Latest ArticlesSolid photocatalysts with high specific surface area, superior photoactivity and ease of recycling are highly desired in chemical process, water treatment and so on. In this study, a facile stepwise sol-gel coating approach was utilized to synthesize Pt decorated oxygen-deficient mesoporous titania microspheres with core-shell structure and convenient magnetic separability (denoted as Fe3O4@SiO2@Pt/mTiO2-x). These photocatalysts consist of magnetic Fe3O4 cores, nonporous insulating SiO2 middle layer and mesoporous anatase TiO2-x shell decorated by Pt nanoparticles (~3.5 nm) through wet impregnation and H2 reduction. As a result of high activity of oxygen-deficiency of black TiO2-x by H2 reduction and efficient inhibition of electron-hole recombination by Pt nanoparticles, the rationally designed core-shell Fe3O4@SiO2@Pt/mTiO2-x photocatalysts exhibit superior photocatalytic performance in rhodamine B (RhB) degradation under visible light irradiation, with more than 98% of RhB degraded within 50 min. These core-shell structured photocatalysts show excellent recyclability under the assistance of magnetic separation with well-retained photocatalytic performance even after running five cycles. This stepwise synthesis method paves the way for the rational design of a high-efficiency recyclable heterogeneous catalyst, including photocatalysts, for various applications.
Reported herein is the first example of electrochemical selenocyanation of imidazo[1, 5-a]quinolines with KSeCN under metal catalyst- and chemical oxidant-free conditions. This sustainable strategy shows a broad scope and great compatibility with functional groups, and affords synthetically and biologically important selenocyanated imidazo[1, 5-a]quinolines in good to excellent yields with cheap graphite and Ni plates as the electrodes. The gram-scale synthesis was also successfully conducted, which might demonstrate the potential value of this electrochemical protocol.
As a daily food for billions of people for thousands of years, whole grain is rich in phenolic compounds and may have huge potentials to provide natural antioxidants. Herein, owing to the significant biomedical potential, the effect of whole wheat flour solution as antioxidant wound coating for enhanced wound healing has been studied. The results show that the low concentration of whole wheat flour solutions have good biocompatibility and can scavenge radical and intracellular ROS in vitro, accelerating tissue remodeling in vivo to promote wound healing. This kind of whole wheat flour solution has great potential application for cutaneous wound repair.
Spirobisnaphthalenes comprise a relatively rare family of natural products that are normally isolated from fungi and occasionally from plants. Here we reported the discovery of seven new preussomerintype spirobisnaphthalenes, preussomerins YT1-YT7 (1-7), and seven known ones (8-14), from the endophytic fungus Edenia gomezpompae, enriching the structural diversity of this family of natural products. Their structures were established by 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy, HRESIMS analysis and comparison with previously reported compounds, with the absolute configurations of compounds 1 and 2 being further confirmed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction using Cu Kα radiation. The antiinflammatory activities of all isolates were assessed by measuring the production of NO in LPS-induced RAW264.7 macrophage cells. Among them, compounds 8 and 13 exhibited potent inhibitory activities on the production of NO, with IC50 values of 2.61 and 1.32 μmol/L, respectively.
Primary alcohols are widely used in industry as solvents and precursors of detergents. The classic methods for hydration of terminal alkenes always produce the Markovnikov products. Herein, we reported a reliable approach to produce primary alcohols from terminal alkenes combining with biomass-derived allyl alcohol by tandem cross-metathesis/hydrogenation. A series of primary alcohol with different chain lengths was successfully produced in high yields (ca. 90%). Computational studies revealed that self-metathesis and hydrogenation of substrates are accessible but much slower than crossmetathesis. This new methodology represents a unique alternative to primary alcohols from terminal alkenes.
Transmembrane anion transporters have attracted significant attention as therapeutic agents because of their potential to disrupt cellular ion homeostasis, in which, most of the synthetic anionic transporters are organic small molecules whose synthesis routes are usually complex and tedious, and the related biological research is also only in infancy. Hence, we synthesized a kind of chloride anion (Cl-) and sodium cation (Na+) nanocarrier based on poly(D, L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) which was coated with polydopamine (PDA) to provide target release factor. When the nanocarrier arrives in acidic environment such as lysosomes through endocytosis, Cl- and Na+ will be released fast from the nanocarrier resulting in imbalance of cell homeostasis for inducing apoptosis. Cell experiments show that the nanocarrier promotes apoptosis and leads to an increased concentration of reactive oxygen species. By exploring the concentration of cytochrome c in mitochondria and cytoplasm and the activities of key enzymes caspase-9 and caspase-3 in apoptosis process, it is proved that the apoptotic pathway is caspase-dependent. This novel strategy allows the research of anion transporter no longer limited to artificial synthesis of small molecular and provides a novel and effective direction to investigate ion homeostasis, ion transport and cancer treatment.
The physicochemical properties of surfaces have a great effect on the micro-morphologies of the crystal structures which are in contact with them. Understanding the interaction mechanism between the internal driving forces of the crystal and external inducing forces of the surfaces is the prerequisite of controlling and obtaining the desirable morphologies. In this work, the dynamic density functional theory was applied to construct the free energy functional expression of polyethylene (PE) lattice, and the micro-dynamic evolution processes of PE lattice morphology near the surfaces with different properties were observed to reveal the interaction mechanism at atomic scale. The results showed that the physical and chemical properties of the external surfaces synergistically affect the morphologies in both the defect shapes and the distribution of the defect regions. In the absence of the contact surfaces, driven by the oriented interactions among different CH2 groups, PE lattices gradually grow and form a defect-free structure. Conversely, the presence of contact surfaces leads to lattice defects in the interfacial regions, and PE lattice shows different self-healing abilities around different surfaces.
Peony pollen is a cheap and readily available biomass material with a relatively high protein content. In this work, it was employed as an N-rich precursor to prepare the nitrogen-doped porous carbon for supercapacitor application. The porous carbon microspheres were prepared through a hydrothermal method and subsequent carbonization process. Notably, ammonium borofruoride and potassium hydroxide were employed respectively as an etchant and an activator to modify the porosity of the materials. The as prepared ANPPCs-700 has a super high BET specific surface area of 824.69 m2/g. The microstructure, chemical state and electrochemical properties of the product were investigated in detail. The prepared nitrogen-doped carbon microspheres exhibits excellent specific capacity of 209 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g and remained 92.5% of the initial capacitance after 5000 deep cycles at 5 A/g.
Herein, we first report one-step synthesis of uniform Mo2C microflowers (MCMFs) from low-cost precursors via industrialized solid-state strategy. With fine optimization in precursor ratio and pyrolysis temperatures, the as-fabricated MCMFs are assembled well with interconnected single-crystalline nanosheet subunits. More encouragingly, the resultant MCMFs are further highlighted as a competitive anode with robust and long-duration lithium-storage behaviors towards high-performance Li-ion batteries
The 1, 3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction of dimethyl hex-2-en-4-ynedioate with azomethine ylides derived from reaction of L-proline with various isatins in methanol selectively resulted in the formation of functionalized spiro[indoline-3, 3'-pyrrolizine]acrylates as main products and spiro[indoline-3, 3'-pyrrolizine]propiolates as minor products. This result indicated that the electron-deficient alkyne has higher reactivity than that of electron-deficient alkene in 1, 3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction.