Metal‐containing nanoparticles (M‐NPs) in metal/nitrogen‐doped carbon (M‐N‐C) catalysts have been considered hostile to the acidic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The relation between M‐NPs and the ...active sites of metal coordinated with nitrogen (MNx) is hard to establish in acid medium owing to the poor stability of M‐NPs. Herein, we develop a strategy to successfully construct a new FeCo‐N‐C catalyst containing highly active M‐NPs and MN4 composite sites (M/FeCo‐SAs‐N‐C). Enhanced catalytic activity and stability of M/FeCo‐SAs‐N‐C is shown experimentally. Calculations reveal that there is a strong interaction between M‐NPs and FeN4 sites, which can favor ORR by activating the O−O bond, thus facilitating a direct 4 e− process. Those findings firstly shed light on the highly active M‐NPs and FeN4 composite sites for catalyzing acid oxygen reduction reaction, and the relevant reaction mechanism is suggested.
Highly active metal‐containing nanoparticles and FeN4 composite sites have been constructed. Experiment and calculation results reveal the enormous potential for activating the O−O bond and promoting the direct 4 e− dissociation pathway in the acidic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which could fundamentally improve ORR activity and inhibit the formation of reactive oxygen species.
Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries, due to the high theoretical energy density, are regarded as one of the most promising candidates for breaking the limitations of energy‐storage system based on Li‐ion ...batteries. Tremendous efforts have been made to meet the challenge of high‐performance Li–S batteries, in which a sulfur loading of above 5 mg cm−2 delivers an areal capacity higher than 5 mAh cm−2 without compromising specific capacity and cycling stability for practical applications. However, serious problems have been exposed during the scaling up of the sulfur loading. In this review, based on mechanistic insights into structural configuration, catalytic conversion, and interfacial engineering, the problems and corresponding strategies in the development of high‐loading Li–S batteries are highlighted and discussed, aiming at bridging the gap between fundamental research and practical cell‐level designs. Stemming from the current achievements, future directions targeting the high‐energy‐density Li–S batteries for commercialization are proposed.
Challenges and corresponding strategies involving high‐loading lithium–sulfur batteries are comprehensively summarized and discussed based on shared mechanisms and concepts, from which perspectives and guidelines are provided for developing future strategies tackling intrinsic problems in high‐loading Li–S batteries.
•Summarized the over-growth risks of non-pathogenic CRB.•Presented the genus, sources and chlorine resistance of all the isolated CRB strains.•Demonstrated the lack of widely-accepted method to ...evaluate chlorine resistance.•Proposed a recommended evaluating method for chlorine resistance.•Proposed a quantitative definition of chlorine-resistant bacteria.
Chlorine-resistant bacteria (CRB) are commonly defined as bacteria with high resistance to chlorine disinfection or bacteria which can survive or even regrow in the residual chlorine. Chlorine disinfection cannot completely control the risks of CRB, such as risks of pathogenicity, antibiotic resistance and microbial growth. Currently, researchers pay more attention to CRB with pathogenicity or antibiotic resistance. The microbial growth risks of non-pathogenic CRB in water treatment and reclamation systems have been neglected to some extent. In this review, these three kinds of risks are all analyzed, and the last one is also highlighted. In order to study CRB, various methods are used to evaluate chlorine resistance. This review summarizes the evaluating methods for chlorine resistance reported in the literatures, and collects the important information about the typical isolated CRB strains including their genera, sources and levels of chlorine resistance. To our knowledge, few review papers have provided such systematic information about CRB. Among 44 typical CRB strains from 17 genera isolated by researchers, Mycobacterium, Bacillus, Legionella, Pseudomonas and Sphingomonas were the five genera with the highest frequency of occurrence in literatures. They are all pathogenic or opportunistic pathogenic bacteria. In addition, although there are many studies on CRB, information about chlorine resistance level is still limited to specie level or strain level. The difference in chlorine resistance level among different bacterial genera is less well understood. An inconvenient truth is that there is still no widely-accepted method to evaluate chlorine resistance and to identify CRB. Due to the lack of a unified method, it is difficult to compare the results about chlorine resistance level of bacterial strains in different literatures. A recommended evaluating method using logarithmic removal rate as an index and E. coli as a reference strain is proposed in this review based on the summary of the current evaluating methods. This method can provide common range of chlorine resistance of each genus and it is conducive to analyzing the distribution and abundance of CRB in the environment.
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This study provided an overview of established and emerging nanomaterial (NM)-enabled processes and devices for water disinfection for both centralized and decentralized systems. In addition to a ...discussion of major disinfection mechanisms, data on disinfection performance (shortest contact time for complete disinfection) and energy efficiency (electrical energy per order; EEO) were collected enabling assessments firstly for disinfection processes and then for disinfection devices. The NM-enabled electro-based disinfection process gained the highest disinfection efficiency with the lowest energy consumption compared with physical-based, peroxy-based, and photo-based disinfection processes owing to the unique disinfection mechanism and the direct mean of translating energy input to microbes. Among the established disinfection devices (e.g., the stirred, the plug-flow, and the flow-through reactor), the flow-through reactor with mesh/membrane or 3-dimensional porous electrodes showed the highest disinfection performance and energy efficiency attributed to its highest mass transfer efficiency. Additionally, we also summarized recent knowledge about current and potential NMs separation and recovery methods as well as electrode strengthening and optimization strategies. Magnetic separation and robust immobilization (anchoring and coating) are feasible strategies to prompt the practical application of NM-enabled disinfection devices. Magnetic separation effectively solved the problem for the separation of evenly distributed particle-sized NMs from microbial solution and robust immobilization increased the stability of NM-modified electrodes and prevented these electrodes from degradation by hydraulic detachment and/or electrochemical dissolution. Furthermore, the study of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was capable of simulating NM-enabled devices, which showed great potential for system optimization and reactor expansion. In this overview, we stressed the need to concern not only the treatment performance and energy efficiency of NM-enabled disinfection processes and devices but also the overall feasibility of system construction and operation for practical application.
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•Brief overview of NM-enabled processes and devices for water disinfection.•Evaluation of NM-enabled processes/devices based on performance and energy efficiency.•Applying contact time and electrical energy per order (EEO) for assessment of processes and devices.•Discussion of influencing factors on contact time and EEO for NM-enabled disinfection.•Summary of NMs recovery and electrode strengthening methods for practical application.
In reverse osmosis (RO) system for wastewater reclamation, biofouling is an inevitable issue. Chlorine disinfection is commonly used in pretreatment to control biofouling. Some chlorine-resistant ...bacteria could survive after chlorine disinfection and the microbial community structure in feed water changes significantly, thus leading to the change of biofouling potential. In this study, the effect of chlorine disinfection on the biofouling of RO membrane was investigated using a laboratory cross-flow RO system. Chlorine disinfection inactivated most bacteria in feed water. However, during the operation of RO system, with the increase of chlorine dosage the flux decline became more severe after a period of operation. The final normalized flux after 21 days was 0.27, 0.26, 0.20, and 0.21 with 0, 1, 5, and 15 mg-Cl2/L chlorine as pretreatment, respectively. After the operation, the numbers of active bacteria in the foulants on the fouled membrane were on the same level regardless of the chlorine dosage, whereas the thickness of the foulants increased with the chlorine dosage significantly. Additionally, the higher total organic carbon concentration indicated more extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in foulants. Microbial community structure analysis showed that the abundance and the species number of chlorine-resistant bacteria increased significantly with the chlorine dosage. Typical chlorine-resistant bacteria, including Methylobacterium, Pseudomonas, Sphingomonas, and Acinetobacter, were identified as significantly distinctive genera in the foulants after the pretreatment by 15 mg-Cl2/L chlorine. Compared with the bacteria without chlorine disinfection, these remaining bacteria produced more EPS with higher molecular weight, which could be the major contribution to more severe RO membrane fouling after chlorine disinfection.
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•Studied effect of chlorine disinfection on biofouling of reverse osmosis (RO) system.•Applied lab RO systems, multiple microscopy, gene sequencing and organic analysis.•Chlorine disinfection changed the microbial community structure in foulants.•Four dominant chlorine-resistant strains were found in foulants with 15 mg-Cl2/L.•Extracellular polymeric substance produced by these strains caused severe biofouling.
Key message
Based on the large-scale integration of meta-QTL and Genome-Wide Association Study, 76 high-confidence MQTL regions and 237 candidate genes that affected wheat yield and yield-related ...traits were discovered.
