Anti-inflammatory, antipyretic efficacy and safety of inhaled Houttuynia cordata thunb. essential oil formulation.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Houttuynia cordata Thunb. (H. cordata) is a well-known folk traditional Chinese medicine that is renowned for its use in the management of inflammatory respiratory diseases and pneumonia.

2D materials for conducting holes from grain boundaries in perovskite solar cells.

Grain boundaries in organic-inorganic halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have been found to be detrimental to the photovoltaic performance of devices. Here, we develop a unique approach to overcome this problem by modifying the edges of perovskite grain boundaries with flakes of high-mobility two-dimensional (2D) materials via a convenient solution process. A synergistic effect between the 2D flakes and perovskite grain boundaries is observed for the first time, which can significantly enhance the performance of PSCs.

Plant-derived isoquinoline alkaloids that target ergosterol biosynthesis discovered by using a novel antifungal screening tool.

The ergosterol pathway is a prime antifungal target as it is required for fungal survival, yet is not involved in human homeostasis. Methods to study the ergosterol pathway, however, are often time-consuming. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assay is a simple research tool that determines the lowest concentration at which a novel antimicrobial is active in vitro with limited scope to determine the mechanism of action for a drug.

Charge Energetics and Electronic Level Changes At the Copper(II) Phthalocyanine/Fullerene Junction Upon Photoexcitation.

Energy offset at the donor (D)/acceptor (A) interface plays an important role in charge separation in organic photovoltaics. Its magnitude determines the charge separation process under illumination. Extensive studies have been carried out for elucidating the charge transfer (CT) process at different D/A junctions.

Organic-Inorganic Charge Transfer Complex with Charge Modulation after Electrical Pre-biasing.

Several breakthroughs in organic optoelectronic devices with new applications and performance improvement have been made recently by exploiting novel properties of charge transfer complexes (CTCs). In this work, a CTC film formed by coevaporating molybdenum(VI) oxide and pentacene (MoO:pentacene) shows a strong dipole of 2.4 eV with direction controllability via pre-biasing with an external voltage.

Formation of assimilable organic carbon (AOC) during drinking water disinfection: A microbiological prospect of disinfection byproducts.

Disinfection processes might alter the chemical structure of biological recalcitrant natural organic matter (NOM) in source water to form assimilable organic carbon (AOC), which can be readily utilized by microbes for growth. However, AOC has not been classified as disinfection byproducts (DBPs) before and little is known about the chemical and structural nature of AOC. This study, for the first time, considers the disinfection-induced AOC as DBPs from a microbiological perspective.

Airborne Survival of under Different Culture Conditions in Synthetic Wastewater.

Bioaerosol generated in wastewater treatment plants has potential to harm human health. Survival of bacteria in bioaerosol during suspension is one of the major factors that affect its biological risk. It is hypothesized that bacteria grown in different wastewater have different physiology and lead to variation in airborne survival.

Antioxidant Grain Passivation for Air-Stable Tin-Based Perovskite Solar Cells.

Tin-based perovskites with excellent optoelectronic properties and suitable band gaps are promising candidates for the preparation of efficient lead-free perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, it is challenging to prepare highly stable and efficient tin-based PSCs because Sn in perovskites can be easily oxidized to Sn upon air exposure. Here we report the fabrication of air-stable FASnI solar cells by introducing hydroxybenzene sulfonic acid or its salt as an antioxidant additive into the perovskite precursor solution along with excess SnCl .

Unconventional Nickel Nitride Enriched with Nitrogen Vacancies as a High-Efficiency Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution.

Development of high-performance and cost-effective non-noble metal electrocatalysts is pivotal for the eco-friendly production of hydrogen through electrolysis and hydrogen energy applications. Herein, the synthesis of an unconventional nickel nitride nanostructure enriched with nitrogen vacancies (NiN ) through plasma-enhanced nitridation of commercial Ni foam (NF) is reported. The self-supported NiN /NF electrode can deliver a hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity competitive to commercial Pt/C catalyst in alkaline condition (i.

Differential gene expression in Escherichia coli during aerosolization from liquid suspension.

Comparative transcriptome analysis was used to determine the differentially expressed genes in Escherichia coli during aerosolization from liquid suspension. Isogenic mutant studies were then used to examine the potential part played by some of these genes in bacterial survival in the air. Bioaerosols were sampled after 3 min of nebulization, which aerosolized the bacteria from the liquid suspension to an aerosol chamber (A0), and after further 30 min of airborne suspension in the chamber (A30).

2D Perovskites with Short Interlayer Distance for High-Performance Solar Cell Application.

2D perovskites have emerged as one of the most promising photovoltaic materials owing to their excellent stability compared with their 3D counterparts. However, in typical 2D perovskites, the highly conductive inorganic layers are isolated by large organic cations leading to quantum confinement and thus inferior electrical conductivity across layers. To address this issue, the large organic cations are replaced with small propane-1,3-diammonium (PDA) cations to reduce distance between the inorganic perovskite layers.

Environmental Sustainability and Mold Hygiene in Buildings.

Environmental sustainability is one of the key issues in building management. In Hong Kong, one of the initiatives is to reduce the operation hours of air-conditioning in buildings to cut down energy consumption. In this study, we reported a mold contamination case in a newly refurbished laboratory, in which the air-conditioner was switched from 24- to 18-h mode after refurbishment.

In-Cabin Air Quality during Driving and Engine Idling in Air-Conditioned Private Vehicles in Hong Kong.

Many people spend lengthy periods each day in enclosed vehicles in Hong Kong. However, comparably limited data is available about in-cabin air quality in air-conditioned private vehicles, and the car usage that may affect the air quality. Fifty-one vehicles were tested for particulate matter (PM and PM), total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), airborne bacteria, and fungi levels during their routine travel journey.

