BCN-driven interfacial effect: A novel strategy to remarkably enhance the capacitance of CoO/NiO for supercapacitor.

A BCN/CoO/NiO (BCN/CNOs) hetero-interface was developed to introduce a novel strategy that remarkably enhances the specific capacitance of transition metal oxides (TMOs). The engineered hetero-interface driven by BCN was characterized by plentiful electrons accumulation and effectively increased the specific capacitance of the as-prepared BCN/CNOs electrode to 8533 mF cm at 2 mA cm, obtaining 154 % improvement compared to acid-treated carbon cloth loaded CNOs (ACC/CNOs). DFT theoretical calculations indicated that the BCN-driven interfacial effect primarily accelerates the charge transfer due to charge accumulation at interface between BCN and CNOs.

Multiscale Defective Interfaces for Realizing Na-CO Batteries With Ultralong Lifespan.

Despite their favorable high energy density and potential for CO recycling, Na-CO batteries have been held back by limitations in cycling capability, stemming from the sluggish CO reduction/evolution reaction (CORR/COER) kinetics at CO cathode and unmanageable deposition/stripping of metallic Na at the anode upon cycling. Herein, a "two-in-one" electrode with multiscale defective FeCu interfaces (CP@FeCu) is presented, which is capable of improving the CORR/COER kinetics of CO-breathing cathode, while modulating sodium deposition behavior. Experimental and theoretical investigations reveal multiscale defective FeCu interfaces are responsible for the enhancement of sodiophilicity and catalytic properties.

Recent Advances in Developing High-Performance Anode for Potassium-Ion Batteries based on Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Materials.

Owing to the low potential (vs K/K), good cycling stability, and sustainability, carbon-based materials stand out as one of the optimal anode materials for potassium-ion batteries (PIBs). However, achieving high-rate performance and excellent capacity with the current carbon-based materials is challenging because of the sluggish reaction kinetics and the low capacity of carbon-based anodes. The doping of nitrogen proves to be an effective way to improve the rate performance and capacity of carbon-based materials as PIB anode.

Preparation of Zirconium-Based MOF-Derived Phosphide on GO/MXene Double Substrates for High-Performance Asymmetric Supercapacitors.

At present, it is very necessary to select and prepare suitable positive and negative electrode materials to fabricate high-performance asymmetric supercapacitors. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have garnered significant attention in the energy storage field due to their high conductivity. As a branch, the zirconium organic framework (UIO-66) is a promising porous material due to its large specific surface area and abundant Zr centers.

Synthesis of nitrogen-doped amorphous carbon nanotubes from novel cobalt-based MOF precursors for improving potassium-ion storage capability.

Amorphous carbon materials with sophisticated morphologies, variable carbon layer structures, abundant defects, and tunable porosities are favorable as anodes for potassium-ion batteries (PIBs). Synthesizing amorphous carbon materials typically involves the pyrolysis of carbonaceous precursors. Nonetheless, there is still a lack of studies focused on achieving multifaceted structural optimizations of amorphous carbon through precursor formulation.

Boosting the Energy Density of Bowl-Like MnO@Carbon Through Lithium-Intercalation in a High-Voltage Asymmetric Supercapacitor with "Water-In-Salt" Electrolyte.

Highly concentrated "'water-in-salt"' (WIS) electrolytes are promising for high-performance energy storage devices due to their wide electrochemical stability window. However, the energy storage mechanism of MnO in WIS electrolytes-based supercapacitors remains unclear. Herein, MnO nanoflowers are successfully grown on mesoporous bowl-like carbon (MBC) particles to generate MnO/MBC composites, which not only increase electroactive sites and inhibit the pulverization of MnO particles during the fast charging/discharging processes, but also facilitate the electron transfer and ion diffusion within the whole electrode, resulting in significant enhancement of the electrochemical performance.

Insights into Nano- and Micro-Structured Scaffolds for Advanced Electrochemical Energy Storage.

Adopting a nano- and micro-structuring approach to fully unleashing the genuine potential of electrode active material benefits in-depth understandings and research progress toward higher energy density electrochemical energy storage devices at all technology readiness levels. Due to various challenging issues, especially limited stability, nano- and micro-structured (NMS) electrodes undergo fast electrochemical performance degradation. The emerging NMS scaffold design is a pivotal aspect of many electrodes as it endows them with both robustness and electrochemical performance enhancement, even though it only occupies complementary and facilitating components for the main mechanism.

Unique gap-related SERS behaviors of-aminothiophenol molecules absorbed on TiOsurface in periodic TiO/Ni nanopillar arrays.

