Interface Engineering of the CuMnO/CeO Heterostructure for Highly Efficient Electrocatalytic Nitrate Reduction to Ammonia.

The electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NORR) is considered a sustainable technology to convert the nitrate pollutants to ammonia. However, developing highly efficient electrocatalysts is necessary and challenging given the slow kinetics of the NORR with an eight-electron transfer process. Here, a CuMnO (CMO)/CeO heterostructure with rich interfaces is designed and fabricated through an electrospinning and postprocessing technique.

Acidic enol electrooxidation-coupled hydrogen production with ampere-level current density.

Hydrogen production coupled with biomass upgrading is vital for future sustainable energy developments. However, most biomass electrooxidation reactions suffer from high working voltage and low current density, which substantially hinder large-scale industrial applications. Herein, we report an acidic hydrogen production system that combined anodic ascorbic acid electrooxidation with cathodic hydrogen evolution.

Engineering Microdomains of Oxides in High-Entropy Alloy Electrodes toward Efficient Oxygen Evolution.

One important goal of the current electrocatalysis is to develop integrated electrodes from the atomic level design to multilevel structural engineering in simple ways and low prices. Here, a series of oxygen micro-alloyed high-entropy alloys (O-HEAs) is developed via a metallurgy approach. A (CrFeCoNi) O bulk O-HEA shows exceptional electrocatalytic performance for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), reaching an overpotential as low as 196 mV and a Tafel slope of 29 mV dec , and with stability longer than 120 h in 1 m KOH solution at a current density of 10 mA cm .

Three-Dimensional Hierarchical Porous Structures of Metallic Glass/Copper Composite Catalysts by 3D Printing for Efficient Wastewater Treatments.

Finding highly efficient and reusable catalysts for advanced oxidation processes is a crucial endeavor to resolve the severe water pollution problems. Although numerous nanocatalysts have been developed in the past few decades, their recyclability along with sustainably high catalytic efficiency still remain challenging. Here, we propose a new strategy for designing efficient and reusable catalysts, that is, introducing Cu as a reductant into a metallic glass-based catalyst and constructing three-dimensional hierarchical porous architectures via a laser 3D printing technique.

Advances in Computational Structure-Based Drug Design and Application in Drug Discovery.

Compared with the increasing and widespread bacterial resistance to clinical medicines and the urgent need for cures of intractable diseases, there is a dramatic decline in the numbers of drugs reaching the market or clinical trials. Accordingly, it has become imperative to discover more rational and efficient strategies to design and develop novel drugs. Structure-based drug design/discovery (SBDD) is one of the computer-aided methods, by which novel drugs are designed or discovered based on the knowledge of 3D structures of the relevant specific targets.

Separation, determination and antifungal activity test of the products from a new Bacillus amyloliquefaciens.

A new Bacillus amyloliquefaciens named ZJU-2011 was discovered, and the culture supernatant showed a strong inhibitory effect against Candida albicans. In this study, a novel method was developed to purify the antifungal compounds in high purity. The obtained products were analysed by high performance liquid chromatography and proven to be of high purity.

Fragment-based drug discovery and molecular docking in drug design.

Fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) has caused a revolution in the process of drug discovery and design, with many FBDD leads being developed into clinical trials or approved in the past few years. Compared with traditional high-throughput screening, it displays obvious advantages such as efficiently covering chemical space, achieving higher hit rates, and so forth. In this review, we focus on the most recent developments of FBDD for improving drug discovery, illustrating the process and the importance of FBDD.

Enhancing production of a 24-membered ring macrolide compound by a marine bacterium using response surface methodology.

A 24-membered ring macrolide compound, macrolactin A has potential applications in pharmaceuticals for its anti-infectious and antiviral activity. In this study, macrolactin A was produced by a marine bacterium, which was identified as Bacillus subtilis by 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequence analysis. Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI/MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy analyses were used to characterize this compound.