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The leaching and recycling of valuable metals via environmentally benign solvents is important because of the everincreasing waste lithium-ion batteries, but it remains a challenge. Herein, a multi-functional deep eutectic solvent (DES) based on lactic acid (LA) and guanidine hydrochloride (GHC) was used to extract cobalt and lithium ions from LiCoO 2 . Due to the strong acidity (protons) and abundant chlorine coordinating ions of LA/GHC, the solubility of LiCoO 2 in LA/GHC could reach as high as 19.9 mg g À 1 (stirred at 80 °C for 24 h), and a little LiCoO 2 powder even could be dissolved at room temperature without stirring. Oxalic acid was used to strip and separate the oxalates of cobalt and lithium. Furthermore, LA/ GHC could be recycled with a similar dissolving performance. This work avoided using corrosive acids and could be realized at low temperature (80 °C), making it energy-saving and costeffective. It shows DESs have great potential in extracting strategically important metals from LiCoO 2 cathodes and provides an efficient and green alternative for sustainable recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries.

Coronatine (COR) is a non-host specific phytotoxin secreted by Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato that can induce leaf chlorosis and increase the virulence of pathogens during plant-pathogen interactions. Studies have shown that COR can regulate multiple physiological processes in plants, but its involvement in bacterial pathogenesis and plant growth regulation is not well understood.• In this study, transcriptome sequencing was carried out on 4-week-old tomato leaves that were either mock-treated or treated with COR.• Transcriptome sequencing led to the identification of 6144 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), of which 4361 genes were downregulated and 1783 genes were upregulated upon COR treatment. To obtain functional information on the DEGs, we annotated these genes using GO and KEGG databases. Functional classification analysis showed that the DEGs were primarily involved in photosynthesis, chlorophyll and carotenoid biosynthesis, jasmonic acid (JA) synthesis and phenylpropane metabolism. • A total of 23 genes related to chlorophyll biosynthesis had significant changes, of which 22 genes were downregulated and one gene was upregulated, indicating that chlorophyll biosynthesis was inhibited upon COR treatment. A total of 17 photosystem I related genes and 22 photosystem II related genes involving 20 protein subunits were also downregulated. In the JA synthesis pathway, 25 genes were up regulated, and six genes were downregulated in COR treated samples. COR was also involved in the regulation of multiple secondary metabolites. The identified DEGs will help us better understand the virulence effects and physiological functions of COR and provide a theoretical basis for breeding resistance into economically important crops.

Abstract. Chaos theory provides a new approach to image encryption technology. The key stream generator is the key design issue of an image encryption system, it directly determines the security and efficiency of the system. This paper proposes an improved chaos-based key stream generator to enlarge the key space, extend the period and improve the linear complexity of the key stream under precision restricted condition so as to enhance the security of a chaos-based image encryption system. The generator is constructed by three Logistic maps and a nonlinear transform. The balance and correlation properties of the generated sequence are analyzed. The sequence is proved to be a binary Bernoulli stochastic sequence and the distribution of the differences between the amounts of 0 and 1 is analyzed. The side lobes of auto and cross correlation are proved to obey normal distribution N(0, 1/N). The experimental results indicate that the scheme has advantages of long period and strong anti various attack ability over conventional chaos-based encryption system.

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