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Zhou, Hui

Publications and source records attributed to Zhou, Hui.

28 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Al Substitution for Mn during Co-Precipitation Boosts the Electrochemical Performance of LiNi 0.8 Mn 0.1 Co 0.1 O 2

We report nickel-rich layered oxides, such as LiNi 0.8 Mn 0.1 Co 0.1 O 2 (NMC 811), are considered as one of the most promising candidates for the next-generation cathode because of their high energy densities and relatively low cost. However, the poor first Coulombic efficiency of NMC 811 leads to around a 15% capacity loss in the first cycle at a cut-off voltage of 4.4 V. Moreover, the structure degradation during cycling results in capacity fading and safety concerns, due to potential oxygen loss after charging. Here, with aluminum substitution for manganese through a developed continuous co-precipitation approach, the electrochemical performance of NMC 811 cathodes has been greatly enhanced. Among different Al% substituted samples, LiNi 0.8 Mn 0.06 Co 0.1 Al 0.04 O 2 cathodes reduced by 50% the first capacity loss of pristine NMC 811(18.0 vs 35.9 mAh g -1 ) and improved the capacity retention from 81.4 to 96.4% after 60 cycles at 0.5C in the voltage range of 2.8–4.4 V.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Can Greener Cyrene Replace NMP for Electrode Preparation of NMC 811 Cathodes?

N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) is the normally used solvent for cathode processing in lithium battery field. However, its high toxicity attracted more and more environmental scrutiny and was restricted by many chemical legislations in industry applications. So, it is necessary to find a greener and safer alternative to replace it. Dihydrolevoglucosenone (Cyrene), a newly reported green dipolar aprotic solvent, has very similar solvent properties as NMP, making it a very attractive candidate. The possibility to use Cyrene to replace NMP for NMC 811 cathode fabrication was studied. Although PVDF binder has very poor solubility in Cyrene at room temperature, increasing temperature can significantly change this. High temperature (above 80 °C) electrode processing with Cyrene gives promising performance, which is comparable to the conventional NMP fabricated electrode. A proof of principle was provided: Cyrene can be a good green alternative to replace NMP. So, the positive results reported here may also lead to a search for more Cyrene-like green solvents that have a higher solubility for PVDF, or of PVDF-like binders that are more soluble in Cyrene, to help making the electrode processing much greener.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Logically Parallel Communication for Fast MPI+Threads Applications

Supercomputing applications are increasingly adopting the MPI+threads programming model over the traditional "MPI everywhere" approach to better handle the disproportionate increase in the number of cores compared with other on-node resources. In practice, however, most applications observe a slower performance with MPI+threads primarily because of poor communication performance. Recent research efforts on MPI libraries address this bottleneck by mapping logically parallel communication, that is, operations that are not subject to MPI's ordering constraints to the underlying network parallelism. Domain scientists, however, typically do not expose such communication independence information because the existing MPI-3.1 standard's semantics can be limiting. Researchers had initially proposed user-visible endpoints to combat this issue, but such a solution requires intrusive changes to the standard (new APIs). The upcoming MPI-4.0 standard, on the other hand, allows applications to relax unneeded semantics and provides them with many opportunities to express logical communication parallelism. Here in this article, we show how MPI+threads applications can achieve high performance with logically parallel communication. Through application case studies, we compare the capabilities of the new MPI-4.0 standard with those of the existing one and user-visible endpoints (upper bound). Logical communication parallelism can boost the overall performance of an application by over 2x.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

What is the Role of Nb in Nickel-Rich Layered Oxide Cathodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries?

Nickel-rich layered metal oxide LiNi 1–y–z Mn y Co z O 2 (1 – y – z ≥ 0.8) materials are the most promising cathodes for next-generation lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles. However, they lose more than 10% of their capacity on the first cycle, and interfacial/structural instability causes capacity fading. Coating and substitution are possible direct and effective solutions to solve these challenges. In this Letter, Nb coating and Nb substitution on LiNi 0.8 Mn 0.1 Co 0.1 O 2 (NMC811) is easily produced through a scalable wet chemistry method followed by sintering from 400 to 800 °C. A Li-free Nb oxide treatment is found to remove surface impurities forming a LiNbO 3 /Li 3 NbO 4 surface coating, to reduce the first capacity loss and to improve the rate performance. Furthermore, Nb substitution stabilizes the structure, as evidenced by less heat evolution on heating, thus providing better long cycling stability with a 93.2% capacity retention after 250 cycles.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Toward hydrogen economy: Selective guaiacol hydrogenolysis under ambient hydrogen pressure

