Photo-to-Thermal Conversion Harnessing Low-Energy Photons Renders Efficient Solar CO Reduction.

Efficient photocatalytic solar CO reduction presents a challenge because visible-to-near-infrared (NIR) low-energy photons account for over 50% of solar energy. Consequently, they are unable to instigate the high-energy reaction necessary for dissociating C═O bonds in CO. In this study, we present a novel methodology leveraging the often-underutilized photo-to-thermal (PTT) conversion.

Solar overall water-splitting by a spin-hybrid all-organic semiconductor.

Direct solar-to-hydrogen conversion from pure water using all-organic heterogeneous catalysts remains elusive. The challenges are twofold: (i) full-band low-frequent photons in the solar spectrum cannot be harnessed into a unified S excited state for water-splitting based on the common Kasha-allowed S → S excitation; (ii) the H → H evolution suffers the high overpotential on pristine organic surfaces. Here, we report an organic molecular crystal nanobelt through the self-assembly of spin-one open-shell perylene diimide diradical anions (:PDI) and their tautomeric spin-zero closed-shell quinoid isomers (PDI).

Nanochannel-Induced Efficient Water Splitting at the Superhydrophobic Interface.

Constructing a favorable reaction configuration at the water/catalyst interface is crucial for high-efficiency semiconductor-based water splitting. For a long time, a hydrophilic surface of semiconductor catalysts has been considered necessary for efficient mass transfer and adequate contact with water. In this work, by constructing a superhydrophobic PDMS-Ti/TiO interface (denoted P-TTO) with nanochannels arranged by nonpolar silane chains, we observe overall water splitting efficiencies improved by an order of magnitude under both the white light and simulated AM1.

Target delivering paclitaxel by ferritin heavy chain nanocages for glioma treatment.

Glioma is one of the most common aggressive brain malignancies, but the treatment of glioma is still far from satisfying. The efficiency of chemotherapy - the major choice of glioma treatment - is severely limited by low chemotherapeutic agents delivery across blood-brain barrier (BBB) and low tumor retention. Therefore, a safe and effective drug delivery system to help chemotherapy agents traverse the BBB and accumulate at tumor sites is urgently needed.

Numerical investigation of cavity self-oscillation and noise radiation induced by turbulent flow at non-zero inclination angle.

A hybrid numerical approach was used on a three-dimensional cavity at a non-zero inclination angle of the upstream section to reveal the mechanism of self-oscillation and the characteristics of far-field sound field. In this hybrid approach, the unsteady flow physics was captured by a compressible large eddy simulation, and the far-field sound field was calculated by the FW-H integral equation, with the noise source provided by near-field calculation. The mechanism of self-oscillation was revealed based on the instantaneous flow field structure and the pressure inside the cavity.