Bio-inspired porous adsorbents with lotus-leaf-like hierarchical structures and mussel adhesive surfaces for high-capacity removal of toxic dyes.

Basic dyes are highly toxic and have adverse effects on humans such as accelerated heart rate, shock, cyanosis, and tissue necrosis upon ingestion or skin contact. Efficient removal of basic dye pollutants from wastewater is therefore essential for the protection of the environment and human health. Biomolecules exhibit excellent dye removal performance in terms of removal capacity, selectivity, and rate.

Fully Exposed Ru Clusters for the Efficient Multi-Step Toluene Hydrogenation Reaction.

Liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) are attractive platform molecules that play an important role in hydrogen energy storage and utilization. The multi-step hydrogenation of toluene (TOL) to methylcyclohexane (MCH) has been widely studied in the LOCHs systems, due to their relatively low toxicity and reasonable hydrogen storage capacity. Noble metal catalysts such as Ru has exhibited good performance in multi-step hydrogenation reactions, while the application is still hindered by their high cost and low specific activity.

Palladium single-atom catalysts synthesized by a gas-assisted redispersion strategy for efficient benzaldehyde hydrogenation.

A simple and efficient strategy was developed for the synthesis of Pd single-atom catalysts (Pd/G) by nitric acid vapor-assisted redispersion. The as-prepared Pd/G displayed robust catalytic performance in the selective hydrogenation reaction of benzaldehyde. This work paves a new way for the design of supported Pd single-atom catalysts.

Fully-Exposed Pd Cluster Catalyst: An Excellent Catalytic Antibacterial Nanomaterial.

Exploring antibacterial nanomaterials with excellent catalytic antibacterial properties has always been a hot research topic. However, the construction of nanomaterials with robust antibacterial activity at the atomic level remains a great challenge. Here a fully-exposed Pd cluster atomically-dispersed on nanodiamond-graphene (Pd /ND@G) with excellent catalytic antibacterial properties is reported.

PdZn alloy nanoparticles encapsulated within a few layers of graphene for efficient semi-hydrogenation of acetylene.

PdZn alloy nanoparticles encapsulated within a few layers of graphene supported on ZnO nanowires (PdZn@C/ZnO) exhibit enhanced catalytic performance and robust long-term stability in semi-hydrogenation of acetylene to ethylene. The enhanced ethylene selectivity of PdZn@C/ZnO originates from the confining environment of the graphene cover, which can promote desorption of ethylene from the PdZn surface, avoiding the over-hydrogenation of ethylene to ethane.

Steam treatment: a facile and effective process for the removal of PVP from shape-controlled palladium nanoparticles.

In general, a colloidal method employing polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as the stabilizer has been proven particularly suitable for preparing Pd nanoparticles (Pd-NPs) with controlled morphology and size. However, this surfactant will seriously cover the Pd-NP surface, which is detrimental for catalytic activity. In this paper, we reported a method to remove PVP from the carbon nanotube (CNT) supported Pd nanocubes (Pd-NCs) and Pd nanooctahedra (Pd-NOs) by steam treatment in a lab-made reactor.

Crystalline (NiCo)TiO nanostructures grown in situ on a flexible metal substrate used towards efficient CO oxidation.

Severe environmental contamination and the urgent demand for a clean atmosphere require an efficient and low-cost solution to address problems such as CO emission. In this study, we report the in situ integration of non-noble (NiCo)TiO nanostructures with different Co concentrations and tunable size on a flexible metal network support using a conventional PEO method; we further report their utilization for efficient CO oxidation. It was found that the Co/Ni ratios in the original electrolyte precursors directly result in the different size and morphology evolution.

NiCo nanoalloy encapsulated in graphene layers for improving hydrogen storage properties of LiAlH4.

NiCo nanoalloy (4-6 nm) encapsulated in grapheme layers (NiCo@G) has been prepared by thermolysis of a 3D bimetallic complex CoCo[Ni(EDTA)]2·4H2O and successfully employed as a catalyst to improve the dehydrogenation performances of LiAlH4 by solid ball-milling. NiCo@G presents a superior catalytic effect on the dehydrogenation of LiAlH4. For LiAlH4 doped with 1 wt% NiCo@G (LiAlH4-1 wt% NiCo@G), the onset dehydrogenation temperature of LiAlH4 is as low as 43 °C, which is 109 °C lower than that of pristine LiAlH4.

Ionic liquid based polymeric liposomes: A stable and biocompatible soft platform for bioelectrochemistry.

Polymeric liposomes (denoted as ILs-polysomes) are a biocompatible and conductive nanomaterial, which was first utilised as the electrode material for immobilising and biosensing redox enzyme horseradish peroxide (HRP). The morphology and surface property of IL-polysomes was characterised and systematically compared with unpolymerised ionic liquid based liposomes (denoted as ILs-liposomes). Differing from IL-liposomes, IL-polysomes preserves their original morphology and bilayer membrane structure on glassy carbon (GC) electrodes due to the cross-linking of polymerised lipids, thus exhibiting excellent stability and specific biocompability.

Size-controllable Ni5TiO7 nanowires as promising catalysts for CO oxidation.

Ni5TiO7 nanowires with controllable sizes are synthesized using PEO method combined with impregnation and annealing at 1050(o)C in air, with adjustment of different concentrations of impregnating solution to control the dimension of nanowires. The resulting nanowires are characterized in details using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis. In addition, the CO catalytic oxidation performance of the Ni5TiO7 nanowires is investigated using a fixed-bed quartz tubular reactor and an on-line gas chromatography system, indicating that the activity of this catalytic system for CO oxidation is a strong dependency upon the nanocrystal size.

[Microcalorimetric investigation of two cephalosporins on colon bacteria activity].

The effects of cephradinum and ceftazidime on the metabolism of Escherichia coli (E. coli) DH5alpha was determined by microcalorimetry. The microbial activity was recorded as power-time curves through an ampoule method with a TAM Air Isothermal Microcalorimeter at 37 degrees C.

Rapid degradation of phenanthrene by using Sphingomonas sp. GY2B immobilized in calcium alginate gel beads.

The strain Sphingomonas sp. GY2B is a high efficient phenanthrene-degrading strain isolated from crude oil contaminated soils that displays a broad-spectrum degradation ability towards PAHs and related aromatic compounds. This paper reports embedding immobilization of strain GY2B in calcium alginate gel beads and the rapid degradation of phenanthrene by the embedded strains.