Abstract
The prosperity of the lithium‐ion battery market is dialectically accompanied by the depletion of corresponding resources and the accumulation of spent batteries. It is an urgent priority to ...develop green and efficient battery recycling strategies for helping ease resources and environmental pressures at the current stage. Here, we propose a mild and efficient lithium extracting strategy based on potential controllable redox couples. Active lithium in the spent battery without discharging is extracted using a series of tailored aprotic solutions comprised of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and ethers. This ensures a safe yet efficient recycling process with nearly ≈100 % lithium recovery. We further investigate the Li
+
‐electron concerted redox reactions and the effect of solvation structure on kinetics during the extraction, and broaden the applicability of the Li‐PAHs solution. This work can stimulate new inspiration for designing novel solutions to meet efficient and sustainable demands in recycling batteries.
Centenarians, who show mild infections and low incidence of tumors, are the optimal model to investigate healthy aging. However, longevity related immune characteristics has not been fully revealed ...largely due to lack of appropriate controls. In this study, single‐cell transcriptomic analysis of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) derived from seven centenarians (CEN), six centenarians’ offspring (CO), and nine offspring spouses or neighbors (Control, age‐matched to CO) are performed to investigate the shared immune features between CEN and CO. The results indicate that among all 12 T cell clusters, the cytotoxic‐phenotype‐clusters (CPC) and the naïve‐phenotype‐clusters (NPC) significantly change between CEN and ontrol. Compared to Control, both CEN and CO are characterized by depleted NPC and increased CPC, which is dominated by CD8+ T cells. Furthermore, CPC from CEN and CO share enhanced signaling pathways and transcriptional factors associated with immune response, and possesse similar T‐cell‐receptor features, such as high clonal expansion. Interestingly, rather than a significant increase in GZMK+ CD8 cells during aging, centenarians show accumulation of GZMB+ and CMC1+ CD8 T cells. Collectively, this study unveils an immune remodeling pattern reflected by both quantitative increase and functional reinforcement of cytotoxic T cells which are essential for healthy aging.
Immune remodeling patterns of quantitative increase and functional reinforcement of cytotoxic T‐cells in centenarian and their offspring, assessed by single‐cell RNA sequencing, fluorescence activated cell sorting and T cell receptor sequencing, provides insight into successful interventions against aging and exposes the path for healthy aging.
Both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and osteoporosis (OP) are common age‐associated degenerative diseases and are strongly correlated with clinical epidemiology. However, there is a lack of clear ...pathological relationship between the brain and bone in the current understanding. Here, it is found that young osteocyte, the most abundant cells in bone, secretes extracellular vesicles (OCYYoung‐EVs) to ameliorate cognitive impairment and the pathogenesis of AD in APP/PS1 mice and model cells. These benefits of OCYYoung‐EVs are diminished in aged osteocyte‐derived EVs (OCYAged‐EVs). Based on the self‐constructed OCY‐EVs tracer transgenic mouse models and the in vivo fluorescent imaging system, OCY‐EVs have been observed to be transported to the brain under physiological and pathological conditions. In the hippocampal administration of Aβ40 induced young AD model mice, the intramedullary injection of Rab27a‐shRNA adenovirus inhibits OCYYoung‐EVs secretion from bone and aggravates cognitive impairment. Proteomic quantitative analysis reveals that OCYYoung‐EVs, compared to OCYAged‐EVs, enrich multiple protective factors of AD pathway. The study uncovers the role of OCY‐EV as a regulator of brain health, suggesting a novel mechanism in bone‐brain communication.
It is found that the osteocyte‐derived extracellular vesicles (OCY‐EVs) isolated from young osteocytes can ameliorate cognitive impairment and pathogenies of AD, but not OCY‐EVs isolated from aged osteocytes. OCY‐EV can transfer to the brain under physiological and pathological conditions. The study uncovers the role of OCY‐EVs as a regulator of brain, suggesting a novel mechanism in bone‐brain communication.
Porous CoFe2O4/C NRAs supported on nickel foam@NC (denoted as NF@NC‐CoFe2O4/C NRAs) are directly fabricated by the carbonization of bimetal–organic framework NRAs grown on NF@poly‐aniline(PANI), and ...they exhibit high electrocatalytic activity, low overpotential, and high stability for the oxygen evolution reaction in alkaline media.
A copper‐catalyzed asymmetric radical oxytrifluoromethylation of alkenyl oxime and Togni's reagent has been successfully developed, thereby providing straightforward access to CF3‐containing ...isoxazolines bearing α‐tertiary stereocenters with excellent yield and enantioselectivity. The key to success is the rational design of cinchona‐alkaloid‐based sulfonamides as neutral/anionic hybrid ligands to effectively control the stereochemistry in copper‐catalyzed reactions involving free alkyl radical species. The utility of this method is illustrated by efficient transformation of the products into useful chiral CF3‐containing 1,3‐aminoalcohols.
