Cadmium sulfide (CdS) as one of the most common visible-light-responsive photocatalysts has been widely investigated for hydrogen generation. However, its low solar–hydrogen conversion efficiency ...caused by fast carrier recombination and poor catalytic activity hinders its practical applications. To address this issue, we develop a novel and highly efficient nickel–cobalt phosphide and phosphate cocatalyst-modified CdS (NiCoP/CdS/NiCoPi) photocatalyst for hydrogen evolution. The dual-cocatalysts were simultaneously deposited on CdS during one phosphating step by using sodium hypophosphate as the phosphorus source. After the loading of the dual-cocatalysts, the photocurrent of CdS significantly increased, while its electrical impedance and photoluminescence emission dramatically decreased, which indicates the enhancement of charge carrier separation. It was proposed that the NiCoP cocatalyst accepts electrons and promotes hydrogen evolution, while the NiCoPi cocatalyst donates electrons and accelerates the oxidation of sacrificial agents (e.g., lactic acid). Consequently, the visible-light-driven hydrogen evolution of this composite photocatalyst greatly improved. The dual-cocatalyst-modified CdS with a loading content of 5 mol % showed a high hydrogen evolution rate of 80.8 mmol·g–1·h–1, which was 202 times higher than that of bare CdS (0.4 mmol·g–1·h–1). This is the highest enhancement factor for metal phosphide-modified CdS photocatalysts. It also exhibited remarkable stability in a continuous photocatalytic test with a total reaction time of 24 h.
The metal-organic framework (MOF) was first utilized as the sensing platform for assaying biomolecules. It has also been demonstrated that this novel strategy is effective and reliable for detection ...of HIV DNA and thrombin with high sensitivity and selectivity.
A disposable, equipment-free, versatile point-of-care testing platform, microfluidic distance readout sweet hydrogel integrated paper-based analytical device (μDiSH-PAD), was developed for portable ...quantitative detection of different types of targets. The platform relies on a target-responsive aptamer cross-linked hydrogel for target recognition, cascade enzymatic reactions for signal amplification, and microfluidic paper-based analytic devices (μPADs) for visual distance-based quantitative readout. A “sweet” hydrogel with trapped glucoamylase (GA) was synthesized using an aptamer as a cross-linker. When target is present in the sample, the “sweet” hydrogel collapses and releases enzyme GA into the sample, generating glucose by amylolysis. A hydrophilic channel on the μPADs is modified with glucose oxidase (GOx) and colorless 3,3′-diaminobenzidine (DAB) as the substrate. When glucose travels along the channel by capillary action, it is converted to H2O2 by GOx. In addition, DAB is converted into brown insoluble poly-3,3′-diaminobenzidine poly(DAB) by horseradish peroxidase, producing a visible brown bar, whose length is positively correlated to the concentration of targets. The distance-based visual quantitative platform can detect cocaine in urine with high selectivity, sensitivity, and accuracy. Because the target-induced cascade reaction is triggered by aptamer/target recognition, this method is widely suitable for different kinds of targets. With the advantages of low cost, ease of operation, general applicability, and disposability with quantitative readout, the μDiSH-PAD holds great potential for portable detection of trace targets in environmental monitoring, security inspection, personalized healthcare, and clinical diagnostics.
Recent advances in soft materials enable robots to possess safer human-machine interaction ways and adaptive motions, yet there remain substantial challenges to develop universal driving power ...sources that can achieve performance trade-offs between actuation, speed, portability, and reliability in untethered applications. Here, we introduce a class of fully soft electronic pumps that utilize electrical energy to pump liquid through electrons and ions migration mechanism. Soft pumps combine good portability with excellent actuation performances. We develop special functional liquids that merge unique properties of electrically actuation and self-healing function, providing a direction for self-healing fluid power systems. Appearances and pumpabilities of soft pumps could be customized to meet personalized needs of diverse robots. Combined with a homemade miniature high-voltage power converter, two different soft pumps are implanted into robotic fish and vehicle to achieve their untethered motions, illustrating broad potential of soft pumps as universal power sources in untethered soft robotics.
A high-entropy silicide (HES), (Ti
0.2
Zr
0.2
Nb
0.2
Mo
0.2
W
0.2
)Si
2
with close-packed hexagonal structure is successfully manufactured through reactive spark plasma sintering at 1300 °C for 15 ...min. The elements in this HES are uniformly distributed in the specimen based on the energy dispersive spectrometer analysis except a small amount of zirconium that is combined with oxygen as impurity particles. The Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, and Vickers hardness of the obtained (Ti
0.2
Zr
0.2
Nb
0.2
Mo
0.2
W
0.2
)Si
2
are also measured.
Abstract
Motivation
T and B cell receptors (TCRs and BCRs) play a pivotal role in the adaptive immune system by recognizing an enormous variety of external and internal antigens. Understanding these ...receptors is critical for exploring the process of immunoreaction and exploiting potential applications in immunotherapy and antibody drug design. Although a large number of samples have had their TCR and BCR repertoires sequenced using high-throughput sequencing in recent years, very few databases have been constructed to store these kinds of data. To resolve this issue, we developed a database.
Results
We developed a database, the Pan Immune Repertoire Database (PIRD), located in China National GeneBank (CNGBdb), to collect and store annotated TCR and BCR sequencing data, including from Homo sapiens and other species. In addition to data storage, PIRD also provides functions of data visualization and interactive online analysis. Additionally, a manually curated database of TCRs and BCRs targeting known antigens (TBAdb) was also deposited in PIRD.