We observed a unique interpillar gap-related surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) behavior of-aminothiophenol (PATP) molecules from periodic TiOnanopillar arrays with three gap sizes of 191, 297 and 401 nm, which is completely different from that on Ag and Ni nanopillar arrays. Especially, the gap-size-dependent charge-transfer (CT) resonance enhancement from TiO/Ni has been indicated through comparisons of variation trend of SERS intensities with inter-pillar gap size between TiO/Ni and Ag/TiO/Ni as well as Ni nanoarrays, and been confirmed by spectra of ultraviolet-visible absorption and photoluminescence. Results demonstrate that the CT resonance enhancement is more susceptible to the change of the gap size compared with the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) enhancement in TiO/Ni nanoarrays.

Boosting Material Utilization via Direct Growth of Zn (V O ) on the Carbon Cloth as a Cathode to Achieve a High-Capacity Aqueous Zinc-Ion Battery.

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) have attracted the attention of researchers because of their high theoretical capacity and safety. Among the many vanadium-based AZIB cathode materials, zinc vanadate is of great interest as a typical phase in the dis-/charge process. Here, a remarkable method to improve the utilization rate of zinc vanadate cathode materials is reported.

Integration of Cointercalation and Adsorption Enabling Superior Rate Performance of Carbon Anodes for Symmetric Sodium-Ion Capacitors.

Carbon materials have been the most common anodes for sodium-ion storage. However, it is well-known that most carbon materials cannot obtain a satisfactory rate performance because of the sluggish kinetics of large-sized sodium-ion intercalation in ordered carbon layers. Here, we propose an integration of co-intercalation and adsorption instead of conventional simplex-intercalation and adsorption to promote the rate capability of sodium-ion storage in carbon materials.

Propofol Regulates ER Stress to Inhibit Tumour Growth and Sensitize Osteosarcoma to Doxorubicin.

Osteosarcoma is the most common malignant bone tumour affecting children and young adults. The antitumour role of propofol, a widely used intravenous sedative-hypnotic agent, has been recently reported in different cancer types. In this study, we aimed to assess the role of propofol on osteosarcoma and explore the possible mechanisms.

Fundamental Understanding of Nonaqueous and Hybrid Na-CO Batteries: Challenges and Perspectives.

Alkali metal-CO batteries, which combine CO recycling with energy conversion and storage, are a promising way to address the energy crisis and global warming. Unfortunately, the limited cycle life, poor reversibility, and low energy efficiency of these batteries have hindered their commercialization. Li-CO battery systems have been intensively researched in these aspects over the past few years, however, the exploration of Na-CO batteries is still in its infancy.

Identification of three inflammatory Caspases in common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) and its role in immune response against bacterial infection.

Inflammatory Caspases are key effectors of the inflammasomes and play an important role in innate immune response. However, there are few studies on the homologs of inflammatory Caspases in bony fish. In the present study, three inflammatory Caspase genes were cloned from common carp and named CcCaspase-A1, CcCaspase-A2 and CcCaspase-B.

Activation of the NLRP1 inflammasome and its ligand recognition in the antibacterial immune response of common carp (Cyprinus carpio).

NLRP1 (NLR family pyrin domain containing 1) is the first member of NOD-like receptors (NLRs) which can form inflammasome and play critical roles in innate immunity and pathogenesis of various diseases. To date, many NLRs and inflammasome-related genes have been identified in teleost, however, the activation of NLRP1 inflammasome is only found in zebrafish, and the activator of fish NLRP1 is unclear. In the present study, the activation of CcNLRP1 inflammasome and its function in innate immune defence of common carp was investigated.

KOH activated nitrogen and oxygen co-doped tubular carbon clusters as anode material for boosted potassium-ion storage capability.

Carbon nanomaterials have become a promising anode material for potassium-ion batteries (KIBs) due to their abundant resources, low cost, and excellent conductivity. However, among carbon materials, the sluggish reaction kinetics and inferior cycle life severely restrict their commercial development as KIBs anodes. It is still a huge challenge to develop carbon materials with various structural advantages and ideal electrochemical properties.

Revealing the truncated conical geometry of nanochannels in anodic aluminium oxide membranes.

Anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) membranes with self-ordered nanochannels have become promising candidates for applications in the aspects such as structural coloration, photonic crystals, upconversion luminescence and nanofluidic transport. Also, self-ordered AAO membranes have been extensively used for the fabrication of functional nanostructures such as nanowires, nanotubes, nanoparticles, nanorods and nanopillars. Geometries of nanochannels are crucial for the applications of AAO membranes as well as controlling growth (, nucleation, direction and morphology) and in applications (, optics, magnetics, thermoelectrics, biology, medicine, sensing, and energy conversion and storage) of the functional nanostructures fabricated AAO template-based methods.

