In order to better understand the behavior of highly siderophile elements (HSEs: Os, Ir, Ru, Rh, Pt, Pd, Au, Re), Ag, Pb and chalcogens (As, Se, Sb, Te and Bi) during the solidification of sulfide ...magmas, we have conducted a series of experiments to measure partition coefficients (D values) between monosulfide solid solution (MSS) and sulfide melt, as well as MSS and intermediate solid solution (ISS), at 0.1MPa and 860–926°C, log fS2 −3.0 to −2.2 (similar to the Pt–PtS buffer), with fO2 controlled at the fayalite–magnetite–quartz (FMQ) buffer. The IPGEs (Os, Ir, Ru), Rh and Re are found to be compatible in MSS relative to sulfide melt with D values ranging from ∼20 to ∼5, and DRe/DOs of ∼0.5. Pd, Pt, Au, Ag, Pb, as well as the chalcogens, are incompatible in MSS, with D values ranging from ∼0.1 to ∼1×10−3. For the same metal/sulfur ratio, D values for the IPGEs, Rh and Re are systematically larger than most past studies, correlating with higher oxygen content in the sulfide liquid, reflecting the significant effect of oxygen on increasing the activity coefficients for these elements in the melt phase. MSS/ISS partitioning experiments reveal that Ru, Os, Ir, Rh and Re are partitioned into MSS by a factor of >50, whereas Pd, Pt, Ag, Au and the chalcogens partition from weakly (Se, As) to strongly (Ag, Au) into ISS. Uniformly low MSS- and ISS- melt partition coefficients for the chalcogens, Pt, Pd, Ag and Au will lead to enrichment in the residual sulfide liquid, but D values are generally too large to reach early saturation in Pt–Pd-chalcogen-rich accessory minerals, based on current solubility estimates. Instead, these phases likely precipitate at the last dregs of crystallization. Modeled evolution curves for the PGEs and chalcogens are in reasonably good agreement with whole-rock sulfide compositions for the McCreedy East deposit (Sudbury, Ontario), consistent with an origin by crystallization of MSS, then MSS+ISS from sulfide magma.
One of the greatest challenges to the sustainability of modern society is an inadequate supply of clean water. Due to its energy-saving and cost-effective features, membrane technology has become an ...indispensable platform technology for water purification, including seawater and brackish water desalination as well as municipal or industrial wastewater treatment. However, membrane fouling, which arises from the nonspecific interaction between membrane surface and foulants, significantly impedes the efficient application of membrane technology. Preparing antifouling membranes is a fundamental strategy to deal with pervasive fouling problems from a variety of foulants. In recent years, major advancements have been made in membrane preparation techniques and in elucidating the antifouling mechanisms of membrane processes, including ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis and forward osmosis. This review will first introduce the major foulants and the principal mechanisms of membrane fouling, and then highlight the development, current status and future prospects of antifouling membranes, including antifouling strategies, preparation techniques and practical applications. In particular, the strategies and mechanisms for antifouling membranes, including passive fouling resistance and fouling release, active off-surface and on-surface strategies, will be proposed and discussed extensively.
Advances in fabrication/modification approaches to antifouling membranes for sustainable water purification are reviewed, and some key strategies and mechanisms are highlighted.
Oxidation and hydrogenation catalysis plays a crucial role in the current chemical industry for the production of key chemicals and intermediates. Because of their easy separation and recyclability, ...supported catalysts are widely used in these two processes. Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) with the advantages of unique structure, composition diversity, high stability, ease of preparation and low cost have shown great potential in the design and synthesis of novel supported catalysts. This review summarizes the recent progress in supported catalysts by using LDHs as supports/precursors for catalytic oxidation and hydrogenation. Particularly, partial hydrogenation of acetylene, hydrogenation of dimethyl terephthalate, methanation, epoxidation of olefins, elimination of NO
x
and SO
x
emissions, and selective oxidation of biomass have been chosen as representative reactions in the petrochemical, fine chemicals, environmental protection and clean energy fields to highlight the potential application and the general functionality of LDH-based catalysts in catalytic oxidation and hydrogenation. Finally, we concisely discuss some of the scientific challenges and opportunities of supported catalysts based on LDH materials.
This review focuses on the recent progress in supported catalysts based on LDH for use in catalytic hydrogenation and oxidation.
