Search

Owing to the crustal abundance of sodium element, sodium ion batteries (SIBs) are considered a promising complementary to lithium‐ion battery for stationary energy storage applications. The cointercalation chemistry enables the use of cost‐effective graphite as anodes, whereas the low capacity (<130 mAh g−1) and high redox potential (>0.6 V vs. Na/Na+) of graphite significantly limit the energy density of SIBs. Herein, we induce the high‐capacity Na metal into sodiophilic ternary graphite intercalation compounds (t‐GICs) via co‐intercalation and deposition reactions, thereby achieving Na/t‐GIC anodes with high capacities and low working voltage (0.18 V). The new anodes exhibit high coulombic efficiencies of above 99.7 % over 550 cycles and a high‐rate capacity of 588.4 mAh g−1 at 6 C (10 min per charge). When it is paired with Na3V2(PO4)2F3 (NVPF) cathodes, the SIBs demonstrate a high energy density of 259 Wh kg−1both electrodes surpassing that of commercial LiFePO4//graphite batteries. The outstanding anode performance is attributed to the tailored sodiophilicity of graphite through manipulating the ether solvents and the in situ generated space among t‐GIC flakes to stably accommodate Na metal. Our findings for stable Na plating/striping on sodiophilic graphite materials provide an effective approach for developing advanced SIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a hematological disease exhibiting aberrant clonal expansion of cancerous plasma cells in the bone marrow. The effects of treatments for MM vary between patients, highlighting the importance of developing prognostic models for informed therapeutic decision-making. Most previous models were constructed at the gene level, ignoring the fact that the dysfunction of the pathway is closely associated with disease development and progression. The present study considered two strategies that construct predictive models by taking pathway information into consideration: pathway score method and group lasso using pathway information. The former simply converted gene expression to sample-wise pathway scores for model fitting. We considered three methods for pathway score calculation (ssGSEA, GSVA, and z-scores) and 14 data sources providing pathway information. We implemented these methods in microarray data for MM (GSE136324) and obtained a candidate model with the best prediction performance in interval validation. The candidate model is further compared with the gene-based model and previously published models in two external data. We also investigated the effects of missing values on prediction. The results showed that group lasso incorporating Vax pathway information (Vax(grp)) was more competitive in prediction than the gene model in both internal and external validation. Immune information, including VAX pathways, seemed to be more predictive for MM. Vax(grp) also outperformed the previously published models. Moreover, the new model was more resistant to missing values, and the presence of missing values (<5%) would not evidently deteriorate its prediction accuracy using our missing data imputation method. In a nutshell, pathway-based models (using group lasso) were competitive alternatives to gene-based models for MM. These models were documented in an R package (https://github.com/ShuoStat/MMMs), where a missing data imputation method was also integrated to facilitate future validation. Author summary: Traditionally, prognostic models were mainly constructed at the gene level, ignoring the role of pathway functions in disease development and progression. Enlightened by this, we advocated guiding the model building with well-established prior knowledge (pathway information). We investigated several approaches that could incorporate pathway information in model building. The results showed that pathway-based models exhibit superior predictive capabilities compared to their gene-based counterparts. Furthermore, these pathway-based models were more robust to missing values. The proposed models also outperformed previously published gene-based models. Beyond their prediction performance, the pathway-based models can directly reveal the association between the pathway functions and survival outcomes, demonstrating their advantage in the model interpretability. This enhanced interpretability not only deepens our understanding of disease mechanisms but also facilitates informed decision-making in clinical and research settings. We urge for more attention to be given to developing modeling methods that incorporate prior knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The utilization of high‐voltage intercalation cathodes in calcium‐ion batteries (CIBs) is impeded by the substantial size and divalent character of Ca2+ ions, which result in pronounced volume alterations and sluggish ion mobility, consequently causing inferior reversibility and low energy/power densities. To tackle these issues, polyanionic K‐vacant KxVPO4F (x∼0, designated as K0VPF) is proposed as high‐voltage and ultra‐stable cathode material in CIBs. The K0VPF demonstrates a decent calcium storage capacity of 75 mAh g−1 at 10 mA g−1 and remarkable capacity retention of 84.2% over 1000 cycles. The average working voltage of the K0VPF is 3.85 V versus Ca2+/Ca, representing the highest value reported for CIB cathodes to date. The combined experimental and theoretical investigations revealed that the low volume changes and hopping diffusion barriers contribute to the extraordinary stability and high‐power capabilities, respectively, of K0VPF. The distribution of Ca ions into polyanionic frameworks with pronounced spatial separation effectively attenuates the Ca2+–Ca2+ repulsive force and thus augmenting the Ca migration kinetics. The high voltage of K0VPF is attributed to the inductive effect from the largely electronegative fluorine. In conjunction with a calcium metal anode and a compatible electrolyte, Ca metal full cells featured a record‐high energy density of ≈300 Wh kg−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heteroatom co‐doped carbonaceous anodes have readily attracted great attention in potassium‐ion batteries (PIBs), owing to their augmented carbon interlayer distances and increased K+ storage sites to induce enhanced capacity value. Nevertheless, the synergistic effect of dual‐doped heteroatoms is still unclear and lacks systematic explorations. In addition, traditional synthetic routes are cumbersome with template removal step, which are normally deficient in product scalability. Herein, a generic protic‐salt strategy is devised to realize sulfur‐, phosphorus‐ or boron‐nitrogen dual‐doped carbon (SNC, PNC, or BNC) via varying the types of protic precursors (e.g., the acid). Throughout comprehensive instrumental probing and theoretical simulation, it is identified that the presence of B–N moiety can harvest high adsorption capability of K+ and hence exhibit more obvious pseudo‐capacitance behavior than bare N‐doped carbon counterpart. As a PIB anode, the BNC electrode displays an impressive reversible capacity (360.5 mAh g−1 at 0.1 A g−1) and cycle stability (125.4 mAh g−1 at 1 A g−1 after 3000 cycles). In situ/ex situ characterizations further reveal the origin of the excellent electrochemical properties of the BNC electrode. Such a tailorable protic‐salt derived anode material offers new possibilities to advance PIB devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among various anode candidates for potassium‐ion batteries, carbonaceous materials have attracted significant attention due to their overwhelming advantages including cost‐effectiveness and environmental benignity. However, the inferior specific capacity and the sluggish reaction kinetics hinder the further development in this realm. Herein, we report biomass templated synthesis of boron/oxygen heteroatom co‐doped carbon particles (BO‐CPs) via direct plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition. With the combined advantages of abundant active sites, large accessible surface area, and functional groups, BO‐CP anode exhibits high reversible specific capacity (426.5 mAh g−1 at 0.1 A g−1) and excellent rate performance (166.5 mAh g−1 at 5 A g−1). The K‐ion storage mechanism is probed by operando Raman spectroscopy, ex situ X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy/electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, galvanostatic intermittent titration technique measurements, and theoretical simulations. The synergistic effect of boron and oxygen co‐doping greatly facilitates the performance of carbon‐based anode, wherein boron dopant improves the conductivity of carbon framework and the oxygen dopant affords ample active sites and thus harvests additional specific capacity. This work is anticipated to propel the development of high‐performance anode materials for emerging energy storage devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]