Improving yield and yield-related traits are key goals in wheat breeding program. The integration of accumulated wheat genetic resources provides an opportunity to uncover important genomic regions and candidate genes that affect wheat yield. Here, a comprehensive meta-QTL analysis was conducted on 2230 QTL of yield-related traits obtained from 119 QTL studies. These QTL were refined into 145 meta-QTL (MQTL), and 89 MQTL were verified by GWAS with different natural populations. The average confidence interval (CI) of these MQTL was 2.92 times less than that of the initial QTL. Furthermore, 76 core MQTL regions with a physical distance less than 25 Mb were detected. Based on the homology analysis and expression patterns, 237 candidate genes in the MQTL involved in photoperiod response, grain development, multiple plant growth regulator pathways, carbon and nitrogen metabolism and spike and flower organ development were determined. A novel candidate gene
TaKAO-4A
was confirmed to be significantly associated with grain size, and a CAPS marker was developed based on its dominant haplotype. In summary, this study clarified a method based on the integration of meta-QTL, GWAS and homology comparison to reveal the genomic regions and candidate genes that affect important yield-related traits in wheat. This work will help to lay a foundation for the identification, transfer and aggregation of these important QTL or candidate genes in wheat high-yield breeding.
The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has been explored extensively for reliable hydrogen supply to boost the energy conversion efficiency. The superior OER performance of newly developed non‐noble ...metal electrocatalysts has concealed the identification of the real active species of the catalysts. Now, the critical active phase in nickel‐based materials (represented by NiNPS) was directly identified by observing the dynamic surface reconstruction during the harsh OER process via combining in situ Raman tracking and ex situ microscopy and spectroscopy analyses. The irreversible phase transformation from NiNPS to α‐Ni(OH)2 and reversible phase transition between α‐Ni(OH)2 and γ‐NiOOH prior to OER demonstrate γ‐NiOOH as the key active species for OER. The hybrid catalyst exhibits 48‐fold enhanced catalytic current at 300 mV and remarkably reduced Tafel slope to 46 mV dec−1, indicating the greatly accelerated catalytic kinetics after surface evolution.
An irreversible phase transformation was tracked in situ from NiNPS to α‐Ni(OH)2. This result and potential‐dependent reversible conversion between α‐Ni(OH)2 and γ‐NiOOH prior to OER unveil the real active species of γ‐NiOOH in self‐reconstructed Ni‐based catalysts.
Using wastewater as resource for microalgal cultivation was seriously considered as a promising approach for sustainable biomass and lipid production. The proper selection of microalgal species is ...the foundation and key point to achieve this objective. This paper reviewed the recent status of microalgal cultivation in wastewater, including the characteristics of microalgal species used in recent studies, the performance of different microalgal species in different types of wastewater, the commonly-used isolation methods of microalgal species adaptable to the growth in wastewater, and the evaluation criteria of microalgal species. It was found that microalgal biomass and lipid production in wastewater were comparable to those in artificial culture medium, although most of the data was obtained in sterilized wastewater. Among all microalgal species involved in this review, Botryococcus braunii, Chlorella pyrenoidosa and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii showed superior performance in certain studies. However, no microalgal species has been demonstrated to meet all the requirements for large-scale biomass production in wastewater. Thus, the efforts on microalgal species isolation and characterization should still be promoted. On the basis of all the information, this review explored the limitations of recent studies and future research needs on this topic.
Water polluted by organic dyes is normally present in industrial production, which seriously threatens environmental safety. Research on dye adsorption has recently been related to nanomaterials due ...to their large specific surface area. However, there are still some problems associated with their preparation, application, and recovery. In this study, we developed the one‐step synthesis of lignocellulosic‐Fe(OH)3 hybrid fibers by in situ growth of Fe(OH)3 nanoparticles on lignocellulosic, which could be used as effective adsorbents for dye removal. The formed Fe(OH)3 nanoparticles were dispersed homogeneously on the surface of lignocellulosic. The as‐prepared hybrid fibers featured a large absorption capacity for methylene blue, up to 150.9 mg/g. In a fixed‐bed column separation process, dye pollutants were successfully removed from the water even at a high speed of 5.0 mL/min, with the separation efficiency higher than 99.99%. Remarkably, 1.0 g of lignocellulosic‐Fe(OH)3 was capable of separating over 1200 mL of dye solution continuously and thoroughly. Notably, the underlying adsorption mechanism analyses suggested that multi‐interactions of hydrogen bonds, π–π interactions, and coordinate bonds contribute to the adsorption ability of lignocellulosic‐Fe(OH)3.
The modified lignocellulosics are efficient separating dyes moleculars from wastewater.
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