Liquid phase exfoliation of natural graphite is an industrially effective solution for graphene preparation. However, many countries have identified natural graphite as a strategic resource and restricted its mining. In this report, we used abundant and readily available needle coke (NC) as a graphene exfoliation precursor and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as a dispersant to prepare a sandwich structured conductive graphitized NC nanosheets (GNCNs) by liquid phase exfoliation, freeze-drying and high-temperature graphitization, in which a graphene layer is sandwiched between two thin CMC layers. CMC could increase the liquid absorption and retention ability of the conductive agent and improve the migration rate of lithium ions. The highly ordered graphene layer could accelerate the transmission of electrons. The GNCNs with 0.4 wt% CMC addition showed good rate performance (144.6 mAh g− 1 at 5 C) and high cycle stability (96.2% after 200 cycles at 1 C) for LiFePO4 (LFP) battery. The traditional Super-P (SP) conductive agent exhibited low-rate performance (113.9 mAh g− 1 at 5 C) and cycle performance (89.9% after 200 cycles at 1 C). This study offers a novel approach to selecting graphene precursors and has promising applications for conductive additives in high-performance LFP batteries.

Here, a novel nitrogen-doped carbon nano-material (N-CGNM) with hierarchically porous structure was prepared from spent coffee ground for efficient adsorption of organic dyes by a simple one-step carbonization process (the uniform mixture consists of spent coffee ground, urea, and CaCl2 with the ratio of 1:1:1, which was heated to 1000 °C with a rate of 10 °C min− 1 and held at 1000 °C for 90 min in N2 atmosphere to carry out carbonization, activation, and N-doping concurrently). The morphology and structure analysis show that the prepared N-CGNM exhibits hierarchical pore structure, high specific surface area (544 m2/ g), and large numbers of positively charged nitrogen-containing groups. This unique structure and chemical composition endow N-CGNM with an excellent adsorption capacity toward anion Congo red (623.12 ± 21.69 mg/g), which is obviously superior to that (216.47 ± 18.43 mg/g) of untreated spent coffee ground-based carbon nano-materials (CGM). Oppositely, the adsorption capacity of N-CGNM towards cation methylene blue is inferior to that of CGM due to the existence of electrostatic repulsion. These findings show a great guidance for the development of low-cost but efficient selective adsorbent.

During the Japanese Occupation of China (1931-45), countless Chinese cultural relics were simply destroyed or looted in accordance with Japan’s notorious ‘Three Alls Campaign,’ also known as ‘Burn all, loot all, and kill all’. Due to the 1972 Japan-Chian Joint Communiqué, however, the Chinese Government renounced its demand for war reparation from Japan. The question then becomes whether, when the Chinese Government renounced its claims for war reparations in a peace treaty. Chinese individuals still have a means to vindicate their rights to request restitution of Chinese cultural relics from Japan. The primary purpose of this research is to tackle two questions: First, was the taking of Chinese cultural relics during the Japanese Occupation prohibited by law? Second, can the Chinese individuals legally require the restitution of looted cultural relics? This paper handles a case of a 1300-year’s old Tang dynasty stele in Japan which has been asked to hand over to China since 2014.

Tungsten coatings with different interlayers onto the oxygen-free copper substrates were fabricated by atmosphere plasma spraying. The effects of different interlayers of NiCrAl, NiAl and W/Cu on bonding strength were studied. SEM, EDS and XRD were used to investigate the photographs and compositions of these coatings. The tungsten coatings with different initial particle sizes resulted in different microstructures. Oxidation was not detected in the tungsten coating, but in the interlayer, it was found by both XRD and EDS. The tungsten coating deposited directly onto the copper substrate presented higher bonding strength than those with different interlayers.

The surface treatment of C-type isotropic pitch-based carbon fiber was carried out by anodic oxidation in 5 wt% NH4NO3 electrolyte. The changes of fiber surface and carbon fiber/ABS resin composites were characterized by SEM, XPS and mechanical properties test. The oxygen functional groups on the surface, such as hydroxyl (-C-OH), carboxyl (-COOH) groups etc., increased after oxidation. Tensile strength, flexural strength and modulus of carbon fiber/ABS composites were also enhanced. However, the impact strength decreased with the improvement of the surface adhesion between CF and matrix.

Continuous measurements of ground-level ozone (O_3) were made in five minutes intervals in the rural area of Korea from July 1993 to June 1994. This site is located in Chongwon, near latitude 36.4˚ N, longitude 127.6˚ E. The results show that the one-year mean value was 17 ppb, and monthly mean ranged from 6 to 47 ppb. A pronounced maximum in summer and a minimum in winter were found, and these were related to anthropogenic emission and photochemical reaction. Diurnal variations of ozone concentration showed a normal distribution with a maximum at 15:00 - 16:00 and a minimum at 07:00 - 08:00. During the period when ozone concentration was very high (> 80 ppb), the stable winds were from N and NW; on the other hand, when ozone concentration was very low, air movement in the large scale was from the North Pacific Ocean. This suggests that in the rural area the long range transport of anthropogenic pollutants from distant sources can contribute to the larger contribution than the generation of ozone from local sources in the rural area.