Structured electrode additive manufacturing for lithium-ion batteries

A thick electrode with high areal capacity has been developed as a strategy for high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries, but thick electrodes have difficulties in manufacturing and limitations in ion transport. Here, we reported a new manufacturing approach for ultra-thick electrode with aligned structure, called structure electrode additive manufacturing or SEAM, which aligns active materials to the through-thicknesses direction of electrodes using shear flow and a designed printing path. The ultra-thick electrodes with high loading of active materials, low tortuous structure, and good structure stability resulting from a simple and scalable SEAM lead to rapid ion transport and fast electrolyte infusion, delivering a higher areal capacity than slurry-casted thick electrodes. SEAM shows strengths in design flexibility and scalability, which allows the production of practical high energy/power density structure electrodes

Inhibition of PPARγ by BZ26, a GW9662 derivate, attenuated obesity-related breast cancer progression by inhibiting the reprogramming of mature adipocytes into to cancer associate adipocyte-like cells

Obesity has been associated with the development of 13 different types of cancers, including breast cancer. Evidence has indicated that cancer-associated adipocytes promote the proliferation, invasion, and metastasis of cancer. However, the mechanisms that link CAAs to the progression of obesity-related cancer are still unknown. Here, we found the mature adipocytes in the visceral fat of HFD-fed mice have a CAAs phenotype but the stromal vascular fraction of the visceral fat has not. Importantly, we found the derivate of the potent PPARγ antagonist GW9662, BZ26 inhibited the reprogramming of mature adipocytes in the visceral fat of HFD-fed mice into CAA-like cells and inhibited the proliferation and invasion of obesity-related breast cancer. Further study found that it mediated the browning of visceral, subcutaneous and perirenal fat and attenuated inflammation of adipose tissue and metabolic disorders. For the mechanism, we found that BZ26 bound and inhibited PPARγ by acting as a new modulator. Therefore, BZ26 serves as a novel modulator of PPARγ activity, that is, capable of inhibiting obesity-related breast cancer progression by inhibiting of CAA-like cell formation, suggesting that inhibiting the reprogramming of mature adipocytes into CAAs or CAA-like cells may be a potential therapeutic strategy for obesity-related cancer treatment

Polyarylether-based 2D covalent-organic frameworks with in-plane D–A structures and tunable energy levels for energy storage

The robust fully conjugated covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are emerging as a novel type of semi-conductive COFs for optoelectronic and energy devices due to their controllable architectures and easily tunable the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest occupied molecular orbital (LUMO) levels. However, the carrier mobility of such materials is still beyond requirements due to limited π-conjugation. In this study, a series of new polyarylether-based COFs are rationally synthesized via a direct reaction between hexadecafluorophthalocyanine (electron acceptor) and octahydroxyphthalocyanine (electron donor). These COFs have typical crystalline layered structures, narrow band gaps as low as ≈0.65 eV and ultra-low resistance (1.31 × 10−6 S cm−1). Such COFs can be composed of two different metal-sites and contribute improved carrier mobility via layer-altered staking mode according to density functional theory calculation. Due to the narrow pore size of 1.4 nm and promising conductivity, such COFs and electrochemically exfoliated graphene based free-standing films are fabricated for in-plane micro-supercapacitors, which demonstrate excellent volumetric capacitances (28.1 F cm−3) and excellent stability of 10 000 charge–discharge cycling in acidic electrolyte. This study provides a new approach toward dioxin-linked COFs with donor-acceptor structure and easily tunable energy levels for versatile energy storage and optoelectronic device

Aurora-A Induces Chemoresistance Through Activation of the AKT/mTOR Pathway in Endometrial Cancer

