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Background and purposeTraumatic brain injury (TBI) causes lifelong physical and psychological dysfunction in affected individuals. The current study investigated the effects of chronic nicotine exposure via E-cigarettes (E-cig) (vaping) on TBI-associated behavioural and biochemical changes.Experimental approachAdult C57/BL6J male mice were subjected to controlled cortical impact (CCI) followed by daily exposure to E-cig vapour for 6 weeks. Sensorimotor functions, locomotion, and sociability were subsequently evaluated by nesting, open field, and social approach tests, respectively. Immunoblots were conducted to examine the expression of mature brain-derived neurotrophic factor (mBDNF) and associated downstream proteins (p-Erk, p-Akt). Histological analyses were performed to evaluate neuronal survival and neuroinflammation.Key resultsPost-injury chronic nicotine exposure significantly improved nesting performance in CCI mice. Histological analysis revealed increased survival of cortical neurons in the perilesion cortex with chronic nicotine exposure. Immunoblots revealed that chronic nicotine exposure significantly up-regulated mBDNF, p-Erk and p-Akt expression in the perilesion cortex of CCI mice. Immunofluorescence microscopy indicated that elevated mBDNF and p-Akt expression were mainly localized within cortical neurons. Immunolabelling of Iba1 demonstrated that chronic nicotine exposure attenuated microglia-mediated neuroinflammation.Conclusions and implicationsPost-injury chronic nicotine exposure via vaping facilitates recovery of sensorimotor function by upregulating neuroprotective mBDNF/TrkB/Akt/Erk signalling. These findings suggest potential neuroprotective properties of nicotine despite its highly addictive nature. Thus, understanding the multifaceted effects of chronic nicotine exposure on TBI-associated symptoms is crucial for paving the way for informed and properly managed therapeutic interventions.

Xiao Wei,1,* Yun Zhao,1,* Wenyue Yan,2 Qigang Dai,3 Hui Wu,1 Yang Miao,1 Lei Huang,1 Qing Liu,4 Xuyao Zhang,5 Hongxia Wang,1 Yanan Liu,1 Linlin Zhang1 1Department of Pharmacy, The First People’s Hospital of Yancheng, Yancheng No.1 People’s Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Medical School, Nanjing University, Yancheng, Jiangsu, 224000, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Oncology, The First People’s Hospital of Yancheng, Yancheng No.1 People’s Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Medical School, Nanjing University, Yancheng, Jiangsu, 224000, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Acute Infectious Disease Control and Prevention, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210009, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Pharmacy, Yancheng Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital, Yancheng, Jiangsu, 224000, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Biological Medicines & Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Immunotherapeutics, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, Shanghai, 201203, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Linlin Zhang; Yanan Liu, Department of Pharmacy, The First People’s Hospital of Yancheng, Yancheng No.1 People’s Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Medical School, Nanjing University, Yancheng, Jiangsu, 224000, People’s Republic of China, Email 1515605617@qq.com; lynishot@163.comBackground: Anlotinib and apatinib, both vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (VEGFR-TKIs), are clinically established in the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in China, with anlotinib emerging as a standard treatment strategy. This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of apatinib and anlotinib, and to compare their differences in treating patients with advanced NSCLC.Patients and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the data of patients with advanced NSCLC t

We propose and analyze a general framework called nonlinear preconditioned primal-dual with projection for solving nonconvex-nonconcave and non-smooth saddle-point problems. The framework consists of two steps. The first is a nonlinear preconditioned map followed by a relaxed projection onto the separating hyperspace we construct. One key to the method is the selection of preconditioned operators, which tailors to the structure of the saddle-point problem and is allowed to be nonlinear and asymmetric. The other is the construction of separating hyperspace, which guarantees fast convergence. This framework paves the way for constructing nonlinear preconditioned primal-dual algorithms. We show that weak convergence, and so is sublinear convergence under the assumption of the convexity of saddle-point problems and linear convergence under a metric subregularity. We also show that many existing primal-daul methods, such as the generalized primal-dual algorithm method, are special cases of relaxed preconditioned primal-dual with projection., Comment: 23pages

Lin Wang,1 Yan Wang,1 Tongqiang Ma,2 Jianwei Yuan,1 Hongxia Wang,1 Yuan Ren,3 Jianwei Zhang1 1Department of Infection, Third Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Shanxi Bethune Hospital, Shanxi Academy of Medical Sciences, Tongji Shanxi Hospital, Taiyuan, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Vascular Surgery, Third Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Shanxi Bethune Hospital, Shanxi Academy of Medical Sciences, Tongji Shanxi Hospital, Taiyuan, People’s Republic of China; 3School of Public Health, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Yan Wang, Department of Infection, Third Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Shanxi Bethune Hospital, Shanxi Academy of Medical Sciences, Tongji Shanxi Hospital, Taiyuan, People’s Republic of China, Tel +8613513635015, Email sxbqeyywy@163.comObjective: To analyze the clinical characteristics and treatment process of 14 patients with aneurysm due to brucellosis, summarize the morbidity characteristics, and improve the knowledge and diagnosis of the disease.Methods: The clinical data of patients with aneurysms who were diagnosed to have brucellosis through Rose Bengal Test (RBT), Serum Agglutination Test (SAT), blood culture, and computed tomography angiography from January 2012 to November 2022 in Bethune Hospital, Shanxi Province, China, were retrospectively analyzed, and their clinical characteristics and disease regression findings were summarized.Results: Of the 14 patients, 13 were men, and 1 was a woman; the youngest patient was 48-year-old, and the oldest patient was of 74 years. All had a history of smoking. The sites of lesion occurrence included the abdominal aorta (5 patients), abdominal aorta +iliac artery (5 patients), iliac artery (2 patients), thoracic aorta and brachial artery were less common (1 case each). Symptoms in the patients mostly began with abdominal pain, which was accompanied by fever, nausea, and vomiting. Six patients had a clear history of livesto

This paper proposes a regularizer called Implicit Neural Representation Regularizer (INRR) to improve the generalization ability of the Implicit Neural Representation (INR). The INR is a fully connected network that can represent signals with details not restricted by grid resolution. However, its generalization ability could be improved, especially with non-uniformly sampled data. The proposed INRR is based on learned Dirichlet Energy (DE) that measures similarities between rows/columns of the matrix. The smoothness of the Laplacian matrix is further integrated by parameterizing DE with a tiny INR. INRR improves the generalization of INR in signal representation by perfectly integrating the signal's self-similarity with the smoothness of the Laplacian matrix. Through well-designed numerical experiments, the paper also reveals a series of properties derived from INRR, including momentum methods like convergence trajectory and multi-scale similarity. Moreover, the proposed method could improve the performance of other signal representation methods., Comment: Highlight paper in CVPR 2023

