-149.6 megabase presence and absence variations (PAVs) were identified. More than 9.4% of the genes contained large-effect mutations or structural variations. PAV-based genome-wide association study (PAV-GWAS) directly identified causal structural variations for silique length, seed weight and flowering time in a nested association mapping population with ZS11 (reference line) as the donor, which were not detected by single-nucleotide polymorphisms-based GWAS (SNP-GWAS), demonstrating that PAV-GWAS was complementary to SNP-GWAS in identifying associations to traits. Further analysis showed that PAVs in three FLOWERING LOCUS C genes were closely related to flowering time and ecotype differentiation. This study provides resources to support a better understanding of the genome architecture and acceleration of the genetic improvement of B. napus.
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FZAB, GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
High‐energy‐density batteries with a LiCoO2 (LCO) cathode are of significant importance to the energy‐storage market, especially for portable electronics. However, their development is greatly ...limited by the inferior performance under high voltages and challenging temperatures. Here, highly stable lithium (Li) metal batteries with LCO cathode, through the design of in situ formed, stable electrode/electrolyte interphases on both the Li anode and the LCO cathode, with an advanced electrolyte, are reported. The LCO cathode can deliver a high specific capacity of ≈190 mAh g−1 and show greatly improved cell performances under a high charge voltage of 4.5 V (even up to 4.55 V) and a wide temperature range from −30 to 55 °C. This work points out a promising approach for developing Li||LCO batteries for practical applications. This approach can also be used to improve the high‐voltage performance of other batteries in a broad temperature range.
High‐voltage LiCoO2 cathodes are highly desirable for various energy‐storage applications, especially when coupled with lithium metal anodes. Fluorine‐rich electrode/electrolyte interphases in situ formed in an advanced ether electrolyte are found to enable highly stable cell cycling under elevated temperatures. Such interphases effectively suppress electrolyte side reactions and preserve the integrity of both cathode and anode materials.
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Batting the ylides: A simple procedure carried out under mild conditions allows the direct and efficient synthesis of structurally diverse indoles. This approach involves a cascade reaction of sulfur ...ylides and N‐(ortho‐chloromethyl)aryl amides (see scheme).
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To investigate the dynamic gene expression during B. napus development and provide an easy access visualization of the expression levels of B. napus genes, we performed RNA-seq for 91 different ...tissue samples including root, seedling, stem, 1st-23rd leaves from the main branch, flower buds (2 and 4 mm), flower tissues (sepal, petal, filament, and pollen), silique walls (2–60 day after flowering (DAF), with 2-day intervals) and seeds (14–64 DAF, with 2-day intervals) (Figure 1a). BnTIR is a refined transcriptome platform for Brassica napus. (a) Summary of statistics for transcriptome sequencing of diverse tissue types of B. napus. (b) The homepage of BnTIR. (c) Architecture of BnTIR database, including data source layer, middleware layer, and application layer. (d) eFP viewer. (e) Tissue expression viewer. (f) Co-expression viewer. (g) JBrower viewer. (h) Blast module. (i) Gene index module. (j) Sequence fetch module. (k) Transcription factor module. (l–o) A case of application of BnTIR, including the phylogenetic tree and expression profile of BAN and their four B. napus homolog genes (l); expression comparison of B. napus BAN homolog genes in seed and silique wall (m); the co-expression network of homolog genes of BAN (n); and expression profile of co-expressed genes of BAN (o). According to PlantTFDB, the information of 58 TF families in B. napus is also provided in the tool interface (Figure 1k; http://planttfdb.gao-lab.org/).
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Lung metastasis is the major cause of breast cancer-related mortality. The neutrophil-associated inflammatory microenvironment aids tumor cells in metastatic colonization in lungs. Here, we show that ...tumor-secreted protease cathepsin C (CTSC) promotes breast-to-lung metastasis by regulating recruitment of neutrophils and formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). CTSC enzymatically activates neutrophil membrane-bound proteinase 3 (PR3) to facilitate interleukin-1β (IL-1β) processing and nuclear factor κB activation, thus upregulating IL-6 and CCL3 for neutrophil recruitment. In addition, the CTSC-PR3-IL-1β axis induces neutrophil reactive oxygen species production and formation of NETs, which degrade thrombospondin-1 and support metastatic growth of cancer cells in the lungs. CTSC expression and secretion are associated with NET formation and lung metastasis in human breast tumors. Importantly, targeting CTSC with compound AZD7986 effectively suppresses lung metastasis of breast cancer in a mouse model. Overall, our findings reveal a mechanism of how tumor cells regulate neutrophils in metastatic niches and support CTSC-targeting approaches for cancer treatment.
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•Tumor-secreted CTSC promotes breast-to-lung metastasis by regulating neutrophils•CTSC activates membrane-bound PR3 of neutrophils to upregulate IL-1β secretion•CTSC enhances neutrophil recruitment into metastatic niches and induces NETosis•Targeting CTSC with AZD7986 effectively inhibits lung metastasis in mice
Neutrophils play critical roles in cancer metastasis. Xiao et al. report the dual role of a tumor-secreted protease, CTSC, in recruiting neutrophils to metastatic niches and inducing neutrophils to form extracellular traps (NETs). These promote lung colonization of breast cancer and targeting CTSC inhibits lung metastasis in mice.
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