Robot-Assisted Laparoscopic Resection of Large-Volume Pheochromocytoma through the Surface of the Kidney

Objective: To investigate the clinical application of robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery on the treatment of large-volume pheochromocytoma. Methods: A retrospective analysis of 31 patients with pheochromocytoma disease admitted to the Department of Urology, Affiliated Hospital of Hebei University from May 2020 to August 2021. According to clinical data, the tumor volume was 62.4 ± 29.5 mm, including 16 males and 15 females, aged (35.6 ± 16.1) years old;17 cases on the left side and 14 cases on the right side. All patients underwent anatomical resection through the renal superficial approach, and underwent pheochromocytoma resection through the retroperitoneal approach. The operation time, blood loss, postoperative complications, retention time of drainage tube and postoperative follow-up were observed. Results: All the 31 operations were successful, and there were no obvious postoperative complications. The average operation time, blood loss, and drainage tube retention time were 71 min, 80 mL, and (1.2 ± 0.6) days, respectively. Postoperative pathology was confirmed to be pheochromocytoma. There was no tumor recurrence in the follow-up for 1 - 15 months. Conclusion: Robot-assisted laparoscopic anatomical resection of large-volume pheochromocytoma through the renal surface of the abdominal cavity can provide a larger operating space during the operation, with clear anatomical landmarks of “lipocrasis”, less bleeding, less trauma, intraoperative and postoperative. The advantages of fewer complications, procedural operation, and shorter learning curve can be promoted in clinical practice.

High-performance SSZ-13 membranes prepared using ball-milled nanosized seeds for carbon dioxide and nitrogen separations from methane

SSZ-13 membranes with high separation performances were prepared using ball-milled nanosized seeds by once hydrothermal synthesis.Separation performances of SSZ-13 membranes in CO2/CH4 and N2/CH4 mixtures were enhanced after synthesis modification.Single-gas permeances of CO2,N2 and CH4 and ideal selectivities were recorded through SSZ-13 membranes.The effects of temperature,pressure,feed flow rate and humidity on separation performance of the membranes were discussed.Three membranes prepared after synthesis modifications had an average CO2 permeance of 1.16×10-6 mol·(m2·s·Pa)-1(equal to 3554 GPU)with an average CO2/CH4 selectivity of 213 in a 50 vol%/50 vol%CO2/CH4 mixture.It suggests that membrane synthesis has a good reproducible.The membrane also displayed a N2 permeance of 1.07×10-7 mol·(m2·s·Pa)-1(equal to 320 GPU)with a N2/CH4 selectivity of 13 for a 50 vol%/50 vol%N2/CH4 mixture.SSZ-13 membrane displayed stable and good separation performance in the wet CO2/CH4 mixture for a long test period over 100 h at 348 K.The current SSZ-13 membranes show great potentials for the simultaneous removals of CO2 and N2 in natural gas purification as a facile process suitable for industrial application.

Tailoring active color rendering and multiband photodetection in a vanadium-dioxide-based metamaterial absorber

Metamaterials have demonstrated exotic electromagnetic properties, which offer a good platform for realizing light absorption, photodetection, filtering, and so on. However, broadband multifunctional metamaterial absorbers are restricted in cascaded structures. Here, broadband multifunctional properties were realized by introducing vanadium dioxide into a metamaterial absorber. Through the modified design and highly efficient utilization of multiple resonant modes, both plasmonic tunable color filters and near-infrared photodetectors can be simultaneously achieved by this construction. Meanwhile, active color and a photodetection band in the near-infrared range can become tunable with the insulating–metallic transition of vanadium dioxide. Thus, the variations of rendering colors could correspondingly indicate shifts of the near-infrared photodetection bands. This method theoretically confirms the feasibility of designing multifunctional devices via a vanadium-dioxide-based metamaterial absorber, which holds great promise for future versatile utilization of multiple physical mechanisms to achieve numerous functionalities in a simple nanostructure or device.

Titanium-nitride-based integrated plasmonic absorber/emitter for solar thermophotovoltaic application

Titanium nitride(TiN) as a refractory plasmonic material is proposed to be used as an angle-insensitive integrated broadband solar absorber and narrowband near-infrared(NIR) emitter for solar thermo-photovoltaic(STPV) application. By constructing TiN-nanopatterns/dielectric/TiN stack metamaterial, approximately 93% light absorption in a wavelength range of 0.3–0.9 μm and near unit narrowband(Δλ∕λ～0.3) emission in NIR(～2 μm) were demonstrated by numerical simulation. Keeping the excellent light absorption in the visible band, the emission wavelength can be easily tuned by patterning the top TiN layer into various subwavelength structures. This dual function attributes to the intrinsic absorption and plasmonic property of TiN. In such an integrated structure,broadband absorption and narrowband emission need to be balanced for an optimized power efficiency conversion. Detailed analysis has demonstrated that the STPV system based on this integrated absorber/emitter canexceed the Shockley–Queisser limit at 1000 K.

Ultra-broadband spatial light modulation with dual-resonance coupled epsilon-near-zero materials

It has been found that the dielectric constants of transparent conductive oxides(TCOs)can be adjusted in an extremely large range by tuning the carrier density.Due to the remarkable light confinement property of the epsilon-near-zero(ENZ)effect of TCOs,it has attracted extensive interests of light modulation.However,the operation wavelength bandwidth is usually limited by optical resonance that is applied to enhance the light-TCOs interaction.In this work,a dual-resonance light coupling scheme is proposed to expand the modulation depth-bandwidth product with almost one order-of-magnitude improvement.In a metallic subwavelength grating structure with deep trenches backed by a ground plane,the ENZ mode can be coupled to both magnetic resonance and Fabry-Perot resonance respectively by tuning the bias.Decent light modulation can be obtained in a large operation wavelength band covering two resonances by optimizing the dual-resonance configuration.Such a reconfigurable efficient broadband modulation is important for robust communication link and possesses remarkable capacity for wavelength division multiplexing.