The emergence of artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) has raised concerns about the authenticity of multimedia content in various fields. However, existing research for forgery content detection has focused mainly on binary classification tasks of complete videos, which has limited applicability in industrial settings. To address this gap, we propose UMMAFormer, a novel universal transformer framework for temporal forgery localization (TFL) that predicts forgery segments with multimodal adaptation. Our approach introduces a Temporal Feature Abnormal Attention (TFAA) module based on temporal feature reconstruction to enhance the detection of temporal differences. We also design a Parallel Cross-Attention Feature Pyramid Network (PCA-FPN) to optimize the Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) for subtle feature enhancement. To evaluate the proposed method, we contribute a novel Temporal Video Inpainting Localization (TVIL) dataset specifically tailored for video inpainting scenes. Our experiments show that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on benchmark datasets, including Lav-DF, TVIL, and Psynd, significantly outperforming previous methods. The code and data are available at https://github.com/ymhzyj/UMMAFormer/., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, 66 references. This paper has been accepted for ACM MM 2023

Fourier phase retrieval(PR) is a severely ill-posed inverse problem that arises in various applications. To guarantee a unique solution and relieve the dependence on the initialization, background information can be exploited as a structural priors. However, the requirement for the background information may be challenging when moving to the high-resolution imaging. At the same time, the previously proposed projected gradient descent(PGD) method also demands much background information. In this paper, we present an improved theoretical result about the demand for the background information, along with two Douglas Rachford(DR) based methods. Analytically, we demonstrate that the background required to ensure a unique solution can be decreased by nearly $1/2$ for the 2-D signals compared to the 1-D signals. By generalizing the results into $d$-dimension, we show that the length of the background information more than $(2^{\frac{d+1}{d}}-1)$ folds of the signal is sufficient to ensure the uniqueness. At the same time, we also analyze the stability and robustness of the model when measurements and background information are corrupted by the noise. Furthermore, two methods called Background Douglas-Rachford (BDR) and Convex Background Douglas-Rachford (CBDR) are proposed. BDR which is a kind of non-convex method is proven to have the local R-linear convergence rate under mild assumptions. Instead, CBDR method uses the techniques of convexification and can be proven to own a global convergence guarantee as long as the background information is sufficient. To support this, a new property called F-RIP is established. We test the performance of the proposed methods through simulations as well as real experimental measurements, and demonstrate that they achieve a higher recovery rate with less background information compared to the PGD method.

Fourier phase retrieval (FPR) is a challenging task widely used in various applications. It involves recovering an unknown signal from its Fourier phaseless measurements. FPR with few measurements is important for reducing time and hardware costs, but it suffers from serious ill-posedness. Recently, untrained neural networks have offered new approaches by introducing learned priors to alleviate the ill-posedness without requiring any external data. However, they may not be ideal for reconstructing fine details in images and can be computationally expensive. This paper proposes an untrained neural network (NN) embedded algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) framework to solve FPR with few measurements. Specifically, we use a generative network to represent the image to be recovered, which confines the image to the space defined by the network structure. To improve the ability to represent high-frequency information, total variation (TV) regularization is imposed to facilitate the recovery of local structures in the image. Furthermore, to reduce the computational cost mainly caused by the parameter updates of the untrained NN, we develop an accelerated algorithm that adaptively trades off between explicit and implicit regularization. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms existing untrained NN-based algorithms with fewer computational resources and even performs competitively against trained NN-based algorithms.

The randomized sparse Kaczmarz method, designed for seeking the sparse solutions of the linear systems $Ax=b$, selects the $i$-th projection hyperplane with likelihood proportional to $\|a_{i}\|_2^2$, where $a_{i}^T$ is $i$-th row of $A$. In this work, we propose a weighted randomized sparse Kaczmarz method, which selects the $i$-th projection hyperplane with probability proportional to $\lvert\langle a_{i},x_{k}\rangle-b_{i}\rvert^p$, where $0

The halide perovskite nanocrystals (P-NCs) can address a plethora of issues of the light-emission technologies, due to its low temperature processing. To successfully employ P-NCs for light-emitting diodes (LEDs), one needs to resolve the issues of stability of the LEDs. The stability of device can be achieved by charge balance of electrons and holes recombination in active material. To investigate this herein, a self-assembled carbon dots (CDs) layer is fabricated from waste small strands of human hair. The self-assembled CDs layer is used beneath P-NCs layer to reduce the band-off set for hole transport, thus balancing the electron and holes carrier in active layer. The layer is used as an active light-emitting layer to fabricate a LED device that exhibits green luminescence of 4800 cd m−2 at a current efficiency of 10.7 cd A−1 and external quantum efficiency of 4.8%. The LED exhibits operational stability of nearly 200 h. The same film is used to demonstrate a flexible device with maximum luminescence of 2259 cd m−2, with a high current density of 474 mA cm−2, current efficiency of 1.37 cd A−1 and a low turn-on voltage of 3.5 V. All the display devices are measured in air without encapsulation.

Surface functionalization or modification to introduce more oxygen-containing functional groups to biochar is an effective strategy for tuning the physico-chemical properties and promoting follow-up applications. In this study, non-thermal plasma was applied for biochar surface carving before being used in contaminant removal and energy storage applications. The results showed that even a low dose of plasma exposure could introduce a high number density of oxygen-functional groups and enhance the hydrophilicity and metal affinity of the pristine biochar. The plasma-treated biochar enabled a faster metal-adsorption rate and a 40% higher maximum adsorption capacity of heavy metal ion Pb2+. Moreover, to add more functionality to biochar surface, biochar with and without plasma pre-treatment was activated by KOH at a temperature of 800 °C. Using the same amount of KOH, the plasma treatment resulted in an activated carbon product with the larger BET surface area and pore volume. The performance of the treated activated carbon as a supercapacitor electrode was also substantially improved by > 30%. This study may provide guidelines for enhancing the surface functionality and application performances of biochar using non-thermal-based techniques.[Figure not available: see fulltext.]

The appeal of metal halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) has been widely demonstrated in the field of photovoltaic technology. On account of the excellent optical and electrical properties, as well as compatibility with flexible substrates, the PSCs also hold the highest record of specific power for lightweight solar cell devices, suggesting excellent promise in space applications. Hence, there is increasing interest in the performance of PSCs in space environments where radiation beams and thermal cycling can cause extreme stress on the devices. In this Perspective, we provide a brief summary of the research on PSCs for space applications. The radiation tolerance and thermal stability of PSCs and the fundamental mechanisms are discussed and analyzed. Key challenges facing PSC technology toward future space applications are demonstrated. This Perspective features the prospect of PSCs as the next frontier in space PV technology.

