Abstract Rechargeable zinc metal batteries are promising for large‐scale energy storage. However, their practical application is limited by harsh issues such as uncontrollable dendrite growth, low Coulombic efficiency, and poor temperature tolerance. Herein, a unique design strategy using γ‐valerolactone‐based electrolyte and nanocarbon‐coated aluminum substrate was reported to solve the above problems. The electrolyte with extremely low freezing point and high thermal stability enables the symmetric cells with long cycle life over a wide temperature range (−50 °C to 80 °C) due to its ability to regulate zinc nucleation and preferential epitaxial growth. Besides, the nanocarbon‐coated aluminum substrate can also promote a higher Coulombic efficiency over a wide temperature range in contrast to the low Coulombic efficiency of copper substrates with significant irreversible alloying reactions because this unique substrate with excellent chemical stabilization can homogenize the interfacial electron/ion distribution. The optimized zinc metal capacitors can operate stably under various temperature conditions (2000 cycles at 30 °C with 66 % depth of discharge and 1200 cycles at 80 °C with 50 % depth of discharge). This unique electrolyte and substrate design strategy achieves a robust zinc metal battery over a wide temperature range.
Abstract Lipids play crucial roles in many biological processes under physiological and pathological conditions. Mapping spatial distribution and examining metabolic dynamics of different lipids in cells and tissues in situ are critical for understanding aging and diseases. Commonly used imaging methods, including mass spectrometry-based technologies or labeled imaging techniques, tend to disrupt the native environment of cells/tissues and have limited spatial or spectral resolution, while traditional optical imaging techniques still lack the capacity to distinguish chemical differences between lipid subtypes. To overcome these limitations, we developed a new hyperspectral imaging platform that integrates a Penalized Reference Matching algorithm with Stimulated Raman Scattering (PRM-SRS) microscopy. With this new approach, we directly visualized and identified multiple lipid species in cells and tissues in situ with high chemical specificity and subcellular resolution. High density lipoprotein (HDL) particles containing non-esterified cholesterol was observed in the kidney, indicating that these pools of cholesterol are ectopic deposits, or have yet to be enriched. We detected a higher Cholesterol to phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) ratio inside the granule cells of hippocampal samples in old mice, suggesting altered membrane lipid synthesis and metabolism in aging brains. PRM-SRS imaging also revealed subcellular distributions of sphingosine and cardiolipin in the human brain sample. Compared with other techniques, PRM-SRS demonstrates unique advantages, including faster data processing and direct user-defined visualization with enhanced chemical specificity for distinguishing clinically relevant lipid subtypes in different organs and species. Our method has broad applications in multiplexed cell and tissue imaging.
Abstract The effect that five kinds of colloidal polymers did to seed germination and growth in sand was studied through orthogonal experiment in this paper. The water consumption, germination rate, growing and shoot length of five kinds of plants were investigated by changing the type and amount of natural colloidal polymers, soil and bio-fertilizer. Furthermore, the soil crust effect and the biomass of soil around sand seeds were analyzed in different conditions. It can be seen from the analysis of variance result that the types of colloidal polymer played a crucial role in water consumption of seed, and the water consumption was the smallest when Konjac Glucomannan was added with 911.14g/g. And the primary factor was plant species that effected germination rate of seeds, growing and plant height. Besides, the soil depth, plant species, polymer type and mass of polymer significantly influence the soil crust effect all. However, the amount of bio-fertilizer played an inhibiting part on biomass of soil.
Thermosets play a key role in the modern plastics and rubber industries, comprising ~18% of polymeric materials with a worldwide annual production of 65 million tons. The high density of crosslinks that give these materials their useful properties comes at the expense of facile degradability and re/upcyclability. Here, using the high-performance industrial thermoset plastic poly-dicyclopentadiene (pDCPD) as a model system, we show that when a small number of cleavable bonds are selectively installed within the strands of thermoset plastics using a low-cost comonomer approach, the resulting materials display the same exceptional properties as the native material yet they can undergo triggered degradation to yield soluble, re/upcyclable products of controlled size and functionality. In contrast, installation of cleavable crosslinks, even at comparably high loadings, does not produce degradable materials. These findings shed new light on the topology of polymer networks, revealing cleavable bond location as a universal design principle for controlled thermoset degradation and re/upcycling.