Latest ArticlesBiomimetic scaffolds present the promising potential for bone regeneration. As a natural gel-like traditional food, tofu with porous architecture and proved biological safety indicated a good potential to be a natural scaffold and easy to be improved by surface modification. Hereon, we fabricated the tofubased scaffolds and systematically explored the potential for bone tissue engineering. In addition, the collagen has been introduced by simple coating to further enhance the surface compatibility of the tofubased scaffold in bone regeneration. The results showed that the tofu-based scaffolds possessed good porous structure and cytocompatibility. Notably, the tofu-based scaffolds could improve the expression of osteogenesis-related genes and proteins, leading to better bone regeneration after 2 months of implantation. All the results indicated that tofu would become an outstanding sustainable natural porous scaffold for bone regeneration with excellent bioactivities.
Peptide self-assembled nanomaterials have attracted more and more attention due to their wide applications such as drug delivery, cell imaging, and real-time drug monitoring. However, the application of the peptide is still limited by its inherent optical properties. Here we proposed and prepared a series of fluorescent tripeptide nanoparticles (TPNPs) through π-π stacking and zinc coordination. The experimental results show that the nanoparticles (TPNPs1) formed by the self-assembly of the tripeptide tryptophan-tryptophan-tryptophan have the highest fluorescence intensity, uniform and appropriate size, and low cytotoxicity. Furthermore, there was fluorescence resonance between TPNPs1 and doxorubicin, which has been successfully applied for real-time cell imaging and drug release monitoring.
Li2FeTiO4 composites have been produced using commercial LiAC, FeCl2 and different titanium sources by hydrothermal synthesis (HS) at 175 ℃ and subsequent annealing at 700 ℃. Impure phase TiO2, Fe2O3 and FeTiO4 were detected out among the Li2FeTiO4 composites with different titanium sources. Micron and nano-sized particles of Li2FeTiO4 were prepared from various titanium raw materials, with nano-sized particles predominating when titanium raw materials were layered hydrogen titanate nanowire (H2Ti3O7NW, HTO-NW) and titanium oxide nanotubes (TiO2NB). The Li2FeTiO4 composites synthesized by HTO-NW shows a primary particle size of 50-200 nm of high crystallinity staggered with undissolved nanowire with a diameter size of about 100 nm. The samples using one-dimensional nanometer titanium oxide (TiO2 NB) as the raw material can get a super high initial discharge capacity of 367.8 mAh/g at the rate of C/10 and excellent cycling stability. The selection of raw materials and adopting multi-phase modification can be considered as an effective strategy to improve the electro-chemical properties of Li2FeTiO4 composite cathode materials for the lithium secondary battery.
Selenization of Fe2O3 with NaHSe led to Se/Fe3O4. The unexpected generation of Fe3O4 attributed to the reduction conditions of the reaction, and the resulted magnetic features of the material facilitated its separation in practical applications. Owning to the synergistic effect of Se with Fe, the material was especially active to catalyze the oxidative C=C scission using O2 as mild oxidant. The technique has been successfully applied in polyene degradation project, which is of profound practical values for the treatment of the polyene pigment pollution and may be applied in the food and pharmaceutical industry.
Constructing a reliable and favorable electrode-electrolyte interface is crucial to utilize the exceptional energy storage capability in commercial lithium-ion batteries. Here, we report a facile synthesis approach for the lithium difluorophosphate (LiPO2F2) solution as an effective film-forming additive via direct adding the Li2CO3 into LiPF6 solution at 45 ℃. Benefiting from the significantly reduced interface resistance (RSEI) and charge transfer impedance (Rct) of both the cathode and anode by adding the prepared LiPO2F2 solution into a baseline electrolyte, the cycling performance of the graphite‖LiNi0.5Mn0.3Co0.2O2 pouch cell is remarkably improved under all-climate condition.
A new copper-thiolate cluster assembled framework [Cu2(μ4-SCH3)Cl]n (1), has been solvothermally synthesized through in situ reaction viz., in situ ligand generation and metal reduction. Compound 1 represents the first 3D framework based on Atlas-sphere functionalized by single μ2-Cl- groups. DOS calculation reveals the interaction of electronic structures. It is found that the HOMO is mainly distributed on Cl, Cu and S bonding orbitals, while the LUMO is dominated by Cu-Cl antibonding orbitals.
For drop-on-demand (DOD) inkjet printing, stable and single ink droplet formation without satellite dots is the key to improve the print quality. The formation of stable and single droplet is influenced by filament break up and the polymer chain's coil-stretch transition behavior. In this paper, the droplet formation behaviors of polyfluorene (PFO) ink at various driving voltages (V), polymer chain's coil-stretch transition mechanism and its effects on single ink droplet formation are investigated. It indicates that when 58 < V ≤ 63 V, a single and stable droplet is formed with a pulse time of 38.5 μs. At this stage, the Weissenberg number (Wi) < 0.5, the PFO molecular chain is coiled to guarantee stable and single droplets. When V > 63 V, Wi > 0.5, the PFO molecular chain is stretched because of the high hydrodynamic forces, resulting unwanted satellite droplets. When 55 < V ≤ 58 V, the droplet shrinks into the nozzle, which indicates that the kinetic energy supplied by the deformation of the piezoelectric transducer isn't enough to force the droplet to be jetted from the nozzle.
A hybrid system containing a pillar[5]arene unit and ten crown ether moieties was developed. The LCST behavior and thermo-responsiveness were successfully introduced into this pillar[5]arene-crown ether system. Both host-guest interactions and salting-out effect displayed great effects in realizing the supramolecular control over LCST properties and thermo-responsiveness. Compared with the individual macrocycles, this hybrid macrocycle system dramatically amplified the supramolecular control effect over LCST behavior.
The development of heterogeneous catalysts with substrate shape, size or electronic constitution selectivity is a huge challenge in photocatalysis. Reported herein is a host-guest interaction strategy to endow photocatalysts with special selectivity. By adjusting the precursors, conjugated macrocycle polymers (CMPs) with pillar[5]arene struts (CMP-1 and CMP-2) and a corresponding non-pillar[5]arene-contained conjugated organic polymer (COP-1) were prepared and the photocatalytic activities toward sulfide derivatives were investigated. The sulfides showed similar conversions when COP-1 was used as a photocatalyst, but exhibited significant differences when it turned to the CMPs. Remarkably, the conversion yield of S-1 achieved near 18 folds over the one of S-2 when CMP-2 was used as a catalyst. Mechanism studies confirmed that the "host-guest" effect of pillar[5]arene struts in CMPs was the main cause of the difference. The present work establishes CMPs as novel heterogeneous photocatalysts with substrate selectivity, and such a method will inspire the researchers concerning preparation of heterogeneous catalysts with excellent selectivity.
The binding behavior of pillar[5]arenes (P5As) towards a series of olefin guests ((E)-1, 4-dichlorobut-2-ene (1E), (Z)-1, 4-dichlorobut-2-ene (1Z), (E)-but-2-ene-1, 4-diol (2E), and (Z)-but-2-ene-1, 4-diol (2Z), as well as an alkyne derivative 1, 4-dichlorobut-2-yne (3)) have been studied in organic solution. P5As exhibit considerable selectivities for the trans-olefin isomers (1E and 2E) over their cis-isomers (1Z and 2Z). The cis/trans-selective interactions hold the potential of utilizing P5As to separate olefin isomers.