Energy storage system based on supercapacitors is known for its high power density but suffers low energy density. To address this issue, aqueous anionic redox liquid electrolyte (AARLE) has been explored to enhance the energy density of supercapacitors by taking advantage of AARLE's favorable features including fast transport of ions in the liquid medium and electrochemical charge transfer of the redox couple in the liquid electrolyte, which is expected to produce supercapacitors with desirable high density of energy and power. The past few years have witnessed the progress of AARLE in energy storage applications such as supercapacitors. Given the significant potential of AARLE in supercapacitors, in this article, the application of AARLE in different types of supercapacitors, including electrical double-layer capacitors, pseudocapacitors, and asymmetric supercapacitors is reviewed. The performance of the supercapacitors that utilize AARLE with representative redox couple species such as Br−/Br3−, I−/I3−, I2/IO3−, S2−/Sx2−, Fe(CN)64−/Fe(CN)63− is summarized and systematically analyzed in terms of specific capacitance, energy density, power density, and cycling stability. The underlying mechanism of these representative anionic redox species is shown in supercapacitors. The advantages and disadvantages of each of these anionic redox species are discussed regarding delivering stable supercapacitors with high energy density and power density for practical applications. Finally, the challenge and opportunity of AARLE for supercapacitors are presented. It is hoped that this timely review on this critical topic can offer a new perspective for developing high-performance supercapacitors by taking advantage of the anionic redox charge storage in the liquid electrolytes in the future.

SCAPS solar cell simulation program was applied to model an inverted structure of perovskite solar cells using Cu-doped Ni1-xO thin films as hole transport layer. The Cu-doped Ni1-xO film were made by co-sputtering deposition under different deposition conditions. By increasing the amount of the Cu-dopant, the film crystallinity enhanced whereas the bandgap energy decreased. The transmittance of the thin films decreased significantly by increasing the sputtering power of copper. High quality, uniform, compact, and pin-hole free films with low surface roughness were achieved. The structural, chemical, surface morphology, optical, electrical, and electronic properties of the Cu doped Ni1-xO films were used as input parameters in the simulation of Pb-based (MAPbI3-xClx) and Pb-free (MAGeI3) perovskite solar cells. Simulation results showed that the performance of both Pb-based and Pb-free perovskite solar cell devices significantly enhanced with Cu-doped Ni1-xO film. The highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) for the Pb-free perovskite solar cell is 8.9% which is lower than the highest PCE of 17.5% for the Pb-based perovskite solar cell.

Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have the issue of interdiffusion at the interfaces that causes undesirable phenomena affecting device efficiency and stability. In this paper, we have investigated MoOx thin films as interlayer between the hole transport material and gold electrode and develop a model using the SCAPS solar cell simulator as a function of the interlayer film thickness to enhance device efficiency and stability. First, different thicknesses (2, 5, 10, 50, and 100 nm) of MoOx films were deposited on glass substrate by electron beam evaporation (e-beam) and their physical, chemical, optical, and electronic properties for PSC were examined. In this research, uniform, homogeneous and pinhole free MoOx films with high transmittance (> 80%), very low surface roughness, and resistivity were obtained from the 5 and 10 nm thick samples. In addition, the 10 nm film has shown the lowest photoluminescence emission. Using SCAPS solar cell simulation software and including MoOx thin films as passivation layer, the performance of the PSCs for a Pb-based and Pb-free perovskite absorber were modelled. Results showed that the 10 nm MoOx film is found to provide the best benefit to the device performance with enhanced power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 16.9% and 12.4% for the lead-based MAPb(I1-xBrx)3 and lead-free (MASnI3) perovskite solar cells, respectively.

Developing transition metal oxides (TMOs) with high energy, power, and long cycle lifetime for electric energy storage devices remains a critical challenge to date. Herein, we demonstrate a facile method that enables in-situ transformation of nickel cobalt oxide nanowire arrays (NiCoO NWA) into hierarchical nanowire-nanosheet arrays (ac-NiCoO NWSA) for enhanced energy storage properties. More specifically, the method leads to formation of atomically thin nanosheets (only 2.0 nm) and creates abundant antisite defects and oxygen vacancies. Owing to these merits, the as-prepared ac-NiCoO NWSA electrode exhibits over five-fold higher specific capacity, superior rate capability (up to 100 A/g), and excellent cycling stability of 10,000 cycles at 50 A/g in alkaline electrolyte compared to pristine NiCoO NWA. Density functional theory (DFT) simulations elucidate the electrochemical activity enhancement mechanism of the TMOs. Moreover, our method triggers similar structural reconstruction phenomenon on other TMOs including ZnCo-, CoMn- and ZnNiCo-oxides, proving the universality of the method. Our findings provide a general method towards simultaneously manipulating the micro-morphologies and defects of TMOs for advanced energy storage devices.

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have advanced in leaps and bounds thanks to their significant merits of low processing cost, simple device structure and fabrication, and high photoelectric conversion efficiency, which make them strong contenders for next generation photovoltaic (PV) technology. Nevertheless, owing to the intermittent and fluctuant nature of solar radiation, PSCs are constrained in providing sustainable and reliable power output needed in practice. With the aid of energy storage systems, such as supercapacitors (SCs) and lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), integrated solar power packs comprised of a PSC unit and a SC or LIB unit can self-charge under illumination and deliver stable off-grid power supply for external loads whenever needed. Recently, this new concept based on synergistic integration of complementary energy conversion and storage has aroused intense research interest in the scientific community. Many efforts have been made to assemble multifunctional self-charging power packs (SCPPs). This review highlights the progress in the emerging field of both integrated PSC-SC photocapacitors and PSC-LIB photobatteries in detail, including new device concepts, operation mechanisms, and the performance for each part and the whole device. We further analyze the existing challenges and limitations of the SCPPs and propose strategies and perspectives for future development.

The remarkable evolution of metal halide perovskites in the past decade makes them promise for next-generation optoelectronic material. In particular, nanocrystals (NCs) of inorganic perovskites have demonstrated excellent performance for light-emitting and display applications. However, the presence of surface defects on the NCs negatively impacts their performance in devices. Herein, we report a compatible facial post-treatment of CsPbI3 nanocrystals using guanidinium iodide (GuI). It is found that the GuI treatment effectively passivated the halide vacancy defects on the surface of the NCs while offering effective surface protection and exciton confinement thanks to the beneficial contribution of iodide and guanidinium cation. As a consequence, the film of treated CsPbI3 nanocrystals exhibited significantly enhanced luminescence and charge transport properties, leading to high-performance light-emitting diode with maximum external quantum efficiency of 13.8% with high brightness (peak luminance of 7039 cd m−2 and a peak current density of 10.8 cd A−1). The EQE is over threefold higher than performance of untreated device (EQE: 3.8%). The operational half-lifetime of the treated devices also was significantly improved with T50 of 20 min (at current density of 25 mA cm−2), outperforming the untreated devices (T50 ~ 6 min). [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Fast-charging is considered as one of the most desired features needed for lithium-ion batteries to accelerate the mainstream adoption of electric vehicles. However, current battery charging protocols mainly consist of conservative rate steps to avoid potential hazardous lithium plating and its associated parasitic reactions. A highly sensitive onboard detection method could enable battery fast-charging without reaching the lithium plating regime. Here, we demonstrate a novel differential pressure sensing method to precisely detect the lithium plating event. By measuring the real-time change of cell pressure per unit of charge (dP/dQ) and comparing it with the threshold defined by the maximum of dP/dQ during lithium-ion intercalation into the negative electrode, the onset of lithium plating before its extensive growth can be detected with high precision. In addition, we show that by integrating this differential pressure sensing into the battery management system (BMS), a dynamic self-regulated charging protocol can be realized to effectively extinguish the lithium plating triggered by low temperature (0 °C) while the conventional static charging protocol leads to catastrophic lithium plating at the same condition. We propose that differential pressure sensing could serve as an early nondestructive diagnosis method to guide the development of fast-charging battery technologies.

