Electrocatalytic functional group conversion-based carbon resource upgrading.

The conversions of carbon resources, such as alcohols, aldehydes/ketones, and ethers, have been being one of the hottest topics most recently for the goal of carbon neutralization. The emerging electrocatalytic upgrading has been regarded as a promising strategy aiming to convert carbon resources into value-added chemicals. Although exciting progress has been made and reviewed recently in this area by mostly focusing on the explorations of valuable anodic oxidation or cathodic reduction reactions individually, however, the reaction rules of these reactions are still missing, and how to purposely find or rationally design novel but efficient reactions in batches is still challenging.

Pd/NiMoO/NF electrocatalysts for the efficient and ultra-stable synthesis and electrolyte-assisted extraction of glycolate.

Electrocatalytic conversion of organic small molecules is a promising technique for value-added chemical productions but suffers from high precious metal consumption, poor stability of electrocatalysts and tedious product separation. Here, a Pd/NiMoO/NF electrocatalyst with much lowered Pd loading amount (3.5 wt.

Improved Osseointegration of Selective Laser Melting Titanium Implants with Unique Dual Micro/Nano-Scale Surface Topography.

Selective laser melting manufacture of patient specific Ti implants is serving as a promising approach for bone tissue engineering. The success of implantation is governed by effective osseointegration, which depends on the surface properties of implants. To improve the bioactivity and osteogenesis, the universal surface treatment for SLM-Ti implants is to remove the primitive roughness and then reengineer new roughness by various methods.

Combining Active Carbonic Anhydrase with Nanogels: Enzyme Protection and Zinc Sensing.

Background: Due to its excellent biocompatibility, the polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogel has shown great potential for the immobilization of enzymes used in biomedical applications. The major challenge involved is to preserve, during the immobilization process, both the biological activity and the structural integrity of the enzymes. Here we report, for the first time, a proof-of-concept study for embedding active carbonic anhydrase (CA) into polyacrylamide (PAAm) nanogels.

NiMo Nanoparticles Anchored on N-Doped Carbon Rods for High-Efficiency Hydrogen Electrooxidation in Alkaline Media.

Anion-exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) are promising clean energy devices of high efficiency; however, their large-scale applications suffer from high cost and/or poor activity of electrocatalysts, especially at the anode. Herein, an electrocatalyst composed of NiMo nanoparticles (≈50 nm) anchored on N-doped carbon rods (denoted as NMNC) has been synthesized by a facile calcination method. The as-prepared NMNC catalyst shows an especially high hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) activity (3.

Hybrid imprinting process to fabricate a multi-layer compound eye for multispectral imaging.

We present a high-precision hybrid imprinting method to fabricate multi-layer micro-optical structures on nonplanar substrates using a custom-built vacuum imprinting system; with the application of kinematic couplings that align the flexible stamps in all six degrees of freedom, a cross-layer pattern registration precision of 400 nm has been achieved on nonplanar substrates. To demonstrate the precision and feasibility of the new process and instrument, we have designed and fabricated a multi-layer artificial compound eye (ACE) for multispectral imaging. The shapes and sizes of all 12 micro-lenses on the ACE are optimized and integrated with different color filers (red, green and blue) so that the light from different channels and of different spectral contents will focus to the same plane, where the photodetector is located.

Nanoparticle PEBBLE sensors for quantitative nanomolar imaging of intracellular free calcium ions.

Ca(2+) is a universal second messenger and plays a major role in intracellular signaling, metabolism, and a wide range of cellular processes. To date, one of the most successful approaches for intracellular Ca(2+) measurement involves the introduction of optically sensitive Ca(2+) indicators into living cells, combined with digital imaging microscopy. However, the use of free Ca(2+) indicators for intracellular sensing and imaging has several limitations, such as nonratiometric measurement for the most-sensitive indicators, cytotoxicity of the indicators, interference from nonspecific binding caused by cellular biomacromolecules, challenging calibration, and unwanted sequestration of the indicator molecules.

Enhanced effect of local fields in subwavelength metallic series nanocavities from surface plasmon polaritons.

The enhancement and confinement characteristics of the local field in the two-dimensional (2D) subwavelength-size series cavities structure are investigated numerically by using the boundary integral method. The series cavities are built of two pieces of finite silver thin slabs with subwavelength corrugations on their inner boundaries, set in a face-to-face arrangement with a separating space, and the central part is a narrow channel (NC). We calculate the average amplitude of the local field in the NC as a function of the wavelength for exploring the influence of the structural parameters and demonstrate the amplitude distribution of the magnetic field in the structure and the cross-section distributions of the local field in the NC region along both the longitudinal axis direction and the transverse directions.

Rigorous electromagnetic analysis of the common focusing characteristics of a cylindrical microlens with long focal depth and under multiwavelength illumination.

The common focusing characteristics of a cylindrical microlens with a long focal depth and under a given multiple-wavelength illumination are analyzed based on the boundary element method (BEM). The surface-relief profile of a finite-substrate-thickness microlens with a long focal depth is presented. Its focusing performances, such as the common extended focal depth (CEFD), the spot size, and the diffraction efficiency, are numerically studied in the case of TE polarization.

FTIR studies of zeolite matrix effects on the properties of palladium clusters confined in the supercages of NaX and NaY.

Palladium clusters have been synthesized by the "ship-in-a-bottle" approach in the supercages of NaX and NaY faujasite zeolites. In comparison with CO adsorbed on a bulk Pd electrode, the same molecule adsorbed on the Pd clusters electrodes evoked an enhanced IR absorption (EIRA). The enhancement factors have been determined to be about 38 and 51 in NaX and NaY, respectively.