Influence of membrane fatty acid composition and fluidity on airborne survival of Escherichia coli.

Finding ways to predict and control the survival of bacterial aerosols can contribute to the development of ways to alleviate a number of crucial microbiological problems. Significant damage in the membrane integrity of Escherichia coli during aerosolization and airborne suspension has been revealed which has prompted the question of how the membrane fatty acid composition and fluidity influence the survival of airborne bacteria. Two approaches of using isogenic mutants and different growth temperatures were selected to manipulate the membrane fatty acid composition of E.

Heat Treatment for Regenerating Degraded Low-Dimensional Perovskite Solar Cells.

Organolead halide perovskite devices are reported to be susceptible to thermal degradation, which results from heat-induced fast ion diffusion and structural decomposition. In this work, it is found that the performances of degraded low-dimensional perovskite solar cells can be considerably improved (e.g.

Mesoporous Nanosheet Networked Hybrids of Cobalt Oxide and Cobalt Phosphate for Efficient Electrochemical and Photoelectrochemical Oxygen Evolution.

A novel mesoporous nanosheet networked hybrid comprising Co O and Co (PO ) is successfully synthesized using a facile and scalable method through calcinating the carbon, cobalt hydroxy carbonate, and cobalt phosphate composite precursor. Electron transfer from Co O to Co (PO ) , together with the special networked structure and the porous nature of the nanosheets enable the Co (PO ) -Co O hybrid to have a high oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity and outstanding stability in alkaline electrolyte, e.g.

Interaction between bacterial cell membranes and nano-TiO revealed by two-dimensional FTIR correlation spectroscopy using bacterial ghost as a model cell envelope.

The interaction between microorganisms and nanoparticles is a crucial step towards understanding the subsequent biological effect. In this study, the interaction between TiO nanoparticles and bacterial cell membrane was investigated by Two-dimensional Correlation Fourier Transformation Infrared spectroscopy (2D-FTIR-COS) using bacterial ghosts (BGs), which are non-living bacterial cell envelopes devoid of cytoplasm. The synchronous map of 2D-FTIR-COS results indicated that the functionalities in proteins of BGs preferentially interacted with TiO nanoparticles; whereas the interaction of TiO nanoparticles with characteristic functionality in polysaccharides (COH) and phospholipids (PO) were very weak or insensitive.

Direct Free Carrier Photogeneration in Single Layer and Stacked Organic Photovoltaic Devices.

High performance organic photovoltaic devices typically rely on type-II P/N junctions for assisting exciton dissociation. Heremans and co-workers recently reported a high efficiency device with a third organic layer which is spatially separated from the active P/N junction; but still contributes to the carrier generation by passing its energy to the P/N junction via a long-range exciton energy transfer mechanism. In this study the authors show that there is an additional mechanism contributing to the high efficiency.

Importance of stress-response genes to the survival of airborne Escherichia coli under different levels of relative humidity.

Other than the needs for infection control to investigate the survival and inactivation of airborne bacterial pathogens, there has been a growing interest in exploring bacterial communities in the air and the effect of environmental variables on them. However, the innate biological mechanism influencing the bacterial viability is still unclear. In this study, a mutant-based approach, using Escherichia coli as a model, was used to prove the concept that common stress-response genes are important for airborne survival of bacteria.

Conversion of 1T-MoSe to 2H-MoSSe mesoporous nanospheres for superior sodium storage performance.

S-Doped 2H-MoSe (i.e., 2H-MoSSe) mesoporous nanospheres assembled from several-layered nanosheets are synthesized by sulfurizing freshly-prepared 1T-MoSe nanospheres, and they serve as a robust host material for sodium storage.

Probing the intracellular organic matters released from the photocatalytic inactivation of bacteria using fractionation procedure and excitation-emission-matrix fluorescence.

Photocatalysis provides a "green" and effective strategy for water disinfection. During the photocatalytic disinfection process, intracellular organic matter (IOM) from bacterial cells may be released into the bulk solution. In this study, the role of released IOM in the photocatalytic bacterial inactivation was investigated by fractionation procedure and fluorescence excitation-emission-matrix (EEM) combined with parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) approaches.

P2-Type NaCuNiMnO Cathodes with High Voltage for High-Power and Long-Life Sodium-Ion Batteries.

Cu-Ni-Mn-based ternary P2-type NaCuNiMnO (x = 0.50, 0.67, and 0.

Graphene-Nanowall-Decorated Carbon Felt with Excellent Electrochemical Activity Toward VO/VO Couple for All Vanadium Redox Flow Battery.

3D graphene-nanowall-decorated carbon felts (CF) are synthesized via an in situ microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition method and used as positive electrode for vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB). The carbon fibers in CF are successfully wrapped by vertically grown graphene nanowalls, which not only increase the electrode specific area, but also expose a high density of sharp graphene edges with good catalytic activities to the vanadium ions. As a result, the VRFB with this novel electrode shows three times higher reaction rate toward VO/VO redox couple and 11% increased energy efficiency over VRFB with an unmodified CF electrode.

Bacterial disinfection in a sunlight/visible-light-driven photocatalytic reactor by recyclable natural magnetic sphalerite.

A 5-L reactor was designed and used to enhance the sunlight/visible-light-driven (VLD) photocatalytic disinfection efficiency towards Gram-negative bacterium (Escherichia coli). Natural magnetic sphalerite (NMS) was used as the photocatalyst, which could be easily recycled by applying a magnetic field. Results showed that NMS with irradiation by the blue light emitting diode (LED) lamp could completely inactivate 1.