The explicit low-rank regularization, e.g., nuclear norm regularization, has been widely used in imaging sciences. However, it has been found that implicit regularization outperforms explicit ones in various image processing tasks. Another issue is that the fixed explicit regularization limits the applicability to broad images since different images favor different features captured by different explicit regularizations. As such, this paper proposes a new adaptive and implicit low-rank regularization that captures the low-rank prior dynamically from the training data. The core of our new adaptive and implicit low-rank regularization is parameterizing the Laplacian matrix in the Dirichlet energy-based regularization, which we call the regularization AIR. Theoretically, we show that the adaptive regularization of \ReTwo{AIR} enhances the implicit regularization and vanishes at the end of training. We validate AIR's effectiveness on various benchmark tasks, indicating that the AIR is particularly favorable for the scenarios when the missing entries are non-uniform. The code can be found at https://github.com/lizhemin15/AIR-Net.

Abnormal event detection is critical in the safe operation of power system. In this paper, using the data collected from phasor measurement units (PMUs), two methods based on Fisher random matrix are proposed to detect faults in power grids. Firstly, the fault detection matrix is constructed and the event detection problem is reformatted as a two-sample covariance matrices test problem. Secondly, the central limit theorem for the linear spectral statistic of the Fisher matrix is derived and a test statistic for testing faults is proposed. To save computing resources, the screening step of fault interval based on the test statistic is designed to check the existence of faults. Then two point-by-point methods are proposed to determine the time of the fault in the interval. One method detects faults by checking whether the largest sample eigenvalue falls outside the supporting set of limiting spectral distribution of the standard Fisher matrix, which can detect the faults with higher accuracy. The other method tests the faults based on the statistic proposed, which has a faster detection speed. Compared with existing works, the simulation results illustrate that two methods proposed in this paper cost less computational time and provide a higher degree of accuracy.

Hongxia Wang,1,2,* Dan Jiang,1,2,* Liyuan Liu,2 Yanting Zhang,2 Miao Qin,2 Yuliang Qu,2 Liyan Wang,2 Shan Wu,2 Haijin Zhou,1 Tao Xu,1 Guangxian Xu1,2 1Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Diagnostics, School of Medical Technology, The First Dongguan Affiliated Hospital, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Clinical Medicine, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Guangxian Xu, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Diagnostics, School of Medical Technology, The First Dongguan Affiliated Hospital, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, 523808, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 13995414482, Email xuguangxian@gdmu.edu.cn; 599040064@qq.comPurpose: Due to the natural advantages of spermidine in immunity, we investigated the effects of spermidine pretreatment on nanobody-based CAR-T cells (Nb CAR-T) mediated cytotoxicity and potential mechanism.Patients and Methods: The optimal concentration of spermidine was determined by detecting its impact on viability and proliferation of T cells. The phenotypic characteristic of CAR-T cells, which were treated with spermidine for 4 days, was examined by flow cytometry. The expansion ability of CAR-T cells was monitored in being cocultured with tumor cells. Additionally, CAR-T cells were stimulated by lymphoma cells to test its cytotoxicity in vitro, and the supernatant in co-culture models were collected to test the cytokine production. Furthermore, xenograft models were constructed to detect the anti-tumor activity of CAR-T cells in vivo.Results: The optimal concentration of spermidine acting on T cells was 5μM. The antigen-dependent proliferation of spermidine pretreatment CD19 CAR-T cells or Nb CAR-T cells was increased compared to control. Central memory T cells(TCM) dominated the CAR-T cell population in the presence of spermidin

Xiaoyue Liu,1,2,* Tianhao Zhou,3,* Yongmei Wang,1,2 Min Pei,1,2 Guifeng Wang,1,2 Wendi Chu,1,2 Qi Wang,1,2 Shaoqian Du,3 Hongxia Wang,3 Chunhe Wang1,2,4 1Biotherapeutics Discovery Research Center, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Department of Oncology, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 4Research and Development Center, Dartsbio Pharmaceuticals, Zhongshan, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Chunhe Wang, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lane 720 Cai Lun Road, Bldg 1, Room 342, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, Email wangc@simm.ac.cn Hongxia Wang, Shanghai General Hospital, 650 Xinsongjiang Road, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, Email whx365@126.comPurpose: Trophoblast cell surface antigen 2 (TROP2) has emerged as a promising target of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), as well as other breast cancers (BCs). This study aims to investigate the biomarker value of TROP2 for patient-tailoring and prognostic for BC patients, including TNBC.Methods: The levels of TROP2 expression in 404 Chinese BC tissues on tissue microarrays (TMAs) were quantified by immunohistochemistry and their correlations to the clinicopathological factors and the overall survival rate were analyzed. Also, BC cell lines and patient-derived organoids (PDOs) with different TROP2 expression levels were employed to investigate the correlation between TROP2 expression levels and the therapeutic responses to DS001, a TROP2-directed ADC molecule with stable linker and potent payload.Results: TROP2 overexpression was identified in significantly more (P = 0.

Trimetal NiCoMn-based sulfides with two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets constituted flower-like structures have been synthesized using an anion exchange approach, which exhibit excellent performance as electroactive battery materials for hybrid supercapacitors. These NiCoMn-based sulfides were transformed from layered hydroxides while well maintaining 2D nanosheets constituted flower-like structure. The amounts of Mn constitution have been tuned to control performance of sulfides. It is found that Mn doping causes formation of pure phase sulfide while maintaining same flower-like structure. Mn-doping can enhance specific capacity and cycling stability of sulfides, and resulting sulfides maintain a low charge transfer resistance. Mn-doped sulfides display a maximum specific capacity of 657.7 C g-1 at 1 A g-1, and a specific capacity of 339.5 C g-1 has been achieved when the specific current increases by 50 times to 50 A g-1. More significantly, the NiCoMn-based sulfide has been used to assemble hybrid supercapacitors with reduced graphene oxide, which achieves a maximum specific energy of 36.3 Wh kg-1 combined with long-term cycling stability.

