Solid electrolytes have attracted considerable interest in rechargeable batteries because of their potential high safety, inhibition of electrode dissolution, and large electrochemical window. ...However, their development in some new battery concepts such as room-temperature halide ion batteries has been scarce. Herein, we develop the inorganic halide perovskite of CsSnCl3 prepared by mechanical milling and subsequent mild heat treatment as the potential solid electrolyte for chloride ion batteries (CIB). Benefiting from its high structural stability against a phase transformation to monoclinic structure at room temperature, the as-prepared cubic CsSnCl3 achieves an impressive electrochemical performance with the highest ionic conductivity of 3.6 × 10–4 S cm–1 and a large electrochemical window of about 6.1 V at 298 K. These values are much higher than 1.2 × 10–5 S cm–1 and 4.25 V of the previously reported solid polymer electrolyte for CIBs. Importantly, the chloride ion transfer of the as-prepared CsSnCl3 electrolyte is demonstrated by employing the electrode couples of SnCl2/Sn and BiCl3/Bi.
A novel polysaccharide (LCP50W) with a molecular weight of 4.72 × 104 Da was isolated from the pulp tissues of Litchi chinensis. The chemical structure of LCP50W was characterized using ...physicochemical and instrumental analyses. The results indicated that the main chain of LCP50W consisted of (1→3)-linked β-l-rhamnopyranosyl, (1→6)-linked α-d-glucopyranosyl, and (1→2,6)-linked α-d-glucopyranosyl residues, which branched at O-6. The three branches consisted of (1→2)-linked α-l-rhamnopyranosyl, (1→3)-linked α-d-galactopyranosyl, and (1→3)-linked α-l-mannopyranosyl residues, terminated with (1→)-linked α-l-arabinopyranosyl residues, respectively. The in vitro immunomodulatory assay revealed that LCP50W promoted the proliferation of mouse splenocytes and enhanced the cytotoxicity of NK cells. LCP50W boosted the secretion of Th1 cytokine IFN-γ while it inhibited the secretion of Th2 cytokine IL-4; it also enhanced the expression of T-bet while it inhibited the expression of GATA-3. Additionally, LCP50W promoted the development of cell cycle toward the S phase.
•A novel low-molecular-weight polysaccharide was isolated from Cordyceps militaris.•The preliminary structural characterization of CMP-1 was conducted.•The ultrastructure of CMP-1 was investigated by ...scanning electron microscope (SEM).•The antioxidant, immunostimulatory and antitumor activities of CMP-1 were evaluated.•CMP-1 may be considered as a potential candidate for antitumor agent.
A novel low-molecular-weight polysaccharide (CMP-1) with antioxidant, immunostimulatory and antitumor activities was isolated from the cultured Cordyceps militaris. The structure of CMP-1 was elucidated by a combination of physicochemical and instrumental analyses, and its average molecular weight was 4.3kDa. The backbone of CMP-1 was composed of (1→4)-linked α-d-glucopyranosyl, (1→6)-linked β-d-glucopyranosyl and (1→4)-linked β-d-glucopyranosyl residues which branched at O-6. The branches consisted of (1→3)-linked α-l-rhamnopyranosyl terminated with (1→)-linked α-d-glucopyranosyl residues. The ultrastructure of CMP-1 was further investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The antioxidant assays showed that CMP-1 exhibited free radical-scavenging effects, ferrous ions-chelating ability and reducing power. In vitro test revealed that CMP-1 could significantly stimulate the mouse splenocyte proliferation. The cytotoxicity assay showed that CMP-1 inhibited the proliferation of HT-29, HeLa, HepG2 and K562 cells, with the IC50 values of 137.66, 162.59, 176.29 and 364.01μg/mL, respectively.
Arca subcrenata Lischke is a marine traditional Chinese medicine. The study investigated the antitumor effects of P2, a polypeptide fraction from A. subcrenata, and its toxicity in vitro and in vivo. ...The results showed that P2 could inhibit the proliferation of seven tumor cell lines, especially in HeLa and HT-29 cell lines. The IC₅₀ values were 11.43 μg/mL for HeLa and 13.00 μg/mL for HT-29 treated by P2 for 48 h. P2 had little cytotoxicity on normal liver cells (L-02). The maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of P2 on KM mice was 1000 mg/kg by i.p. or i.v. The tumor growth inhibitory ratios of P2 were 26.4%, 41.4% and 46.4% for H-22, and 34.0%, 45.8% and 60.1% for S-180 tumor-bearing mice. The results demonstrated that P2 might be a potential antitumor agent with high efficiency in dose-dependent and time-dependent manners and low toxicity.
In this report, porous carbons were made via a facile single-step KOH activation of commercial phenolic resin. Different from the conventional carbonization-activation two-step procedure, this work ...combines the carbonization and activation into one step to achieve carbons with a well-developed porous structure. The as-attained carbonaceous adsorbents possess good CO2 uptake under atmospheric pressure, 4.12 and 6.02 mmol/g at 25 and 0 °C, respectively. Detailed research pointed out that the synergetic effects of volume of narrow micropores, pore size, and pore size distribution of the adsorbents determine the CO2 uptake under 1 bar and 25 °C for these phenolic resin-derived adsorbents. In addition to the excellent CO2 adsorption capacities, these sorbents also have other exceptional CO2 adsorption properties like high CO2/N2 selectivity, intermediate heat of adsorption, quick adsorption kinetics, excellent recyclability, and high dynamic adsorption capacity. These features suggest that the porous carbons prepared by the facile single-step strategy are promising for CO2 removal from industrial gas streams.
