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In this paper, bismuth ferrite (BiFeO 3 ) magnetic nanoparticles were used as visible light photocatalyst in the photocatalytic ozonation coupling system. It was successfully synthesized by thermal decomposition of a glyoxylate complex. The as-prepared photocatalyst was characterized by XRD, FT-IR, SEM, TEM, UV–Vis DRS and vibrating sample magnetometer. The magnetic hysteresis loop demonstrated that BiFeO 3 possessed certain magnetization. Oxalic acid (OA) and norfloxacin (NFX) were selected as target pollutants for photocatalytic ozonation reactions to evaluate the catalytic ability of BiFeO 3 . The pseudo-first-order kinetic rate constants of degrading OA and NFX removal in O 3 /Vis/BiFeO 3 at given time are 5.48 and 1.65 times as great as the sum of that when using Vis/BiFeO 3 and O 3 , respectively. This enhancement was due to a synergy between photocatalysis and ozonation triggered by BiFeO 3 . In O 3 /Vis/BiFeO 3 process, the photo-generated electrons produced on BiFeO 3 could be trapped by ozone and reaction with them. Subsequently, the improved yield of hydroxyl radicals enhanced the degradation efficiency of organics. In addition, the stability and reusability of BiFeO 3 in photocatalytic ozonation process were examined in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method of static quenching has been put forward to prepare the Zr-based bulk metallic glass (BMG) in this work. Compared with the traditional method of copper mold suction casting, the compressive plasticity of Zr 60 Ni 25 Al 15 BMG can be improved from nearly 0 to 6.5% through the method of static quenching. An underlying reason of the improved plasticity has been clarified as that the cooling rate of static quenching is larger than that of copper mold suction casting, and there are more soft spots in the static quenching sample than suction casting. The corresponding mechanism has also been discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We identified genes related to non-leukocyte stromal fractions. • HCC was classified based on genes related to non-leukocyte stromal fraction. • We analyze the difference between genome and clinical indicators of HCC subtyping. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies and inflicts high mortality worldwide. The effect of tumor microenvironment components on HCC oncogenesis remains unknown. In particular, the nonleukocyte portion of the stromal fraction (SF) is poorly understood. We comprehensively evaluated the proportional cell counts and gene expression data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to examine the contributions of cell components to the tumor microenvironment. Single-cell sequencing data from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) were also analyzed to verify the association between the nonleukocyte SF and genes. We classified HCC using a hierarchical clustering method based on diversity of nonleukocyte SF–related gene expression among different components, and we used an appropriate GEO dataset to verify the clusters with a support vector machine (SVM) model. The prognosis of subtypes and their relationship with tumor microenvironmental cell proportions, clinicopathogenesis factors, and other indicators were evaluated. Based on linear regression, 711 genes related to nonleukocyte SF were selected from the TCGA dataset. We classified HCC into three subtypes using genes related to the nonleukocyte SF. Additionally, the GEO single-cell sequencing data confirmed the relationship between genes and the nonleukocyte SF. The tumor microenvironment of Type 2 contained the most significant mutually reinforcing interaction between the nonleukocyte SF and tumor cells. Meanwhile, Type 2 patients had the poorest prognosis and the most severe tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stages, histological grades, etc. The analysis based on the GEO dataset verified the classification results with an SVM model. Type 2 was associated with worse clinicopathological characteristics, including tumor grading and staging, than the other types. In addition, the pathway analysis revealed that signals related to the SF and cell proliferation were significantly enhanced in Type 2 compared to the other group, which consisted of Types 1 and 3. The nonleukocyte SF in the tumor microenvironment contributed greatly to HCC oncogenesis. We can use these HCC classification criteria to stratify patients into subtypes for personalized treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A flexible catalyst, Fe-Cu-MCM-41, was employed to enhance diclofenac (DCF) mineralization and inhibit bromate formation in catalytic ozonation process. Greater TOC removal was achieved in Fe-Cu-MCM-41/O 3 process (78%) than those in Fe-MCM-41/O 3 (65%), Cu-MCM-41/O 3 (73%) and sole ozonation (42%). But it was interesting that both Cu-MCM-41/O 3 and Fe-MCM-41/O 3 achieved 93% bromate inhibition efficiency, only 71% inhibition efficiency was observed in Fe-Cu-MCM-41/O 3 . Influence of pH, TBA/NaHSO 3 and detection of by-products were conducted to explore the mechanism. By Pyridine adsorption–IR and XPS, a relationship was found among activity of catalysts, Lewis acid sites and electron transfer effect between Fe (II/III) and Cu (I/II). Fe-Cu-MCM-41 promoted ozone decomposition to generate OH, which accounted for enhanced DCF mineralization. The consumption of aqueous O 3 also suppressed the oxidative of Br − and HBrO/Br − . More HBrO/BrO − accumulated in catalytic ozonation process and less bromate generated. Bromate formation in Fe-Cu-MCM-41/O 3 process was sensitive with pH value, the acidic condition was not favor for bromate formation. Both DCF mineralization and bromate inhibition were influenced by surface reaction. Moreover, Fe-Cu-MCM-41 showed excellent catalytic performance in suppressing the accumulation of carboxylic acid, especially for oxalic acid. Nearly no oxalic acid was detected during Fe-Cu-MCM-41/O 3 process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A thin-film composite ultrafiltration (UF) membrane grafted with amine-functionalized MCM-41 was prepared and used for removing heavy metals from aqueous solution. The porous NH 2 -MCM-41 nano-particles formed a uniform hydrophilic and adsorptive layer on the thin-film which endowed the composite membrane with affinity to heavy metals and better anti-fouling performance. The adsorption capacity of Cr (VI) and Cu (II) on membrane were 2.8 mg Cr/g and 3.7 mg Cu/g, respectively, and their adsorption processes reached equilibrium around 5 min. The continuous UF experiments demonstrated that the membrane can be used as an effective filter medium to purify the water containing trace heavy metals. The metals concentration in filtrates was maintained below initial concentration of 1 mg/L (Cu) and 0.5 mg/L (Cr) during the 7-hour filtration. The membrane’s adsorption capacity could be regenerated by being immersed in 0.5 M HNO 3 . Besides, to examine its anti-fouling performance, the model NOM (natural organic matter) water was used as a feed solution. The composite membrane showed not only slower irreversible fouling evolution but also higher rejection of NOM compared with that without grafting NH 2 -MCM-41. The method reported in this study was efficient to enhance the rejection and anti-fouling performance of UF membrane, what’s more, endowed the membrane with affinity to heavy metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]