Metal halide perovskite materials have demonstrated unique properties for applications in optoelectrical devices such as solar cells, light-emitting diodes and photodetectors. The unprecedented world-record energy conversion efficiency of over 25% achieved with solution-processed perovskite solar cells is escalating research towards the commercialisation of the perovskite materials. Nevertheless, the use of large amounts of hazardous and carcinogenic solvents such as N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), and skin-penetrating dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) in the current perovskite synthesis protocols are limited for the commercial uptake of perovskite technology as these detrimental solvents can cause environmental, health and safety issues. Therefore, the development of alternative environmentally-friendly, green solvents for the synthesis of perovskite materials including thin films, nanocrystals or single-crystals with desirable properties is critical for the commercialisation of perovskite technologies. In this review, we summarize the research progress of solution-processable perovskite material using low-toxic and green solvent alternatives. We discuss the fundamental properties that need to be considered in screening solvents for the solution processing of metal halide perovskites. By carefully analysing the common features of solvents and anti-solvent systems that have been reported for making perovskite precursor inks for applications in solar cells and light-emitting diodes, we provide insight into the relationship between the solvent molecular ligand-properties of perovskite materials-device performance. We discuss the advantages and challenges of each type of green solvent based on their performance in metal halide perovskite technology, effects on the environment, human health and safety, aiming to provide guidelines towards green metal halide perovskite technology.

The notorious shuttle effect and slow reaction kinetics of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) severely limit the cycle stability and rate performance of lithium sulfur (Li-S) batteries. Herein, we demonstrated that the issue of shuttling effect of LiPSs could be effectively addressed by using a separator coating based on Ni3ZnC0.7 bimetal carbide nanoparticles dispersed in nitrogen-doped porous carbon material matrix containing small amount of Ni metal particles, namely Ni3ZnC0.7/Ni/NCNTs. When used as a separator coating of Li-S cells, the Ni3ZnC0.7 bimetal carbides demonstrated efficient adsorption and catalytic effect towards LiPSs, inhibiting the shuttle effect and enhancing the electrochemical performance of device. The Li-S cell still maintained excellent charging and discharging platform even at a high rate of 7C. Theoretical calculation shows that, compared to the monometal carbide Ni3C, the bimetal carbide Ni3ZnC0.7 possesses the advantageous properties of both sulfophilic sites of Ni and lithophilic sites of Zn, resulting in reduced energy barriers for lithium ion diffusion and improved catalytic capability, thus enhancing reaction kinetics of LiPSs. This work paves a new way to resolving the critical issues of shuttle effect, cycle stability and rate capability of Li-S batteries by taking advantage of synergistic effect of Ni and Zn in the bimetal carbide.

Nickel chalcogenide (S and Se) based nanostructures intrigued scientists for some time as materials for energy conversion and storage systems. Interest in these materials is due to their good electrochemical stability, eco-friendly nature, and low cost. The present review compiles recent progress in the area of nickel-(S and Se)-based materials by providing a comprehensive summary of their structural and chemical features and performance. Improving properties of the materials, such as electrical conductivity and surface characteristics (surface area and morphology), through strategies like nano-structuring and hybridization, are systematically discussed. The interaction of the materials with electrolytes, other electro-active materials, and inactive components are analyzed to understand their effects on the performance of energy conversion and storage devices. Finally, outstanding challenges and possible solutions are briefly presented with some perspectives toward the future development of these materials for energy-oriented devices with high performance.

The molybdenum (Mo) back contact is one of the crucial factor that affects the performance of kesterite Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin film solar cells. Thick MoS2 which is formed during sulfurization process of CZTS is known to be harmful for the device performance. MoOx on surface of Mo substrate with proper thickness can enhance the efficiency of CZTS solar cells through reducing the thickness of MoS2 layer and tailoring the work function of back contact. However, the role of oxidation states of Mo in MoOx on the performance of solar cells is unclear. Herein the effect of MoOx with different oxidation states on CZTS absorber and intermediate MoS2 layer were investigated. Our results shown that the efficiency of CZTS solar cells on Mo substrate with proper surface oxidation status (MoO2.03) can be as high as 2.86 times of the one fabricated on higher oxidized Mo (MoO2.21), although the thinnest MoS2 layer was present in the latter case. This work discloses the origin of the oxidation states of Mo for the efficiency enhancement of kesterite structured solar cells. The results will be also helpful to improve the performance of compound semiconductor by oxidation states control strategy.

Lead-free inorganic and organic-inorganic hybrid double perovskites are expected to be a game changer in photovoltaic technology because these compounds are stable and are free from the toxicity issues common to most lead-based halide perovskites. Herein, we investigate the electronic and optical properties of 18 potential lead-free antimony-copper based inorganic and organic-inorganic hybrid double perovskites to predict their applications in photovoltaics and optoelectronics by using first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculation. Specifically, we evaluate the structural, electronic as well as optical properties of inorganic and hybrid double perovskites ASbCuX6 (A = Cs2, MA2, FA2, CsMA, CsFA, MAFA; X = I, Br, Cl; where, MA = CH3NH3 and FA = CH(NH2)2) by DFT. The investigated electronic band structures suggest that the chosen double perovskites are semiconductors with electronic band gap values ranging from 1 to 2 eV and are suitable in photovoltaic applications. In particular, the inorganic lead-free double perovskite Cs2SbCuI6 is found to have superior optical properties in comparison with other considered compounds for photovoltaic applications. In addition, the high dielectric constant, good optical absorption, high photoconductivity and small reflectivity indicate that the double perovskites have the potential to be used in diverse optoelectronic applications beyond photovoltaics.

A stable and efficient carrier transfer is a prerequisite for high-performance perovskite solar cells. With optimized additives, a significantly improved charge carrier transfer can be achieved at the interface of perovskite/2,2′,7,7′-tetrakis-(N,N-di-4-methoxyphenylamino)-9,90-spirobifluorene (Spiro-OMeTAD) with significantly boosted photostability. Using time-dependent spectroscopic techniques, we investigated charge carrier and mobile-ion dynamics at the perovskite/Spiro-OMeTAD interface, where the Spiro-OMeTAD contains different bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (TFSI) salts additives (Li-TFSI, Mg-TFSI2, Ca-TFSI2). The pristine response and the dynamic changes under continuous illuminations are presented, which is correlated to the different behaviors of mobile-ion accumulations at the perovskite/Spiro interface and ascribed to the improved hole mobilities in Spiro-OMeTAD, ultimately contributing to the favorable behaviors in solar cells. It is demonstrated that the hole mobility and conductivity of hole transport layers play an important role in suppressing mobile-ion accumulation at the interfaces of solar cells. With the engineering of mixed-cation mixed-halide perovskite, optimal engineering of additives in hole transport materials is an efficient strategy. Therefore, it should be emphasized for accelerating perovskite photovoltaic commercialization.

