Zifan Wang

Additive manufacturing (AM) especially laser additive manufacturing (LAM), a novel manufacturing technique of layer-by-layer forming according to geometric model, provides a decent option for materials processing. It owns advantages of rapid prototyping, customization, high material utilization, and the ability to form complicated structures. This paper reviews popular LAM techniques of selective laser sintering/melting, laser metal deposition and laser direct writing. The development status of metallic materials including pure metal, steel, superalloy, titanium and aluminum alloy is presented. The challenges and application limitations of LAM are involved and the development trend in the future is forecasted. In summary, this paper gives an overview of metal LAM expecting to made helpful suggestions on future research and development.

Currently, manufacturing enterprises face increasingly fierce market competition due to the various demands of customers and the rapid development of economic globalization. Hence, they have to extend their production mode into distributed environments and establish multiple factories in various geographical locations. Nowadays, distributed manufacturing systems have been widely adopted in industrial production processes. In recent years, many studies have been done on the modeling and optimization of distributed scheduling problems. This work provides a literature review on distributed scheduling problems in intelligent manufacturing systems. By summarizing and evaluating existing studies on distributed scheduling problems, we analyze the achievements and current research status in this field and discuss ongoing studies. Insights regarding prior works are discussed to uncover future research directions, particularly swarm intelligence and evolutionary algorithms, which are used for managing distributed scheduling problems in manufacturing systems. This work focuses on journal papers discovered using Google Scholar. After reviewing the papers, in this work, we discuss the research trends of distributed scheduling problems and point out some directions for future studies.

Abstract The main bottlenecks of aqueous rechargeable Ni–Zn batteries are their relatively low energy density and poor cycling stability, mainly arising from the low capacity and inferior reversibility of the current Ni‐based cathodes. Additionally, the complicated and difficult‐to‐scale preparation procedures of these cathodes are not promising for large‐scale energy storage. Here, a facile and cost‐effective ultrasonic‐assisted strategy is developed to efficiently activate commercial Ni foam as a robust cathode for a high‐energy and stable aqueous rechargeable Ni–Zn battery. 3D Ni@NiO core–shell electrode with remarkably boosted reactivity and an area of 300 cm 2 is readily obtained by this ultrasonic‐assisted activation method (denoted as SANF). Benefiting from the in situ formation of electrochemically active NiO and porous 3D structure with a large surface area, the as‐fabricated SANF//Zn battery presents ultrahigh capacity (0.422 mA h cm −2 ) and excellent cycling durability (92.5% after 1800 cycles). Moreover, this aqueous rechargeable SANF//Zn battery achieves an impressive energy density of 15.1 mW h cm −3 (0.754 mW h cm −2 ) and a peak power density of 1392 mW cm −3 , outperforming most reported aqueous rechargeable energy‐storage devices. These findings may provide valuable insights into designing large‐scale and high‐performance 3D electrodes for aqueous rechargeable batteries.

Abstract To achieve high‐energy and stable aqueous rechargeable batteries, state‐of‐the art of anode materials are needed. Bismuth (Bi) has recently emerged as an attractive anode material due to its highly reversible redox reaction and suitable negative operating working window. However, the capacity and durability of currently reported Bi anodes are still far from satisfactory. Here, an in situ activation strategy is reported to prepare a 3D porous high‐density Bi nanoparticles/carbon architecture (P–Bi–C) as an efficient anode for nickel–bismuth batteries. Taking advantages of the fast channels for charge transfer and ion diffusion, enhanced wettability, and accessible surface area, the highly loaded P–Bi–C electrode delivers a remarkable capacity of 2.11 mA h cm −2 as well as high rate capability (1.19 mA h cm −2 at 120 mA cm −2 ). To highlight, a robust aqueous rechargeable Ni//Bi battery based on the P–Bi–C anode is first constructed, achieving decent capacity (141 mA h g −1 ), impressive durability (94% capacity retention after 5000 cycles), and admirable energy density (16.9 mW h cm −3 ). This work paves the way for designing superfast nickel–bismuth batteries with high energy and long‐life and may inspire new development for aqueous rechargeable batteries.

The morbidity associated with neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) is increasing, posing a threat to the mental and physical quality of life of humans. The crucial effect of microbiota on brain physiological processes is mediated through a bidirectional interaction, termed as the gut–brain axis (GBA), which is being investigated in studies. Many clinical and laboratory trials have indicated the importance of microbiota in the development of NDs via various microbial molecules that transmit from the gut to the brain across the GBA or nervous system. In this review, we summarize the implications of gut microbiota in ND, which will be beneficial for understanding the etiology and progression of NDs that may in turn help in developing ND interventions and clinical treatments for these diseases.