Endometrial cancer (EC) is the most common gynecological tumor all over the world, and advanced/metastatic EC remains a malignancy with poor survival outcome due to highly resistant to conventional chemotherapeutic treatment. Here, we report that Aurora-A, a serine-threonine kinase, plays a vital role in chemoresistance of EC. Aurora-A is overexpressed in EC tissues, compared with normal endometrium and Aurora-A expression is associated with decreased overall survival. Overexpression of Aurora-A in EC cell lines (Ishikawa and HEC-1B cells) promotes cell proliferation and induced paclitaxel- and cisplatin-resistance. Furthermore, Aurora-A activating AKT-mTOR pathway further induces chemoresistance in vitro, consistent with a positive correlation between Aurora-A and phosphorylated AKT/4E-BP1 expression in EC tissues. In summary, our study provides the strong evidence that Aurora-A controls the sensitivity of EC cell lines to chemotherapy via AKT/mTOR pathway, indicating that pharmacologic intervention of Aurora-A and AKT/mTOR in combination with chemotherapy may be considered for the targeted therapy against EC with overexpression of Aurora-A

A novel hybrid machine learning model for auxiliary diagnosing myocardial ischemia

IntroductionAccurate identification of the myocardial texture features of fat around the coronary artery on coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) images are crucial to improve clinical diagnostic efficiency of myocardial ischemia (MI). However, current coronary CT examination is difficult to recognize and segment the MI characteristics accurately during earlier period of inflammation.Materials and methodsWe proposed a random forest model to automatically segment myocardium and extract peripheral fat features. This hybrid machine learning (HML) model is integrated by CCTA images and clinical data. A total of 1,316 radiomics features were extracted from CCTA images. To further obtain the features that contribute the most to the diagnostic model, dimensionality reduction was applied to filter features to three: LNS, GFE, and WLGM. Moreover, statistical hypothesis tests were applied to improve the ability of discriminating and screening clinical features between the ischemic and non-ischemic groups.ResultsBy comparing the accuracy, recall, specificity and AUC of the three models, it can be found that HML had the best performance, with the value of 0.848, 0.762, 0.704 and 0.729.ConclusionIn sum, this study demonstrates that ML-based radiomics model showed good predictive value in MI, and offer an enhanced tool for predicting prognosis with greater accuracy

Rapid and Energy-Efficient Manufacturing of Thermoset Prepreg Via Localized In-Plane Thermal Assist (LITA) Technique

Prepregs are in demand for large production by the composites manufacturing industry to improve the mechanical properties of the load-bearing structural parts. The current prepreg manufacturing is confronted with inadequate resin impregnation, high energy costs, and safety concerns. To address those challenges, in this paper, we proposed a novel thermoset prepreg fabrication strategy that utilizes viscosity controlled by thermal gradient as well as gravity to achieve fast and energy-efficient manufacturing of thermoset prepreg. The concept is based on the localized in-plane thermal assist (LITA) technique, which uses a dynamic capillary effect to induce the wicking of thermoset resins in carbon fibers. This work demonstrated that a bench-scale continuous production of thermoset prepreg with carbon fiber tows can be achieved, and results show that the produced prepreg is B-staged, with the degree of curing as 13.9%. Our calculation suggests that the LITA prepreg fabrication method could save 63.56% of energy compared to the traditional prepreg fabrication methods, and increase the production rate by 133.28% compared to the traditional hot-melt prepreg fabrication method. The LITA prepreg method represents an efficient and eco-friendly composite manufacturing technology to outperform the state-of-the-art energy-intensive prepreg fabrication methods

Rapid and Energy-Efficient Manufacturing of Thermoset Prepreg Via Localized In-Plane Thermal Assist (LITA) Technique

