All-Solid-State Lithium Battery Working without an Additional Separator in a Polymeric Electrolyte

Considering the safety issues of Li ion batteries, an all-solid-state polymer electrolyte has been one of the promising solutions. Achieving a Li ion conductivity of a solid-state electrolyte comparable to that of a liquid electrolyte (>1 mS/cm) is particularly challenging. Even with characteristic ion conductivity, employment of a polyethylene oxide (PEO) solid electrolyte has not been sufficient due to high crystallinity. In this study, hybrid solid electrolyte (HSE) systems have been designed with Li1.3Al0.3Ti0.7(PO4)3 (LATP), PEO and lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI). A hybrid solid cathode (HSC) is also designed using LATP, PEO and lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2, LCO)—lithium manganese oxide (LiMn2O4, LMO). The designed HSE system has 2.0 × 10−4 S/cm (23 °C) and 1.6 × 10−3 S/cm (55 °C) with a 6.0 V electrochemical stability without an additional separator membrane introduction. In these systems, succinonitrile (SN) has been incorporated as a plasticizer to reduce crystallinity of PEO for practical all-solid Li battery system development. The designed HSC/HSE/Li metal cell in this study operates without any leakage and short-circuits even under the broken cell condition. The designed HSC/HSE/Li metal cell in this study displays an initial charge capacity of 82/62 mAh/g (23 °C) and 123.4/102.7 mAh/g (55 °C). The developed system overcomes typical disadvantages of internal resistance induced by Ti ion reduction. This study contributes to a new technology development of all-solid-state Li battery for commercial product design

Correlation of PLC-??1 Expression and DNA Ploidy Pattern in Hepatocellular Carcinomas

Phospholipase C isozymes (PLCs) play a role in ligand-mediated signal transduction for cellu- lar activity such as proliferation and differentation. However, their biological significance of in carcinogenesis or tumor progression is not fully estabilished, although PLC-rl is known to be related to the cell growth or the oncogene. We examined the relative content of PLC-rl in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the adjacent non tumorous liver tissue, by immunoperoxidase staining of paraffin embedded sections. Among 32 cases, 25 demonstrated s significant decrease of PLC-rl content in comparison to the adjacent nontumorous tissue. Seven cases revealed no remarkable change in PLC-rl expression. There was no HCC expressing higher level of PLC-rl. We also performed image cytometric studies to evaluate the relationship between the DNA ploidy pattern and the PLC-yl content. Interestingly, the tumors showing a decreased PLC-rl expression, were mostly diploid and tetraploid (except 3 cases) in contrast to those tumors showing no change in PLC-rl content which were exclusively aneuploid. The results suggest that PLC-rl expression is closely related to DNA ploidy of the tumor, and that there may be two different mechanisms of hepatocarcinogenesis: one is related to PLC-rl associated signal trasduction system, and the other is independent of PLC-rl.clos