In this review, we present an in-depth discussion of the state-of-the-art doping engineering and functionalization of 2D metal chalcogenides for finely tuned material properties and functions in numerous application fields.

BackgroundMetagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) is a powerful method for pathogen detection. In this study, we assessed the value of mNGS for bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) samples in the diagnosis of pulmonary infections.MethodsFrom February 2018 to April 2019, BAL samples were collected from 235 patients with suspected pulmonary infections. mNGS and microbial culture were performed to evaluate the effectiveness of mNGS in pulmonary infection diagnosis.ResultsWe employed mNGS to evaluate the alpha diversity, results suggesting that patients with confirmed pathogens had a lower microbial diversity index compared to that of patients with uncertain pathogens. For the patients admitted to the respiratory intensive care unit (RICU) or on a ventilator, they experienced a lower diversity index than that of the patients in the general ward or not on a ventilator. In addition, mNGS of BAL had a diagnostic sensitivity of 88.89% and a specificity of 14.86% in pulmonary infection, with 21.16% positive predictive value (PPV) and 83.87% negative predictive value (NPV). When rare pathogens were excluded, the sensitivity of mNGS decreased to 73.33%, and the specificity increased to 41.71%. For patients in the simple pulmonary infection group and the immunocompromised group, the main infection types were bacterial infection (58.33%) and mixed-infection (43.18%). Furthermore, mNGS had an advantage over culture in describing polymicrobial ecosystem, demonstrating the microbial distribution and the dominant strains of the respiratory tract in patients with different underlying diseases.ConclusionsThe study indicated that mNGS of BAL samples could provide more accurate diagnostic information in pulmonary infections and demonstrate the changes of respiratory microbiome in different underlying diseases. This method might play an important role in the clinical use of antimicrobial agents in the future.

Novel optoelectronic memory is fabricated using a van der Waals heterostructure of PtS2/h-BN/graphene with asymmetric hot carrier tunneling barriers.

Recovery of cobalt and lithium from spent Li-ion batteries (LIBs) has been studied using ultrasound-assisted leaching. The primary purpose of this work is to investigate the effects of ultrasound on leaching efficiency of cobalt and lithium. The results were compared to conventional leaching. In this study sulfuric acid was used as leaching agent in the presence of hydrogen peroxide. The cathode active materials from spent battery were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) before and after leaching. Effects of leaching time, leaching temperature, HSO concentration, HO concentration, solid/liquid ratio, and ultrasonic power have been studied. Optimal leaching efficiency of 94.63% for cobalt, and 98.62% for lithium, respectively, was achieved by using 2 M HSO with 5% (v/v) HO at a solid/liquid ratio of 100 g/L, and an ultrasonic power of 360 W, and the leaching time being 30 min under 30 °C. Compared with conventional leaching, the ultrasound-assisted leaching gave a higher leaching rate and improved leaching efficiency under the same experimental conditionals. The kinetic analysis of ultrasound-assisted leaching showed that the activation energy of cobalt and lithium were 3.848 KJ/mol and 11.6348 KJ/mol, respectively, indicating that ultrasound-assisted leaching of cobalt and lithium from spent LIBs was controlled by diffusion.

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