Powerful hybrid ligand: Cinchona‐alkaloid‐based sulfonamides were designed as effective hybrid ligands for copper, which enabled catalytic asymmetric radical oxytrifluoromethylation of alkenyl oximes to give CF3‐containing isoxazolines bearing α‐tertiary stereocenters with excellent yield and enantioselectivity.
In the past 20 years, impressive progress has been made both experimentally and theoretically in superconducting quantum circuits, which provide a platform for manipulating microwave photons. This ...emerging field of superconducting quantum microwave circuits has been driven by many new interesting phenomena in microwave photonics and quantum information processing. For instance, the interaction between superconducting quantum circuits and single microwave photons can reach the regimes of strong, ultra-strong, and even deep-strong coupling. Many higher-order effects, unusual and less familiar in traditional cavity quantum electrodynamics with natural atoms, have been experimentally observed, e.g., giant Kerr effects, multi-photon processes, and single-atom induced bistability of microwave photons. These developments may lead to improved understanding of the counterintuitive properties of quantum mechanics, and speed up applications ranging from microwave photonics to superconducting quantum information processing. In this article, we review experimental and theoretical progress in microwave photonics with superconducting quantum circuits. We hope that this global review can provide a useful roadmap for this rapidly developing field.
Developing low‐cost and high‐activity pH‐universal hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts is very crucial to the industrialization of water electrolysis. However, the high price, low yield, and ...poor stability of current HER catalysts make them difficult to meet practical requirements. Herein, a plasma spraying technique is employed to prepare self‐supported Cu catalysts with tensile strain for the first time. The tensile strain upshifts the d‐band of Cu, improves the water dissociation and H* adsorption, eventually improves the intrinsic HER catalytic activity. As such, Cu electrode achieves overpotentials of 182 mV in 0.5 m H2SO4, 261 mV in 1 M PBS, and 121 mV in 1 M KOH at 10 mA cm–2. In addition, Cu electrode also performs well at high current densities, the overpotentials at 1 A cm–2 are much lower than those of Pt foil in acid, neutral, and alkaline solutions.
The Cu electrode prepared by plasma spraying exhibits an excellent pH‐universal HER catalytic activity, superb long‐term stability, and marvelous corrosion resistance. The superb HER activity is attributed to self‐supported porous structure, abundant active sites, tensile strain enhanced intrinsic catalytic activity, and small charge transfer resistance.
We investigated the molecular characteristics and antimicrobial susceptibility of Clostridium difficile isolated from animals in China. We obtained 538 rectal swabs from pigs, chickens and ducks in 5 ...provinces during 2015 and 2016. C. difficile isolates were characterized by detection of toxin genes, multilocus sequence typing and ribotyping. And antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed using the agar dilution method. Out of 538 samples, 44 (8.2%) were C. difficile positive with high prevalence in pigs (n = 31). Among these, 39 (88.6%) were toxigenic including 14 (31.8%) that were A+B+CDT+ and 13 (29.5%) A+B+. The remaining 12 (27.3%) were A-B+. We identified 7 ST types and 6 PCR ribotypes. The most predominant type was ST11/RT078 with toxin profile A+B+CDT+ and all were isolated from piglets with diarrhea. ST109 isolates possessed two different toxigenic profiles (A-B-CDT- and A-B+CDT-) and although it was not the most prevalent sequence type, but it was widely distributed between chickens, ducks and pigs in the 5 provinces. All C. difficile isolates were fully susceptible to vancomycin, metronidazole, fidaxomicin, amoxicillin/clavulanate and meropenem but retained resistance to 4 or 5 of the remaining antibiotics, especially cefotaxime, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, cefoxitin. The RT078/ST11 isolates were simultaneously resistant to cefotaxime, tetracycline, cefoxitin, ciprofloxacin and imipenem. This is the first report of the molecular epidemiology of C. difficile isolated from food animals in China. We identified the epidemic strain RT078/ST11 as the predominate isolate among the animals we screened in our study.
The forthcoming paradigm of Mass-Individualisation will combine the low-cost advantage of the Mass-Production paradigm with the buyer's individual need of a specific product. The buyers will initiate ...the product and its features that fit their explicit taste and individual needs, and the manufacturer will build it at low cost in a local factory, which enables a rapid communication of the factory with the buyer. The realisation of the mass-individualisation paradigm requires innovations in (a) product development, (b) manufacturing system and network design, (c) system operations, and (d) business strategies. New factories will have to be in proximity to the customers who participate in the design of their product, which will have an enormous economic impact on local economies. We elaborate on the research challenges and directions for the realisation of the emerging mass-individualisation paradigm.
The rapid development of big data technologies can improve the maintainability of machines and equipment in manufacturing systems, which could impact the selection of the optimal system architecture. ...In this paper, two typical architectures for large manufacturing systems − serial lines in parallel and reconfigurable manufacturing systems − are considered, and their productivities are compared. A decision locus is calculated that divides the configuration space into two areas; in each area, one of the architectures is the preferred one. It is also investigated how the locus is affected by different parameters, such as system size, buffer capacity and machine or gantry maintainability. The analysis provides valuable managerial insights for designing the architecture of large manufacturing systems.
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