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The cathode materials of LiFePO4 batteries decreases due to the gradual loss of lithium content during use. In this paper, the spent cathode materials were recycled with a carbon layer coated. The samples were prepared by a high temperature impurity removal procession and a solid phase repairing method. The LiFePO4 material obtained by the regeneration process has a discharge specific capacity of 105.4 mAh/g at 0.1 C after 10 cycles, and keeps it a considerable retention of 73.1 mAh/g at 1 C. This work provides a new routine in reusing lithium ion batteries.

Carbon-coated SnO2 particles (SnO2/C) were first synthesized by hydrolysis of SnCl4 in the sucrose solution at 85 °C, where sucrose is the carbon source. These particles were then mixed with La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSM) through a suspension stirring process to form SnO2/C-LSM composites. The results of SEM and EDX show that LSM particles are distributed in SnO2/C uniformly. Galvanostatic discharge-charge measurement was used to test the electrochemical performance of SnO2/C and SnO2/C-LSM. It was found that the specific reversible capacity increased from165 mAh/g for SnO2/C to 270 mAh/g for SnO2/C-LSM after 50 cycles. This improvement may be attributed to the lower charge transfer resistance and higher electronic conductivity resulted from introducing LSM.

A new Zn(II) mononuclear complex with tris(benzimidazol-2-yl-methyl)amine (NTB) was synthesized with stoichiometry of [Zn(NTB)NO3]NO3 · DIPY · DMF (DIPY : 4,4′-dipyridyl). The complex was characterized by elemental analysis, UV and IR spectra. The crystal structure was determined by using X-ray diffraction analysis. The crystal structure indicates that four N atoms and one O atom coordinate to zinc ion to construct a distorted trigonal-dipyramid configuration. Three nonprotonated N atoms from imidazole groups are in the equatorial plane, one alkylamino N atom and one O atom from NO3−- in the axial directions. The biological activity assay shows that this complex presents certain biological activity by means of pyrogallol autoxidation and it can be called a model compound of superoxide dismutase (SOD).

Effect of NaAc on the anodic growth of TiO2 nanotube arrays is described. NaAc-added approach yields longer nanotubes relative to samples grown from NaAc-free electrolyte. And the growth rate of TiO2 nanotubes has pH independency in NaAc-added electrolytes. The key to achieve a high aspect ratio TiO2 nanotube arrays is to decrease the chemical dissolution rate at the mouth of the tube by adding NaAc as protective coating. Adsorption of Ac- species on the TiO2 surface is shown to markedly decrease the chemical dissolution rate of the tube mouth, resulting in longer nanotube length.

The red palm weevil (RPW; Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) is a devastating pest of palms, prevalent in the Middle East as well as many other regions of the world. Here, we report a large-scale de novo complementary DNA (cDNA) sequencing effort that acquired ∼5 million reads and assembled them into 26 765 contigs from 12 libraries made from samples of different RPW developmental stages based on the Roche/454 GS FLX platform. We annotated these contigs based on the publically available known insect genes and the Tribolium castaneum genome assembly. We find that over 80% of coding sequences (CDS) from the RPW contigs have high-identity homologs to known proteins with complete CDS. Gene expression analysis shows that the pupa and larval stages have the highest and lowest expression levels, respectively. In addition, we also identified more than 60 000 single nucleotide polymorphisms and 1 200 simple sequence repeat markers. This study provides the first large-scale cDNA dataset for RPW, a much-needed resource for future molecular studies.