Low‐dimensional‐networked (LDN) perovskites denote materials in which the molecular structure adopts 2D, 1D, or 0D arrangement. Compared to conventional 3D structured lead halide perovskite (chemical formula: ABX3 where A: monovalent cations, B: divalent cations, X: halides) that have been studied widely as light absorber and used in current state‐or‐the‐art solar cells, LDN perovskite have unique properties such as more flexible crystal structure, lower ion transport mobility, robust stability against environmental stress such as moisture, thermal, etc., making them attractive for applications in optoelectronic devices. Since 2014, reports on LDN perovskite materials used in perovskite solar cells, light emitting diodes (LEDs), luminescent solar concentrators (LSC), and photodetectors have been reported, aiming to overcome the obstacles of conventional 3DN perovskite materials in these optoelectronic devices. In this review, the variable ligands used to make LDN perovskite materials are summarized, their distinct properties compared to conventional 3D perovskite materials. The research progress of optoelectronic devices including solar cells, LEDs, LSCs, and photodetectors that used different LDNs perovskite, the roles and working mechanisms of the LDN perovskites in the devices are also demonstrated. Finally, key research challenges and outlook of LDN materials for various optoelectronic applications are discussed.

Simultaneously improving photovoltaic performance and longevity has become the main focus towards the commercialization of metal halide perovskite solar technology. Herein, we demonstrate resilient, high-efficiency triple-cation perovskite solar cells (PSCs) by incorporating carbon dots (CDs) derived from human hair into the perovskite film synthesis. It is found that a toluene-based antisolvent containing CDs results in the formation of a bilayer structure where a wave-like textured top perovskite layer is assembled on the bottom dense perovskite counterpart, enabling reduced optical losses through light trapping. Further characterization has revealed that the CDs are formed around and over the surface of perovskite crystals, serving as a full armour to preserve the perovskite stoichiometry during the crystallization and operation. Accordingly, the CD-wrapped perovskite film demonstrates a reduced density of interfacial defects including metallic lead clusters and uncoordinated halide vacancies, improved carrier recombination lifetime, better energy alignment with the adjacent hole transport layer, and enhanced hydrophobicity. By leveraging these advantages to enhance the efficiency of PSCs, we have achieved a maximum power conversion efficiency of 20.22%, higher than 18.72% for PSCs without CDs, and the device stability is also significantly enhanced.

The practical applications of Li metal batteries (LMBs) have long been limited by the obstacles of low Coulombic efficiency (CE) and formation of dendrites on Li metal electrode. Herein, we demonstrated the synthesis of a novel three-dimensional (3D) nanostructured skeleton substrate composed of nitrogen-doped hollow carbon fiber/carbon nanosheets/ZnO (NHCF/CN/ZnO) using 2-methylimidazole (2-MIZ)-coated 3D cloth as a scaffold. The mechanism of formation of this novel hierarchical structure was investigated. The multilayered hierarchical structure and abundant lithiophilic nucleation sites of the substrate provide a stable environment for the deposition and stripping of lithium metal, thus preventing the generation of lithium dendrites. Consequently, the lithium anode based on the NHCF/CN/ZnO current collector demonstrated an excellent Coulombic efficiency of 96.47% after 400 cycles at 0.5 mA cm-2. The prepared NHCF/CN/ZnO/Li electrode also showed outstanding cycling performance of over 800 h and an ultralow voltage hysteresis of less than 30 mV in a symmetric cell at 5 mA cm-2 and 5 mAh cm-2. Even at a high loading of the cathode with 10.4 mg cm-2, the full cell of NHCF/CN/ZnO/Li anode with LiFePO4 can also work very well. Our work offers a path toward the facial preparation of 3D hierarchical structure for high-performance lithium metal batteries.

The sketch-and-project, as a general archetypal algorithm for solving linear systems, unifies a variety of randomized iterative methods such as the randomized Kaczmarz and randomized coordinate descent. However, since it aims to find a least-norm solution from a linear system, the randomized sparse Kaczmarz can not be included. This motivates us to propose a more general framework, called sketched Bregman projection (SBP) method, in which we are able to find solutions with certain structures from linear systems. To generalize the concept of adaptive sampling to the SBP method, we show how the progress, measured by Bregman distance, of single step depends directly on a sketched loss function. Theoretically, we provide detailed global convergence results for the SBP method with different adaptive sampling rules. At last, for the (sparse) Kaczmarz methods, a group of numerical simulations are tested, with which we verify that the methods utilizing sampling Kaczmarz-Motzkin rule demands the fewest computational costs to achieve a given error bound comparing to the corresponding methods with other sampling rules.

The explicit low-rank regularization, e.g., nuclear norm regularization, has been widely used in imaging sciences. However, it has been found that implicit regularization outperforms explicit ones in various image processing tasks. Another issue is that the fixed explicit regularization limits the applicability to broad images since different images favor different features captured by different explicit regularizations. As such, this paper proposes a new adaptive and implicit low-rank regularization that captures the low-rank prior dynamically from the training data. The core of our new adaptive and implicit low-rank regularization is parameterizing the Laplacian matrix in the Dirichlet energy-based regularization, which we call the regularization \textit{AIR}. Theoretically, we show that the adaptive regularization of AIR enhances the implicit regularization and vanishes at the end of training. We validate AIR's effectiveness on various benchmark tasks, indicating that the AIR is particularly favorable for the scenarios when the missing entries are non-uniform. The code can be found at https://github.com/lizhemin15/AIR-Net

© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2017. Superhydrophobic fabrics have diverse applications in both textile and non-textile fields. Most of the waterborne materials for superhydrophobic treatment of fabrics use fluoro-containing substances, which have potential issues with bio-accumulation in both the human body and animals. Fluorine-free waterborne coatings are highly desirable for superhydrophobic treatment. In this study, we have prepared a fully waterborne coating solution through dispersion of an alkyl silane (hexadecyl trimethoxysilane) in an aqueous dopamine solution. After applying to fabrics through a wet-chemical process, the coating made the fabrics have a superhydrophobic surface with a water contact angle and a sliding angle of 163° and 8.6°, respectively. The treated fabrics are durable enough to withstand multiple washing. The coating is self-healable against acid/base etching and plasma damage. Such a fluorine-free, durable coating may be useful for the development of various superhydrophobic fabric products.