CONTEXT: The sustainability of urban areas is essential to the sustainability of regions, nations, and the world as a whole. Urban sustainability indicators (USIs) can play an important role in ...advancing the science and practice of sustaining urban systems. OBJECTIVES: We review the key concepts of urban sustainability and commonly used indicators for gauging the state and progress of urban sustainability, and discuss how USIs can be further improved from a landscape ecology perspective. METHODS: This review is based primarily on peer-reviewed journal papers, as well as books, and documents published by international organizations, governmental agencies, and research institutions. We systematically examine what USIs actually measure and whether they are adequate for gauging urban sustainability, and then discuss major problems and challenges as well as ways forward in developing and applying USIs. RESULTS: Numerous USIs have been developed, including single composite indices and indicator sets. This paper focuses on three indicator sets and ten composite indices. Eight of them cover all the three dimensions of sustainability (environment, economy, and society), and five cover two of the three. Five of them measure strong sustainability, and eight only indicate weak sustainability. CONCLUSIONS: Urban sustainability indicators abound, and so do problems with them. These include technical issues of normalization, weighting, and aggregation (upscaling), as well as conceptual issues of indicator selection, boundary delineation, heterogeneity, scale, and strong versus weak sustainability. To overcome these problems, principles and methods in landscape ecology—particularly those of landscape metrics, spatial scaling, and landscape sustainability—have much to offer, and this represents a challenging and fruitful research direction for both landscape and urban scientists in the coming decades.
The charge‐carrier dynamics process in well‐designed hetero‐nanostructural plasmonic photocatalysts is greatly improved through a multichannel sensitization effect, which therefore results in a ...significant enhancement of the efficiencies of solar‐to‐fuels conversion.
•GDP has increased much faster than GPI in Chinese megacities in recent decades.•Chinese cities have improved human welfare greatly at the expense of environment.•Western Chinese cities lag in ...development and have smaller ecological footprints.•Eastern Chinese cities are challenged by more and greater environmental problems.•Chinese megacities are faced with increasing problems of socioeconomic inequality.
Driven by unprecedented economic development for more than three decades, China's urbanization level rose from 17.9% in 1978 to 54.8% in 2014. This breakneck speed of urbanization has resulted in myriad environmental problems and social inequities. To gauge the urban sustainability of China, our study focused on ten megacities which are socioeconomic centers of the country. We evaluated the three dimensions of sustainability using a set of sustainability indicators, including Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), Ecological Footprint (EF), Biocapacity, Environmental Performance Index (EPI), City Development Index (CDI), Human Development Index (HDI), Gini coefficient, and Urban–rural income ratio. Based on time-series data from 1978 to 2012, our study has produced the following findings: (1) The values of GPI for the ten megacities started to increase since 2006 after a relatively constant period between 1994 and 2005; (2) The pressures of economic growth on the environment (EF) increased while biocapacity decreased for the ten megacities, with smaller biocapacity deficits for western cities; (3) The overall level of human wellbeing (HDI) increased; (4) Socioeconomic inequality (Gini and urban–rural income ratio) widened, but the widening trend seemed to have ceased in recent years for most of the ten megacities; and (5) Certain aspects of urban environment and city development (EPI and CDI) improved gradually, particularly in waste treatment and infrastructure development. Our findings suggest that, to achieve overall urban sustainability, China must move away from maximizing economic development and focus on improving environmental quality of its megacities.
The ultrafast transfer of plasmon‐induced hot electrons is considered an effective kinetics process to enhance the photoconversion efficiencies of semiconductors through strong localized surface ...plasmon resonance (LSPR) of plasmonic nanostructures. Although this classical sensitization approach is widely used in noble‐metal–semiconductor systems, it remains unclear in nonmetallic plasmonic heterostructures. Here, by combining ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy with theoretical simulations, IR‐driven transfer of plasmon‐induced hot electron in a nonmetallic branched heterostructure is demonstrated, which is fabricated through solvothermal growth of plasmonic W18O49 nanowires (as branches) onto TiO2 electrospun nanofibers (as backbones). The ultrafast transfer of hot electron from the W18O49 branches to the TiO2 backbones occurs within a timeframe on the order of 200 fs with very large rate constants ranging from 3.8 × 1012 to 5.5 × 1012 s−1. Upon LSPR excitation by low‐energy IR photons, the W18O49/TiO2 branched heterostructure exhibits obviously enhanced catalytic H2 generation from ammonia borane compared with that of W18O49 nanowires. Further investigations by finely controlling experimental conditions unambiguously confirm that this plasmon‐enhanced catalytic activity arises from the transfer of hot electron rather than from the photothermal effect.
Infrared (IR)‐driven ultrafast transfer of plasmonic hot electrons in nonmetallic W18O49/TiO2 branched heterostructures is observed by combining ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy with theoretical simulations. This kinetics process can remarkably enhance the catalytic activity of the W18O49/TiO2 branched heterostructure for H2 generation upon localized surface plasmon resonance excitation by low‐energy IR photons.
PDF
