Latest ArticlesAn efficient photo-Fenton catalyst (FeS2@HTCN) was designed by maximizing the synergistic effect of FeS2 nanoparticles and hollow tubular g-C3N4 (HTCN). Molecule self-assembly and molten salts-assisted calcination were used to engineering the hollow structured g-C3N4 before anchoring FeS2 nanoparticles on the walls of HTCN via reflux method. Compared to bulk g-C3N4, the unique structure of HTCN and heterojunction in the composite endowed FeS2@HTCN with more active sites and abundant channels for electron transfer and charge separation. The enriched electrons can improve the Fe3+ recycling and boost Fe2+ catalyzed •OH production via H2O2. As-prepared photo-Fenton catalyst was successfully applied to the treatment of industrial paint wastewater. The paint wastewater with its COD as high as 8200 mg/L can be effectively degraded with 0.2 mol/L H2O2 in 90 min under visible light irradiation. The photo-Fenton system was further evaluated according to the process stability and economic benefit, proving that the strategy presented in this work would be applicable to the treatment of real wastewater.
Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is pivotal to drive green hydrogen generation from water electrolysis, but yet is strictly overshadowed by the sluggish reaction kinetics. Earth-abundant and cut-price transition-metal compounds, particularly CoFe layered-double-hydroxides (LDHs), show the distinct superiorities in contrast to noble metals and their derivatives. In this review, we firstly underline their fundamental issues in electrocatalytic water oxidation, including CoFe LDHs crystal structure, the surface of (hydr)oxides confined to OER and the controversial roles of Fe species, aiming at understanding the structure-related activity and catalytic mechanism. Advanced approaches for optimizing OER activity of CoFe LDHs are then comprehensively overviewed, which will shed light on the different working mechanisms and provide a concise analysis of their unique advantages. Finally, a perspective on the future development of CoFe LDHs electrocatalysts is offered. We hope this review can give a concise and explicit guidance for the development of transition-metal-based electrocatalysts in the energy field.
Medical cotton dressing is cheap and widely used in diversified fields, but in the application of promoting wound healing, the continuous research of multifunctional medical cotton dressing is still of great significance. Here, we developed a fresh type of antibacterial cotton dressing through a succinct strategy based on chemically anchoring polyhexamethylene biguanide (PHMB). Intriguingly, after PHMB modification, the cotton dressing exhibited outstanding antibacterial performance which could maintain > 99.99% antibacterial rate after several treatments, including washing 50 times, repeated use 10 times, UV irradiation for 7 days, cationic dyes dying, and conditioned under 90 ℃ water bath for 2 h. In addition, the water contact angle of cotton dressing increased dramatically from 0° to 111°, which could facilitate bacterial adhesion, thus further enhance the antibacterial efficiency, and easily remove the bacterial debris. Apart from that, the developed cotton dressing showed good cytocompatibility, promoted blood clotting and expression of platelets, and promoted the wound healing process in the infection intervened skin wound model. Taken together, this antibacterial cotton dressing with desirable blood clotting, sustained protection against bacterial infection and bacterial removal features shows the potential to be a candidate for infected skin wound healing.
Microfluidic devices have become a powerful tool for chemical and biologic applications. To control different functional parts on the microchip, valve plays a key role in the device. In conventional methods, physio-mechanical valves are usually used on microfluidic chip. Herein, we reported a chemo-mechanical switchable valve on microfluidic chip by using a thermally responsive block copolymer. The wettability changes of capillary with copolymer modification on inner surface were investigated to verify the function as a valve. Capillaries with modification of poly-(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-hexafluoroisopropyl acrylate) (P(NIPAAm-co-HFIPA)) with a 20% HFIPA was demonstrated capable of control aqueous solution stop or go through. Then short capillaries with copolymer modification were integrated in microchannels as valves. With the temperature changing around lower critical solution temperature (LCST), the integrated chemo-mechanical switchable valve exhibited excellent "OPEN–CLOSE'' behavior for microflow control. After optimization of the block copolymer sequences and molar ratio, a switching time as low as 20 s was achieved. The developed micro valve was demonstrated effective for flow control on microchip.
In the field of cell studies, there is a burgeoning trend to further downscale the investigation from a single-cell level to a sub-single-cell level. Subcellular matter is the basic content in cells and correlates with cell heterogeneity. Sub-single cellular studies focus on the subcellular matter in single cells and aim to understand the details and heterogeneity of individual cells in terms of the subcellular matter or even at the single component/vesicle/molecule level. Hence, sub-single cellular studies can provide deeper insights into fundamental cell biology and the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies and applications. Nonetheless, the contents of a single cell are not only ultra-small in volume but also extremely complex in composition, far exceeding the capabilities of most tools used in current cell studies. We believe that nanofluidics holds great potential in providing ideal tools for sub-single cellular studies, not only because of their capability to handle femtoliter/attoliter-scale samples, but also because of their possibility to manipulate and analyze subcellular matters at the single component/vesicle/molecule level in a high-throughput manner. In this review, we summarize the efforts in the field of nanofluidics for sub-single cellular studies, focusing on nascent progress and critical technologies that have the potential to overcome the technical bottlenecks. Some challenges and future opportunities to integrate with information sciences are also discussed.