Membrane technology has been broadly utilized in water purification including wastewater treatment, seawater or brackish water desalination. However, it often suffers from the severe membrane fouling ...due to the nonspecific interactions between membrane surface and foulants. Antifouling membrane surface construction thus becomes an everlasting and ubiquitous issue, where chemistry plays a critical role in membrane material design, hierarchical structure manipulation, antifouling mechanism integration and separation performance intensification. Many emerging chemistries enable the rational design and construction of state-of-the-art antifouling membrane surfaces. This review will highlight the recent progress in antifouling membrane surface construction with a focus on five promising classes of chemistries: bioinspired adhesion chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, mineralization chemistry, click chemistry and coupling chemistry. The contribution of chemistries to the physico-chemical structure, antifouling properties, separation performance and long-term durability of membranes will be elaborated. Major challenges and perspectives on future directions of chemistries in antifouling membrane surface construction will also be tentatively delineated.
Antifouling membranes hold great promise in the sustainable development of membrane technology for water purification. Chemistry plays a critical role in antifouling membrane surface construction due to their broad diversity and high efficiency. The recent advances in some representative chemistries for material design, structure manipulation, mechanism integration and property intensification of antifouling membranes are highlighted. Display omitted
•Critical role of chemistry in antifouling membrane surface construction is surveyed.•Bioadhesion, supramolecular, mineralization, click and coupling chemistry are covered.•Contribution of chemistry to membrane application performance is highlighted.•Perspective of chemistry on antifouling membrane surface construction is proposed.
Minimizing energy loss is of critical importance in the pursuit of attaining high-performance organic solar cells. Interestingly, reorganization energy plays a crucial role in photoelectric ...conversion processes. However, the understanding of the relationship between reorganization energy and energy losses has rarely been studied. Here, two acceptors, Qx-1 and Qx-2, were developed. The reorganization energies of these two acceptors during photoelectric conversion processes are substantially smaller than the conventional Y6 acceptor, which is beneficial for improving the exciton lifetime and diffusion length, promoting charge transport, and reducing the energy loss originating from exciton dissociation and non-radiative recombination. So, a high efficiency of 18.2% with high open circuit voltage above 0.93 V in the PM6:Qx-2 blend, accompanies a significantly reduced energy loss of 0.48 eV. This work underlines the importance of the reorganization energy in achieving small energy losses and paves a way to obtain high-performance organic solar cells.
Tremendous progress in two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterial chemistry affords abundant opportunities for the sustainable development of membranes and membrane processes. In this review, we propose the ...concept of mixed dimensional membranes (MDMs), which are fabricated through the integration of 2D materials with nanomaterials of different dimensionality and chemistry. Complementing mixed matrix membranes or hybrid membranes, MDMs stimulate different conceptual thinking about designing advanced membranes from the angle of the dimensions of the building blocks as well as the final structures, including the nanochannels and the bulk structures. In this review, we survey MDMs (denoted
n
D/2D, where
n
is 0, 1 or 3) in terms of the dimensions of membrane-forming nanomaterials, as well as their fabrication methods. Subsequently, we highlight three kinds of nanochannels, which are 1D nanochannels within 1D/2D membranes, 2D nanochannels within 0D/2D membranes, and 3D nanochannels within 3D/2D membranes. Strategies to tune the physical and chemical microenvironments of the nanochannels as well as the bulk structures based on the size, type, structure and chemical character of nanomaterials are discussed. Some representative applications of MDMs are illustrated for gas molecular separations, liquid molecular separations, ionic separations and oil/water separation. Finally, current challenges and a future perspective on MDMs are presented.
This review highlights the design and construction of mixed-dimensional membranes (MDMs) and their applications in molecular separations, ionic separations and oil/water separations.
Baicalin is one of the major bioactive components of
Scutellaria radix
, a Chinese herb that has been used since ancient times. Baicalin has various pharmacological activities, including antitumor, ...antimicrobial, and antioxidant, and has wide clinical applications. Baicalin displays a distinct pharmacokinetic profile including gastrointestinal hydrolysis, enterohepatic recycling, carrier-mediated transport, and complicated metabolism. The in vivo disposition of baicalin is affected by combinations of other herbs and baicalin can interact with other co-administered drugs due to competition between metabolic enzymes and protein binding. Furthermore, baicalin exhibits altered pharmacokinetic properties under different pathological conditions. Due to its low bioavailability, emerging novel baicalin preparations including nano/micro-scale baicalin delivery systems show better absorption and higher bioavailability in preclinical studies, and show promise for future clinical applications. Thus, this current review offers a comprehensive report on the pharmacokinetic behavior of baicalin and strategies to improve its bioavailability.