Efficient Organic Solar Cells Enabled by Simple Non-Fused Electron Donors with Low Synthetic Complexity.

Fused-ring electron donors boost the efficiency of organic solar cells (OSCs), but they suffer from high cost and low yield for their large synthetic complexity (SC > 30%). Herein, the authors develop a series of simple non-fused-ring electron donors, PF1 and PF2, which alternately consist of furan-3-carboxylate and 2,2'-bithiophene. Note that PF1 and PF2 present very small SC of 9.

Carbon-Free Crystal-like FeS as an Anode for Potassium-Ion Batteries.

Potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) as a new electrochemical energy storage system have been considered as a desirable candidate in the post-lithium-ion battery era. Nevertheless, the study on this realm is in its infancy; it is urgent to develop electrode materials with high electrochemical performance and low cost. Iron sulfides as anode materials have aroused wide attention by virtue of their merits of high theoretical capacities, environmental benignity, and cost competitiveness.

Updated Insights into 3D Architecture Electrodes for Micropower Sources.

Microbatteries (MBs) and microsupercapacitors (MSCs) are primary on-chip micropower sources that drive autonomous and stand-alone microelectronic devices for implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT). However, the performance of conventional MBs and MSCs is restricted by their 2D thin-film electrode design, and these devices struggle to satisfy the increasing IoT energy demands for high energy density, high power density, and long lifespan. The energy densities of MBs and MSCs can be improved significantly through adoption of a 2D thick-film electrode design; however, their power densities and lifespans deteriorate with increased electrode thickness.

Ordered nanostructures arrays fabricated by anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template-directed methods for energy conversion.

Clean and efficient energy conversion systems can overcome the depletion of the fossil fuel and meet the increasing demand of the energy. Ordered nanostructures arrays convert energy more efficiently than their disordered counterparts, by virtue of their structural merits. Among various fabrication methods of these ordered nanostructures arrays, anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template-directed fabrication have drawn increasing attention due to its low cost, high throughput, flexibility and high structural controllability.

Gas-Flow-Assisted Wrinkle-Free Transfer of a Centimeter-Scale Ultrathin Alumina Membrane onto Arbitrary Substrates.

The transfer of an ultrathin membrane onto arbitrary substrates is important in different practical fields. Conventional wet-transfer methods inevitably induce wrinkle defects as a result of the large contact angle of the trapped droplet between the membrane and the substrate. Here, we demonstrate a gas flow-assisted method (GFAM) to transfer centimeter (cm)-scale ultrathin membranes onto arbitrary substrates (including a curved substrate) without wrinkles.

Bismuth Nanoparticles Confined in Carbonaceous Nanospheres as Anodes for High-Performance Potassium-Ion Batteries.

Bismuth (Bi) has been considered as a promising alloying-type anode for potassium-ion batteries (PIBs), owing to its high theoretical capacity and suitable working voltage plateaus. However, Bi suffers from dramatic volume fluctuation and significant pulverization during the discharge/charge processes, resulting in fast capacity decay. Herein, we synthesize Bi nanoparticles confined in carbonaceous nanospheres (denoted as Bi@C) for PIBs by first utilizing BiOCl nanoflakes as a hard template and a Bi precursor.

Enhanced Potassium Storage Capability of Two-Dimensional Transition-Metal Chalcogenides Enabled by a Collective Strategy.

Potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) have been considered as a promising alternative to lithium-ion batteries due to their merits of high safety and low cost. Two-dimensional transition-metal chalcogenides (2D TMCs) with high theoretical specific capacities and unique layered structures have been proven to be amenable materials for PIB anodes. However, some intrinsic properties including severe stacking and unsatisfactory conductivity restrict their electrochemical performance, especially rate capability.

Identification of an IRF10 gene in common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) and analysis of its function in the antiviral and antibacterial immune response.

Background: Interferon (IFN) regulatory factors (IRFs), as transcriptional regulatory factors, play important roles in regulating the expression of type I IFN and IFN- stimulated genes (ISGs) in innate immune responses. In addition, they participate in cell growth and development and regulate oncogenesis.

Results: In the present study, the cDNA sequence of IRF10 in common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.

Sevoflurane suppresses cell viability and invasion and promotes cell apoptosis in colon cancer by modulating exosome‑mediated circ‑HMGCS1 via the miR‑34a‑5p/SGPP1 axis.

As a novel halogenated hydroxyl ether‑inhaled general anesthetic, sevoflurane has been reported to affect the progression of diverse human cancers. In the present study, we aimed to explore the functions and underlying mechanisms of sevoflurane in colon cancer. MTT assay, flow cytometric analysis and Transwell assay were conducted to evaluate cell viability, apoptosis and invasion, respectively.