A new type of covalent organic framework (COF) was achieved using combination of structrally rigid and conformationally othorganal building blocks. The N-2-aryl-substituted triazole derivative (NAT-CHO) was prepared with co-planar conformation among the three aromatic rings as the "flat" building block. The 4, 4′, 4′′, 4′′′-(ethene-1, 1, 2, 2-tetrayl)tetraaniline) (ETTA) was applied as the "twist" building block. A 2D sheet of network was obtained through imine formation. The resulting NAT-COF gave excellent thermal and chemical stability, survived aqueous solutions from pH 5 to 13. With large-size building blocks, the porous framework NAT-COF gave efficient gas adsorption with excellent selectivity of C3 propane over C1 me-thane, suggesting its potential application for selective gas capture and separation.
Excellent optical properties involving strong visible light response and superior carrier transport endow metal halide perovskites (MHP) with a fascinating prospect in the field of photocatalysis. Nevertheless, the poor stability of MHP nanocrystals (NCs) in water-contained system, especially without the protection of long alkyl chain ligands, severely restricts their photocatalytic performance. In this context, we report an effortless strategy for the generation of ligand-free MHP NCs based photocatalyst with high water tolerance, by coating PbI2 on the surface of ligand-free formamidinium lead bromide (FAPbBr3) NCs via the facile procedure of in-situ conversion with the aid of ZnI2. Under the protection of PbI2 layer, the resultant FAPbBr3/PbI2 composite exhibits significantly ameliorated stability in an artificial photosynthesis system with CO2 and H2O vapor as feedstocks. Moreover, the formation of compact PbI2 layer can accelerate the separation of photogenerated carriers in FAPbBr3 NCs, bringing forth a remarkable improvement of CO2 photoreduction efficiency with an impressive electron consumption yield of 2053 µmol/g in the absence of organic sacrificial agents, which is 7-fold over that of pristine FAPbBr3 NCs.
Several 2D nanosheets of porphyrin MOFs with various transition-metal clusters as metal nodes were prepared via a simple solvothermal method to apply in the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution, in which the hydrogen production rate of the optimal NS-Cu was as high as 15.39 mmol g−1 h−1. A series of experimental technologies especially cyclic voltammetry (CV) and Mott-Schottky (M-S) had been adopted to investigate the charge-transfer property of photo-generated electron-hole pairs, it was found that the uniformly dispersed Cu-clusters nodes in the original 2D MOFs played a key role in the electron transfer process, that was, the photo-generated electron transferred from excited state eosin-Y to the Cu-clusters nodes for the efficient hydrogen evolution. The excellent photocatalytic performance could be attributed to the reversible oxidation-–reduction process of CuⅡ/CuⅠ, which had excellent electron-receiving and electron-outputting capabilities. Our results provided a novel avenue to adapt the uniformly dispersed metal nodes in the original MOFs as cost-effective noble-metal-free cocatalysts with very high atom-utilization efficiency to improve the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance in dye-sensitized system.
In this paper, Ni3S2 nanosheet (NS) was generated by chemical etching with sodium sulfide directly on the nickel foam (NF), which was induced by dielectric barrier discharge plasma in liquid. Compared with other chemical etching methods of nickel-based nanomaterials, this method was not only rapid (40 min) and mild (at room temperature and atmospheric pressure), but also showed consistent stability and good reproducibility. The Ni3S2 NS/NF electrode showed excellent performance in the electrochemical detection of formaldehyde under alkaline conditions. It had a good linear relationship with the concentration of formaldehyde in the range of 0.002-5.45 mmol/L (R2 = 0.9957) and the limit of detection (LOD) was 1.23 µmol/L (S/N = 3). The sensitivity was 1286.9 µA L mmol‒1 cm‒2, and the response time was about 5 s. The plasma-induced chemical etching strategy provides a simple and stable electrode preparation method, which has great application prospects in nonenzymatic electrochemical sensors.
Pure organic room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials have attracted wide attention owing to their excellent luminescent properties and great potential in various applications. In this work, iminostilbene and its analogues are applied to realize RTP emission by copolymerizing with acrylamide. It can be concluded that the growth of alkane chain in monomers can enhance the lifetime and photoluminescence quantum yield of RTP emission, and polymers with the larger conjugated structure of the monomer show a longer RTP emission wavelength. This work provides a series of new pure organic RTP materials and might provide new thoughts for designing more advanced and superior RTP materials.
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