Carbon sink estimation and ecological assessment of forests require accurate forest type mapping. The traditional survey method is time consuming and labor intensive, and the remote sensing method ...with high-resolution, multi-spectral commercial satellite images has high cost and low availability. In this study, we explore and evaluate the potential of freely-available multi-source imagery to identify forest types with an object-based random forest algorithm. These datasets included Sentinel-2A (S2), Sentinel-1A (S1) in dual polarization, one-arc-second Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission Digital Elevation (DEM) and multi-temporal Landsat-8 images (L8). We tested seven different sets of explanatory variables for classifying eight forest types in Wuhan, China. The results indicate that single-sensor (S2) or single-day data (L8) cannot obtain satisfactory results; the overall accuracy was 54.31% and 50.00%, respectively. Compared with the classification using only Sentinel-2 data, the overall accuracy increased by approximately 15.23% and 22.51%, respectively, by adding DEM and multi-temporal Landsat-8 imagery. The highest accuracy (82.78%) was achieved with fused imagery, the terrain and multi-temporal data contributing the most to forest type identification. These encouraging results demonstrate that freely-accessible multi-source remotely-sensed data have tremendous potential in forest type identification, which can effectively support monitoring and management of forest ecological resources at regional or global scales.
•Effect of CeO2 on cracking sensitivity of the laser cladding coatings on Ti811 were studied.•The addition of CeO2 can optimize the microstructure.•Excessive CeO2 can inhibit the precipitation of the ...secondary TiC phase.•The wear properties and microhardness of laser cladding coatings with proper amounts of CeO2 are observably improved.
In this study, Ti-based composite coatings reinforced with TiC/Ti2Ni were fabricated on Ti811 titanium alloy surfaces by laser cladding TC4 + Ni60 mixed powders with different CeO2 contents (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 wt.%). The effects of CeO2 addition on the phase composition, microstructure, microhardness, and wear properties of the coatings were investigated by X-ray diffraction, optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Vickers hardness testing, and friction wear testing. Cracks in the coatings were detected using the dye penetration method. The results showed that the coatings mainly comprised reinforced phases of TiC, Ti2Ni, TiB2, and the matrix α-Ti. Adding an appropriate amount of CeO2 could eliminate the “herringbone” cracks and improve the surface quality of the coatings. The morphology of the TiC phase changed from dendrites to particles and then to dendrites as the CeO2 content increased from 0 wt.%, 2 wt.% to 4 wt.%. CeO2 had a negligible effect on the phase compositions of the coatings but it significantly improved the microhardness and wear properties of the coatings, and the microstructure of the coating was refined by adding an appropriate amount of CeO2.
Fe(III) oxyhydroxides play critical roles in arsenic immobilization due to their strong surface affinity for arsenic. However, the role of bacteria in Fe(II) oxidation and the subsequent ...immobilization of arsenic has not been thoroughly investigated to date, especially under the micro-oxic conditions present in soils and sediments where these microorganisms thrive. In the present study, we used gel-stabilized gradient systems to investigate arsenic immobilization during microaerophilic microbial Fe(II) oxidation and Fe(III) oxyhydroxide formation. The removal and immobilization of dissolved As(III) and As(V) proceeded via the formation of biogenic Fe(III) oxyhydroxides through microbial Fe(II) oxidation. After 30 days of incubation, the concentration of dissolved arsenic decreased from 600 to 4.8 μg L−1. When an Fe(III) oxyhydroxide formed in the presence of As(III), most of the arsenic ultimately was found as As(V), indicating that As(III) oxidation accompanied arsenic immobilization. The structure of the microbial community in As(III) incubations was highly differentiated with respect to the As(V)-bearing ending incubations. The As(III)-containing incubations contained the arsenite oxidase gene, suggesting the potential for microbially mediated As(III) oxidation. The findings of the present study suggest that As(III) immobilization can occur in micro-oxic environments after microbial Fe(II) oxidation and biogenic Fe(III) oxyhydroxide formation via the direct microbial oxidation of As(III) to As(V). This study demonstrates that microbial Fe(II) and As(III) oxidation are important geochemical processes for arsenic immobilization in micro-oxic soils and sediments.