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The problem of soil and water contamination caused by Cr(VI) discharged from the dyeing, electroplating, and metallurgical industries is becoming increasingly serious, posing a potentially great threat to the environment and public health. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a fast, efficient, and cost-effective adsorbent for remediating Cr-contaminated wastewater. In this work, MgAl-LDH/commercial-activated carbon nanocomposites (LDH-CACs) are prepared with hydrothermal. The effects of preparation and reaction conditions on the composite properties are first investigated, and then its adsorption behavior is thoroughly explored. Finally, a potential adsorption mechanism is proposed by several characterizations like SEM–EDS, XRD, FTIR, and XPS. The removal of Cr(VI) reaches 72.47% at optimal conditions, and the adsorption study demonstrates that LDH-CAC@1 has an extremely rapid adsorption rate and a maximum adsorption capacity of 116.7 mg/g. The primary removal mechanisms include adsorption-coupled reduction, ion exchange, surface precipitation, and electrostatic attraction. The reusability experiment illustrates that LDH-CAC@1 exhibits promising reusability. This study provides an effective adsorbent with a remarkably fast reaction, which has positive environmental significance for the treatment of Cr(VI) wastewater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The universal flexoelectric effect in solids provides a mechanical pathway for controlling electric polarization in ultrathin ferroelectrics, eliminating potential material breakdown from a giant electric field at the nanoscale. One challenge of this approach is arbitrary implementation, which is strongly hindered by one-way switching capability. Here, utilizing the innate flexibility of van der Waals materials, we demonstrate that ferroelectric polarization and domain structures can be mechanically, reversibly, and arbitrarily switched in two-dimensional CuInP2S6 via the nano-tip imprinting technique. The bidirectional flexoelectric control is attributed to the extended tip-induced deformation in two-dimensional systems with innate flexibility at the atomic scale. By employing an elastic substrate, artificial ferroelectric nanodomains with lateral sizes as small as ~80 nm are noninvasively generated in an area of 1 μm2, equal to a density of 31.4 Gbit/in2. Our results highlight the potential applications of van der Waals ferroelectrics in data storage and flexoelectronics. Flexoelectric effect may offer a voltage-free method to control the polarization in 2D ferroelectrics, but its widespread application remains challenging. Here, the authors report an approach to arbitrarily switch the ferroelectricity in 2D CuInP2S6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The leakage of liquid electrolyte and the formation of lithium dendrites pose challenges to safety and stability of lithium metal batteries (LMBs). The appearance of gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) has obviously improved the safety of traditional LMBs. However, the limited inhibition of GPE on lithium dendrites is detrimental to the safety of LMBs. Herein, a kind of poly (vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP)/gelatin (GN) GPE with high ionic conductivity, high-temperature resistance, and flame-retardancy, was prepared by electrospinning and soaking method. Utilizing the electrospinning network of PVDF-HFP, its affinity to liquid electrolytes, makes this GPE more beneficial to ions transport and the formation of gel. And, the GN with sol-gel properties, enhances the mechanical property (13.5 MPa) of HFP-GN GPE. Meanwhile, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and density functional theory (DFT) suggest that the attraction of polar groups of GN to Li+ can regulate the distribution of Li+ and protect Li anodes. Consequently, the application of HFP-GN GPEs to LMBs with cathodes of LiFePO4 and LiCoO2 deliver excellent electrochemical performances: after 300 cycles, the LiFePO4/HFP-GN GPE/Li battery keeps a low capacity decay rate of 0.09% at 5 C; after 400 cycles at 2 C, the LiCoO2/HFP-GN GPE/Li cell retains a high capacity retention of 74%. This GPE is demonstrated for the application prospect of safe LMBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chaotic systems have good characteristics, such as sensitivity to initial value and parameter, ergodicity, certainty and so on. Using chaos to generate pseudo-random sequences for encryption has good efficiency and security. However, due to the limitation of computing precision, the chaotic sequence running on the computer will enter a cycle after several times of iterations. In this paper, a control method is proposed to reduce this phenomenon. In this method, one chaotic map is used to adjust the parameters of another chaotic map, which makes the sequence generated by this model has good dynamic characteristics under a low computing precision. To prove the effectiveness of this model, two examples are provided. Furthermore, the dynamical performances of these two chaotic systems have been demonstrated by a series of analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accelerated arriving of 5G era has brought a new round of intelligent transformation which will completely emancipate smart terminal devices. While the subsequent deleterious effect of electromagnetic wave on electronic devices is increasingly serious, driving the growth of next-generation electromagnetic wave absorbents. As a tactful combination of components and structures, three-dimensional (3D) macroscopic absorbents with fascinating synergy afford exceptional electromagnetic wave absorption, and tremendous efforts have been devoted to this investigation. However, in terms of macroscopic absorbents and their synergistic effect, few reviews are proposed to comb the latest achievements and detailed synergy. This review article focuses on the synergistic effect of macro-architectured absorbents mainly including structure-induced synergy, structure-components synergy, and multiple-components induced synergy. And then the potential construction principles and strategies of macroscopic absorbents are combed. Significantly, the key information for structures and components manipulation including nano-micro design and components regulation is further dissected by critically selected cutting-edge 3D macroscopic absorbents. Moreover, a brief summary of multifunctional electromagnetic wave absorbents (EWAs)-based macroscopic structures is presented. Finally, the development prospects and challenges of these materials are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of ATP6AP1 in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains elusive despite its observed upregulation in pan-cancer. Therefore, the current study aimed to assess the clinical significance of ATP6AP1 and its relationship with the immune infiltration in CRC. Transcriptome data of CRC were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and analyzed using the combination of R packages and tumor-related databases, including TIMER2, TISIDB, cBioPortal, and MethSurv. The tissue arrays and immunohistochemical staining were performed to verify the expression and clinical characteristics of ATP6AP1. The results revealed that ATP6AP1 expression was significantly elevated in CRC and associated with poor clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrated ATP6AP1 expression was correlated with the infiltration of immune cells and cancer-associated fibroblasts in the microenvironment of CRC. Moreover, ATP6AP1 was found to be linked to various immune checkpoints and chemokines, with enrichment of cytoplasmic vesicle lumen, endopeptidase regulator activity, and endopeptidase inhibitor activity observed in the high ATP6AP1 expressional group. In conclusion, the findings of this study suggest that ATP6AP1 upregulation may serve as a biomarker for poor diagnosis in CRC and offer a potential target for immunotherapy in CRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exhaust gas recirculation control (EGRC), an inlet air heating technology, can be utilized in combination with inlet/variable guide vane control (IGV/VGVC) and fuel flow control (FFC) to regulate the load, thereby effectively improving the part-load (i.e., off-design) performance of the gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC). In this study, the E-, F-, and H-Class EGR-GTCC design and off-design system models were established and validated to perform a comparative analysis of the part-load performance under the EGR-IGV-FFC and conventional IGV-FFC strategies in the E/F/H-Class GTCC. Results show that EGR-IGV-FFC has considerable potential for the part-load performance enhancement and can show a higher combined cycle efficiency than IGV-FFC in the E-, F-, and H-Class GTCCs. However, the part-load performance improvement in the corresponding GTCC was weakened for the higher class of the gas turbine because of the narrower load range of EGR action and the deterioration of the gas turbine performance. Furthermore, EGR-IGV-FFC was inferior to IGV-FFC in improving the performance at loads below 50% for the H-Class GTCC. The results obtained in this paper could help guide the application of EGR-IGV-FFC to enhance the part-load performance of various classes of GTCC systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]