Protecting the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) associated to Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) is a pressing need pushed by the high costs required to train such networks and the importance that DNNs are gaining in our society. Following its use for Multimedia (MM) IPR protection, digital watermarking has recently been considered as a mean to protect the IPR of DNNs. While DNN watermarking inherits some basic concepts and methods from MM watermarking, there are significant differences between the two application areas, calling for the adaptation of media watermarking techniques to the DNN scenario and the development of completely new methods. In this paper, we overview the most recent advances in DNN watermarking, by paying attention to cast it into the bulk of watermarking theory developed during the last two decades, while at the same time highlighting the new challenges and opportunities characterizing DNN watermarking. Rather than trying to present a comprehensive description of all the methods proposed so far, we introduce a new taxonomy of DNN watermarking and present a few exemplary methods belonging to each class. We hope that this paper will inspire new research in this exciting area and will help researchers to focus on the most innovative and challenging problems in the field., Comment: 22 pages

The randomized sparse Kaczmarz method was recently proposed to recover sparse solutions of linear systems. In this work, we introduce a greedy variant of the randomized sparse Kaczmarz method by employing the sampling Kaczmarz-Motzkin method, and prove its linear convergence in expectation with respect to the Bregman distance in the noiseless and noisy cases. This greedy variant can be viewed as a unification of the sampling Kaczmarz-Motzkin method and the randomized sparse Kaczmarz method, and hence inherits the merits of these two methods. Numerically, we report a couple of experimental results to demonstrate its superiority

Rechargeability and operational safety of commercial lithium (Li)-ion batteries demand further improvement. Plating of metallic Li on graphite anodes is a critical reason for Li-ion battery capacity decay and short circuit. It is generally believed that Li plating is caused by the slow kinetics of graphite intercalation, but in this paper, we demonstrate that thermodynamics also serves a crucial role. We show that a nonuniform temperature distribution within the battery can make local plating of Li above 0 V vs. Li0/Li+ (room temperature) thermodynamically favorable. This phenomenon is caused by temperature-dependent shifts of the equilibrium potential of Li0/Li+ Supported by simulation results, we confirm the likelihood of this failure mechanism during commercial Li-ion battery operation, including both slow and fast charging conditions. This work furthers the understanding of nonuniform Li plating and will inspire future studies to prolong the cycling lifetime of Li-ion batteries.

© 2020 Elsevier B.V. Carbon-encapsulated Bi2Te3 (Bi2Te3@C) was successfully synthesized through a MOF-derived two-step facile process. First, Bi(BTC) (DMF)·DMF·(CH3OH)2 (Bi-BTC) was prepared by a solvothermal process and then converted into Bi2Te3@C composite by a simple tellurization reaction. As anode for lithium ion batteries (LIBs), the Bi2Te3@C electrode shows outstanding cycling stability with a specific discharge capacity of 738.5 mAh g−1 at 100 mA g−1 after 500 cycles. Meanwhile, the Bi2Te3@C composite also demonstrates a specific discharge capacity of 236.4 mAh g−1 at 100 mA g−1 after 100 cycles in sodium ion batteries (SIBs). The significant electrochemical performance in LIBs and SIBs is attributed to the nano size of Bi2Te3, which can not only reduce the migration path of electron and ions, but also tolerate the volume variations in the cycle life. Besides, the carbon derived from Bi-BTC can enhance the electrical conductivity of Bi2Te3 nanoparticles and prevent their agglomeration. Electrochemical kinetic analysis of Bi2Te3@C indicates the capacitive contribution accounts for a substantial part for the capacity, which can enhance the rate performance of Bi2Te3@C electrode. This work demonstrates that Bi2Te3@C has a promising application in practical lithium and sodium storage.

The global issue of the utmost exhaustion of fossil fuels on earth has driven research towards the development of alternative energy resources to meet the increasing demand for energy required in modern society. Among the different types of renewable sources, solar energy is the largest energy source which is unlimited and clean. Currently solar cells or photovoltaic (PV) technologies that generate electricity by harnessing sunlight is one of the fastest growing power generation sources in the energy sector. In this chapter we review the application of nanomaterials in some types of solar cells including dye-sensitized solar cells, quantum dots solar cells and perovskite solar cells. Semiconductor materials such as TiO2, ZnOx, SnOx, NiOx etc have been widely used as electron or hole transport materials in these type of solar cells. The morphology, shape, size, crystal structure of particles of these materials can significantly influence the device performance. The outlook of the future research direction is provided at the end of the review.

A hole transport layer (HTL) plays the role of extracting hole carriers while improving interfacial contacts of perovskite/carbon in planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells using carbon based electrodes (C-PSCs). For the future application of C-PSCs, the HTL also needs to have good stability and easy processability while maintaining high device efficiency. Herein, we compare the behaviour of the most widely used HTL based on spiro-OMeTAD to the much less studied HTL based on CuSCN in planar C-PSCs. The results show that 14.7% power conversion efficiency (PCE) is obtained for CuSCN based C-PSCs with good reproducibility and negligible hysteresis behaviour. In contrast, the C-PSCs using spiro-OMeTAD show a much lower PCE (12.4%) and significant hysteresis phenomenon. We conduct systematic characterisation of the electronic and energetic properties of the C-PSCs to understand this phenomenon. We find that a more favourable energy level alignment of CuSCN with the perovskite than spiro-OMeTAD leads to a reduced charge injection barrier, which favours a more efficient hole extraction capability, inhibited carrier recombination and reduced ionic capacitance. This in turn leads to better PCE and lower hysteresis for the C-PSCs. Moreover, the CuSCN based C-PSCs also demonstrate better stability against moisture with a high PCE retention ratio of 93% under a humid environment (55-70%) for 80 days without encapsulation.

Sodium (Na)-ion capacitors possess higher energy density than supercapacitors and higher power density than Na-ion batteries. However, kinetic mismatches between fast capacitive charge storage on the cathode and sluggish battery-type reactions on the anode lead to a poor charge/discharge rate capability and insufficient power output of Na-ion capacitors. Thus, developing suitable anode materials for Na-ion capacitors is urgently desirable. This work demonstrates an electrochemically exfoliated graphite (EEG) anode with enhanced capacitive charge storage, greatly boosting the Na-ion reaction kinetics of co-intercalation. The EEG anode shows a high reversible capacity of 109 mAh g–1 and maintains a good capacity retention of 90% after 1000 cycles. The assembled Na-ion capacitor using the EEG anode can finish the charge/discharge process in less than 10 s, which achieves an ultrahigh power density of 17,500 W kg–1 with an energy density of 17 Wh kg–1. The high capacitive contributions at both the anode and cathode contribute to the fast rate capability and high power output of the fabricated Na-ion capacitors. This work will promote the development of ultrafast charging sodium-ion storage devices

Self-charging perovskite solar capacitors (SPSCs) that harvest and store solar energy simultaneously can offer sustainable, off-grid power supply for electrical devices. In particular, flexible and lightweight SPSCs are highly desirable in practical applications but are currently restricted by the high annealing temperature needed to make the electron transport layer (ETL) in the devices. Herein, we demonstrate a novel SPSC by integrating a perovskite solar cell (PSC) using amorphous WOx film deposited at room temperature as ETL and a quasi-solid-state supercapacitor (SC). The WOx film with 26 nm thickness yielded a champion power conversion efficiency of 14.14% and 10.80% with the FTO/glass rigid and the ITO/PEN flexible PSCs, respectively. Investigation of the performance of the SPSCs based on the rigid substrate (r-SPSC) and the flexible substrate (f- SPSC) exhibited that the r-SPSC could be photo-charged to 0.68 V within 20 s while the f-SPSC required 25 s to be charged to 0.65 V. Consequently, an overall conversion efficiencies of 2.13% and 1.27% were obtained with the r-SPSCs and the f-SPSC, respectively. This work paves a new way towards making SPSCs that may serve as off-grid electrical power supply in the future.