Availability and implementation
PIRD can be freely accessed at https://db.cngb.org/pird.
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•Calcination of Co-Al layered double hydroxides gave rise to Co(Co, Al)2O4 spinel.•Incorporation of Al3+ ions into the spinel structure inhibited the crystal growth.•The highest ...activity for benzene total oxidation was obtained at Co/Al=5.•The optimized Co(Co, Al)2O4 spinel showed a long-term stable activity.
A series of Co-Al mixed oxides were prepared by co-precipitation method via Co-Al layered double hydroxides (LDHs) as precursors. The influence of chemical compositions of Co-Al LDHs on the structural and physicochemical properties of Co-Al mixed oxides as well as their catalytic performance for benzene total oxidation was investigated. The samples were characterized by using ICP, N2 physical adsorption, XRD, TG-DTA, SEM, TEM, Raman, H2-TPR, and XPS techniques. The characterization results showed that calcination of Co-Al LDHs gave rise to Co(Co, Al)2O4 spinel-like mixed oxide as the main phase. The crystallite size of Co(Co, Al)2O4 spinel (6∼19nm) decreased with decreasing the Co/Al molar ratio, suggesting the inhibition of crystal growth by the incorporation of Al3+ ions in the spinel phase. A drastic change in the state of Co-Al mixed oxide occurred at Co/Al=6, as indicated by H2-TPR and XPS. In benzene total oxidation, the activity of Co-Al mixed oxide increased with increasing the Co/Al molar ratio, with the highest activity at Co/Al=5; further increase in the Co/Al molar ratio to 6 led to significant decrease in the activity, properly caused by the change of surface state of mixed oxide. The 50h long-term stability test revealed that the optimized Co-Al mixed oxide was stable for the total oxidation of benzene.
Dust can be regarded as environmental medium that indicates the level and spatial distribution of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) coming from different pollution sources. In this study, ...samples including road dust, roof dust, and bare soil near an iron and steel enterprise (ISE) in Laiwu city of North China were collected. To assess the environment impact, atmosphere particulates and one flue dust from a coking plant were simultaneously sampled. Sixteen USEPA PAHs were detected quantitatively by Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). A laser particle size analyzer was used to obtain the grain size of the dust particle samples. The results showed that PAH concentrations displayed great variability in the dust samples. The ∑
PAHs concentration was found to be between 0.460 and 46.970 μg/g (avg ± sd 10.892 ± 1.185 μg/g) in road dust, between 0.670 and 17.140 μg/g (avg ± sd 6.751 ± 0.692 μg/g) in roof dust, and 13.990 ± 1.203 μg/g in bare soil. In the environment atmosphere sites, the ∑
PAHs value in PM
constituted a very large proportion of PM
, indicating that PAHs in finer particle sizes should be given greater emphasis. The ∑
PAHs concentration was relatively high in the area close to the ISE because of the great impact of the ISE industrial activities. PAH concentration curves were similar, and the most abundant individual PAHs in the atmosphere sites were BbF, BkF, and Flu, and BbF, BkF, and Chry in dusts. Toxicity analysis revealed that PAHs with four rings, including carcinogenic PAHs, were the dominant pollutants in the studied area. The toxic equivalency value (TEQ
), the carcinogenic health risk assessment value recommended by the US EPA, was calculated for seven carcinogenic PAHs, revealing that they account for more than 93.0% of the total TEQ
of the 16 PAHs and indicating the major toxic equivalent concentration contributor. Incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) estimation results showed that PAHs tended to bring about great health risks through skin contact, followed by ingestion and inhalation. By comparison, road dust exhibited greater carcinogenic risks than roof dust, and bare soil may undergo heavier pollution. Therefore, the results of this study would be helpful in the effort to understand the PAHs pollution from the steel industry, which will provide some guidance for the probabilistic assessment of local health risks.
Currently, the first-line treatment for autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is still the combination of glucocorticoids or immunosuppressants. However, hormone and immunosuppressive therapy can cause serious ...side effects, such as Cushing syndrome and bone marrow suppression. Previous studies reported on the applicability and safety of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to ameliorate liver inflammation and fibrosis. However, the characteristics of MSCs sources directly contribute to the different conclusions on the mechanisms underlying MSC-mediated immunoregulation. Bone marrow-derived MSCs can exert an immunosuppression effect to ameliorate the S100-induced AIH model by inhibiting several proinflammatory cytokines and upregulating of PD-L1 in liver tissue. It is not clear whether human umbilical cord-derived MSCs (hUC-MSCs) could directly inhibit liver inflammation and ultimately alleviate the dysfunction of hepatocytes in the AIH model. First, hUC-MSCs were extracted from umbilical cord tissue, and the basic biological properties and multilineage differentiation potential were examined. Second, 1 × 106 hUC-MSCs were administered intravenously to AIH mice. At the peak of the disease, serum levels of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase and pathologic damage to liver tissue were measured to evaluate liver function and degree of inflammation. We also observed that the infiltration of CD4+ T cells in the liver was significantly reduced. Furthermore, the frequency of the splenic IFNγ- and IL-17A- producing CD4+ T cells were also significantly decreased, while we only observed an increasing trend in Treg cells in liver tissue. Third, an RNA sequencing analysis of liver tissue was performed, which showed that in the UC-MSC-treated group, the transcriptional profiles of inflammation-related signaling pathways were significantly negatively regulated compared to those of phosphate-buffered saline-treated mice. Collectively, these findings indicated the potential of hUC-MSC to suppress immune responses in immune anomaly mediated liver disease, thus offering a potential clinical option to improve AIH.
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