Prepregs are in demand for large production by the composites manufacturing industry to improve the mechanical properties of the load-bearing structural parts. The current prepreg manufacturing is confronted with inadequate resin impregnation, high energy costs, and safety concerns. To address those challenges, in this paper, we proposed a novel thermoset prepreg fabrication strategy that utilizes viscosity controlled by thermal gradient as well as gravity to achieve fast and energy-efficient manufacturing of thermoset prepreg. The concept is based on the localized in-plane thermal assist (LITA) technique, which uses a dynamic capillary effect to induce the wicking of thermoset resins in carbon fibers. This work demonstrated that a bench-scale continuous production of thermoset prepreg with carbon fiber tows can be achieved, and results show that the produced prepreg is B-staged, with the degree of curing as 13.9%. Our calculation suggests that the LITA prepreg fabrication method could save 63.56% of energy compared to the traditional prepreg fabrication methods, and increase the production rate by 133.28% compared to the traditional hot-melt prepreg fabrication method. The LITA prepreg method represents an efficient and eco-friendly composite manufacturing technology to outperform the state-of-the-art energy-intensive prepreg fabrication methods

Structured Electrode Additive Manufacturing for Lithium-Ion Batteries

As the world increasingly swaps fossil fuels, significant advances in lithium-ion batteries have occurred over the past decade. Though demand for increased energy density with mechanical stability continues to be strong, attempts to use traditional ink-casting to increase electrode thickness or geometric complexity have had limited success. Here, we combined a nanomaterial orientation with 3D printing and developed a dry electrode processing route, structured electrode additive manufacturing (SEAM), to rapidly fabricate thick electrodes with an out-of-plane aligned architecture with low tortuosity and mechanical robustness. SEAM uses a shear flow of molten feedstock to control the orientation of the anisotropic materials across nano to macro scales, favoring Li-ion transport and insertion. These structured electrodes with 1 mm thickness have more than twice the specific capacity at 1 C compared to slurry-cast electrodes and have higher mechanical properties (compressive strength of 0.84 MPa and modulus of 5 MPa) than other reported 3D-printed electrodes

Structured Electrode Additive Manufacturing for Lithium-Ion Batteries

As the world increasingly swaps fossil fuels, significant advances in lithium-ion batteries have occurred over the past decade. Though demand for increased energy density with mechanical stability continues to be strong, attempts to use traditional ink-casting to increase electrode thickness or geometric complexity have had limited success. Here, we combined a nanomaterial orientation with 3D printing and developed a dry electrode processing route, structured electrode additive manufacturing (SEAM), to rapidly fabricate thick electrodes with an out-of-plane aligned architecture with low tortuosity and mechanical robustness. SEAM uses a shear flow of molten feedstock to control the orientation of the anisotropic materials across nano to macro scales, favoring Li-ion transport and insertion. These structured electrodes with 1 mm thickness have more than twice the specific capacity at 1 C compared to slurry-cast electrodes and have higher mechanical properties (compressive strength of 0.84 MPa and modulus of 5 MPa) than other reported 3D-printed electrodes

Thermally Conductive 3D-Printed Carbon-Nanotube-Filled Polymer Nanocomposites for Scalable Thermal Management

Thermal transportation in a preferred direction is desirable and important for addressing thermal management issues. With the merits of high thermal conductivity, good chemical stability, and desirable mechanical properties, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have a great potential for wide applications in heat dissipation devices. The combination of 3D printing and CNTs can enable unlimited possibilities for hierarchically aligned structural programming. We report the formation of through-plane aligned multiwalled CNT (MWCNT)-filled polylactic acid (PLA) nanocomposites by 3D printing. The as-printed vertically (or through-plane) aligned structure demonstrates a through-plane thermal conductivity (k⊥) of ∼0.575 W/(mK) at 20 wt % MWCNT content, which is around 2.64 times that of a horizontally aligned structure (∼0.218 W/(mK)) and around 5.87 times that of neat PLA (∼0.098 W/(mK)) at 35 °C. Infrared thermal imaging performed on 3D-printed MWCNT/PLA heat sink verified the superior performance of the nanocomposite compared to that of the matrix polymer. In this study, we achieved the manufacturing of MWCNT/PLA with a high filler loading and a significant improvement in thermal conductivity simultaneously. This work paves the way to develop 3D-printed carbon filler-reinforced polymer composites for thermal-related applications such as heat sinks or thermal radiators