In this work, a biorefinery process was demonstrated for co-production of fermentable sugars and hierarchical porous carbon with oxygen-rich groups for energy storage devices from sugarcane bagasse. By using the biorefinery process, every one tonne of sugarcane bagasse can produce approximately 234 kg glucose from pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis and 71 kg porous carbon from enzymatic hydrolysis (lignin-rich) residue following a fast and catalyst-free hydrothermal carbonisation (240 °C for 3 h) and a subsequent KOH-assisted activation process (C-hydrochar). In contrast, only 51 kg of activated carbon (C-residue) from the lignin-rich residue and 81 kg activated carbon (C-bagasse) but no sugars from the whole sugarcane bagasse were produced using a one-step pyrolysis/activation process. Compared to the C-residue and C-bagasse, the C-hydrochar had a comparable specific surface area of 1436.7 m2 g−1. However, the C-hydrochar demonstrated the highest volume proportion of micropores and the highest surface O/C ratio. As a result, the C-hydrochar demonstrated a high electrochemical performance with specific capacitance of 185.5 F g−1 at a current density of 0.5 A g−1, and 150.7 F g−1 at a current density of 20 A g−1, respectively. The symmetric supercapacitor that was assembled by using two identical as-synthesized C-hydrochar porous carbon electrodes exhibited a high-power density of 6120 W kg−1 with energy density of 1.02 Wh kg−1 and a high energy density of 5.86 Wh kg−1 at power density of 405 W kg−1. Additionally, the device showed superior cycling performance with 96% capacitance retention after 10,000 cycles at a current density of 10 A g−1. Compared to previous report, this study indicates that pore volume distribution and surface oxygen-containing groups rather than specific surface area play more critical roles in the electrochemistry performance of carbon materials.

Transition metal-based layered double hydroxides (LDH) are attractive electrode materials for supercapacitors (SCs) owing to their advantage of high theoretical specific capacity. However, the material structure of most LDHs fails to sustain long charge/discharge cycling of the device, leading to a short lifespan. Herein, we demonstrate a self-sacrificial strategy to boost the cyclability of Ni–Co LDH nanosheet arrays for SCs by using electrochemically inert Zn cation as a sacrificial agent (Zn–Ni–Co LDH). At an optimal content of Zn incorporation, a maximum specific capacity of 231.7 mAh g−1 (at 1 A g−1) and a capacity increment of over 500% after 20, 000 charge/discharge cycling test at 20 A g−1 have been obtained. For practical application, a hybrid SC based on Zn–Ni–Co LDH material demonstrated a high energy density of 40.3 Wh kg−1 and a high power density of 16.1 kW kg−1, along with extraordinary cycling stability of over 20, 000 cycles. Measurements by ex-situ synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and other characterization techniques like EDS and TEM have shown a gradual loss of Zn from the electrode during the charge/discharge process, which not only helps to create free space to maintain the material microstructure but also exposes more active sites for electrochemical reaction. The findings in this work provide new avenues towards the fabrication of robust electrode materials for advanced SCs with both high energy density and cycling stability.

Reasonable design and delicate control of microstructures are critical to achieve high energy density of active materials for pseudocapacitors that seriously depend on usable reaction interface. This work shows the effect of ultrasmall particle size on enhancing utilization and rate performance of active materials. Three types of NiO nanocrystals with different sizes of 3.36, 6.24, and 7.18 nm in average diameter are uniformly distributed on mesoporous carbon nanosheets derived from corn straw piths. The nanosheets with 3.36 nm NiO particles present an extremely high NiO utilization of 93.4% (2404 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1), which is 2–2.5-fold higher than materials with large sizes (6.24 and 7.18 nm). This enhancement is ascribed to more complete conversion and higher ionic/electronic conductivity from a preferable surface/bulk ratio of NiO. By coupling with commercial activated carbon, the asymmetric supercapacitors present high energy and power densities (28.53 Wh kg−1 at 375 W kg−1), with 78.3% capacitance retention after 10 000 cycles at 10 A g−1.

Nanostructured tin (IV) oxide (SnO2) is emerging as an ideal inorganic electron transport layer in n–i–p perovskite devices, due to superior electronic and low-temperature processing properties. However, significant differences in current–voltage performance and hysteresis phenomena arise as a result of the chosen fabrication technique. This indicates enormous scope to optimize the electron transport layer (ETL), however, to date the understanding of the origin of these phenomena is lacking. Reported here is a first comparison of two common SnO2 ETLs with contrasting performance and hysteresis phenomena, with an experimental strategy to combine the beneficial properties in a bilayer ETL architecture. In doing so, this is demonstrated to eliminate room-temperature hysteresis while simultaneously attaining impressive power conversion efficiency (PCE) greater than 20%. This approach highlights a new way to design custom ETLs using functional thin-film coatings of nanomaterials with optimized characteristics for stable, efficient, perovskite solar cells.

Ni-Co-based zeolitic imidazolate framework (Ni/Co-ZIF-67) derived NiCo2Se4/N-doped porous carbon (NiCo2Se4@NPC) nanocubes are used as anode materials of sodium ion batteries (SIBs). The nano size and porous structure of NiCo2Se4 nanocubes accelerate reaction kinetics and relieve volume expansion, and the porous carbon increases the material's electronic conductivity. Moreover, the electrochemical process of the NiCo2Se4@NPC electrode materials is mainly dominated by pseudocapacitive behaviors according to the kinetic studies by cyclic voltammetry. Consequently, NiCo2Se4@NPC nanocubes deliver a high discharge capacity of 462.1 mAh g−1 at 0.1 A g−1 after 70 cycles in SIBs. Even at a high current density of 2 A g−1, the discharge capacity of NiCo2Se4@NPC nanocubes can reach 372 mAh g−1. This study provides a reliable basis for the preparation of bimetallic selenide and helps to promote the development of bimetallic selenide as anode in SIBs.