Zinc-Doped BiOBr Hollow Microspheres for Enhanced Visible Light Photocatalytic Degradation of Antibiotic Residues.

Photocatalysis represents an effective technology for environmental remediation. Herein, a series of Zn-doped BiOBr hollow microspheres are synthesized via one-pot solvothermal treatment of bismuth nitrate and dodecyl ammonium bromide in ethylene glycol along with a calculated amount of zinc acetate. Whereas the materials morphology and crystal structure remain virtually unchanged upon Zn-doping, the photocatalytic performance toward the degradation of ciprofloxacin is significantly improved under visible light irradiation.

Defect Engineering of BiWO for Enhanced Photocatalytic Degradation of Antibiotic Pollutants.

Infiltration of excessive antibiotics into aquatic ecosystems plays a significant role in antibiotic resistance, a major global health challenge. It is therefore critical to develop effective technologies for their removal. Herein, defect-rich BiWO nanoparticles are solvothermally prepared via epitaxial growth on pristine BiWO seed nanocrystals, and the efficiency of the photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin, a common antibiotic, is found to increase markedly from 62.

Low-threshold nanolasers based on miniaturized bound states in the continuum.

The pursuit of compact lasers with low thresholds has imposed strict requirements on tight light confinements with minimized radiation losses. Bound states in the continuum (BICs) have been recently demonstrated as an effective mechanism to trap light. However, most reported BIC lasers are still bulky due to the absence of in-plane light confinement.

Analytical theory of finite-size photonic crystal slabs near the band edge.

An analytical three-dimensional (3D) coupled-wave theory (CWT) for the finite-size photonic crystal slabs (PhCs) has been presented to depict the discretized modes at band-edges residing inside and outside the continuum. Specifically, we derive the CWT equations of slow-varying envelop function of dominant Bloch waves. By combining the trial solutions that are composed of a basis of bulk states with appropriate boundary conditions (B.

Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Quantitative Analysis of Ethanol Drop-Coating Silver Nanocubes on Gold Film.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has been a sensitive tool for the accurate detection and analysis of a wide range of molecules. In the present study, a simple and repeatable approach is developed for the fabrication of a silver nanocubes/polyelectrolyte/gold film (Ag nanocubes/PE/Au film) sandwich structure as SERS substrate. An ethanol-water mixture, instead of pure water, is used as solvent to reduce the coffee ring effect by the drop coating deposition method, such that Ag nanocubes are distributed evenly on the gold film surface with polyelectrolyte as the middle layer.

Visible-Light-Driven Nitrogen Fixation Catalyzed by BiOBr Nanostructures: Enhanced Performance by Oxygen Vacancies.

Photocatalytic nitrogen fixation represents a green alternative to the conventional Haber-Bosch process in the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia. In this study, a series of BiOBr nanostructures were synthesized via a facile, low-temperature thermal treatment procedure, and their photocatalytic activity toward nitrogen fixation was evaluated and compared. Spectroscopic measurements showed that the tubular BiOBr sample prepared at 40 °C (BiOBr-40) exhibited the highest electron-transfer rate among the series, producing a large number of O radicals and oxygen vacancies under visible-light photoirradiation and reaching a rate of photocatalytic nitrogen fixation of 12.

Atom economy and green elimination of nitric oxide using ZrN powders.

Nitric oxide (NO) may cause serious environmental problems, such as acid rain, haze weather, global warming and even death. Herein, a new low-cost, highly efficient and green method for the elimination of NO using zirconium nitride (ZrN) is reported for the first time, which does not produce any waste or any by-product. Relevant experimental parameters, such as reaction temperature and gas concentration, were investigated to explore the reaction mechanism.

Efficient reduction of nitric oxide using zirconium phosphide powders synthesized by elemental combination method.

Zirconium phosphide (ZrP) powders were synthesized by elemental combination method via the direct reaction of zirconium powders with red phosphorus, and characterized by XRD, SEM, XPS, XRF, SAED and TEM measurements. The obtained ZrP powders were found to exhibit apparent activity in the ready eliminateion of nitric oxide (NO) via facile redox reactions, and the elimination dynamics was evaluated within the context of various important experimental parameters, such as reaction temperature and gas concentration. At a fixed amount of ZrP powders, an increasing amount of NO would be eliminated with increasing reaction temperature, and complete conversion of NO to N could be reached in the range of 700 to 800 °C.

Diethyl 4,6-diacetamido-isophthalate.

In the title compound, C(16)H(20)N(2)O(6), two intra-molecular N-H⋯O hydrogen bonds occur, in which the carbonyl O atoms of the ethyl acetate groups serve as the acceptor atoms; both motifs generate S(6) rings. In the crystal, mol-ecules are linked by weak C-H⋯O links (with the acceptor O atoms part of the amide groups), generating [001] chains.