The conversion of guaiacol into the nylon precursors, cyclohexanol and cyclohexanone, is catalyzed by palladium supported on high surface area ceria (Pd/HS CeO 2 ) under mild conditions (100 °C, ≤1 bar H 2 ) via sequential hydrodemethoxylation and hydrogenation. In contrast, the 2-methoxycyclohexanol side product is generated by direct guaiacol hydrogenation. Reaction selectivity is determined by competing CO bond hydrogenolysis versus arene hydrogenation. Hydrogenolysis selectivity increases as H 2 pressure decreases, and over 80 % H 2 is incorporated into the products at 1 bar H 2 . Higher reactivity of guaiacol than anisole implies that the hydroxyl group is essential in Pd/HS CeO 2 catalysis. Participation of water in the conversion is evidenced by deuterium incorporation at non-exchangeable positions when the reaction is performed in D 2 O. Here, the combination of near quantitative mass balance of H 2 , high recyclability, and use of water as a solvent offers a simple, green and efficient conversion of lignin-derived aromatics into commercial products.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Lycorine targets multiple myeloma stem cell‐like cells by inhibition of Wnt/β‐catenin pathway

Summary Multiple myeloma (MM) is characterised by the proliferation and accumulation of malignant plasma cells in the bone marrow. Despite the progress in treatment over the last few years, MM remains incurable and the majority of patients relapse. MM stem‐like cells (MMSCs) have been considered as the main reason for drug resistance and eventual relapse. Currently, therapeutic agents are not enough to eradicate MMSCs, and finding effective strategies to eradicate MMSCs may improve the outcome of patients. Here we showed that lycorine, a natural compound from the Amaryllidaceae species, effectively inhibits the proliferation of myeloma cells from cell lines or patients, mainly through decreasing ALDH1 + cells. Mechanistically, lycorine decreases the MMSC population through inhibition of the Wnt/β‐catenin pathway by reducing the β‐catenin protein level. Moreover, lycorine could overcome the increasing proportion of ALDH1 + cells caused by bortezomib (BTZ) treatment, and a combination BTZ and lycorine have a synergistic effect on anti‐myeloma cells. Furthermore, we found a similar reduction of MMSC characteristics by lycorine in BTZ‐resistant MM cells and primary CD138 + plasma cells. Collectively, our findings indicate lycorine as a promising agent to target MMSCs to overcome the drug resistance of BTZ, and that, alone or in combination with BTZ, lycorine is a potential therapeutic strategy for MM treatments.

Wang, Haiqin↗
DOE OSTI2020

Evolution of lithium ordering with (de)-lithiation in β-LiVOPO 4 : insights through solid-state NMR and first principles DFT calculations

The lithium-ion battery cathode material β-VOPO 4 is capable of intercalating more than one Li ion per transition metal ion due to the accessibility of both the V 5+ /V 4+ and V 4+ /V 3+ redox couples at ~4.5 V and ~2.3 V vs. Li, respectively, giving a theoretical capacity greater than ~300 mA h g -1 . The ability to perform full and reversible two Li-ion intercalation in this material, however, has been a matter of debate and the poor crystallinity of the fully lithiated phase has thus far precluded its complete structural characterisation by conventional diffraction-based methods. In this work, 7 Li and 31 P NMR spectroscopy, in combination with first principles DFT calculations, indicate that chemical lithiation results in a single phase β-Li 2 VOPO 4 exhibiting a complex Li ordering scheme with lithium ions occupying multiple disordered environments. 2D NMR 7 Li correlation experiments were used to deduce the most likely Li ordering for the β-Li 2 VOPO 4 phase from amongst several DFT optimised structures. In contrast, electrochemically lithiated β-Li 2- x VOPO 4 discharged to 1.6 V exhibits, in addition to β-Li 2 VOPO 4 , a β-Li 1.5 VOPO 4 phase. Additionally, the existence of β-Li 1.5 VOPO 4 is not reflected in the flat galvanostatic charge and discharge curves nor is evident from diffraction-based methods due to the very close structural similarity between the β-Li 1.5 VOPO 4 phase and β-Li 2 VOPO 4 phases. We demonstrate that solid state NMR spectroscopy, in combination with DFT results, provides a powerful tool for identifying intermediate states formed during charge/discharge of these complex phosphates as these phases can be distinguished from the end member phases primarily by the nature of the lithium ordering.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