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Li4SiO4 stands out among various solid sorbents for CO2 capture. The commonly used mechanical granulation process for Li4SiO4 sorbents causes the destruction of the microstructures. Therefore, with the characteristics of huge production and low cost, an agricultural waste (rice husk) was employed as a pore former to improve the structures of Li4SiO4 pellets and, thus, enhance the cyclic CO2 sorption performance. The rice husk templating greatly enhanced the CO2 sorption capacity of Li4SiO4 pellets. Especially, 20 wt% rice husk-templated Li4SiO4 exhibited the capacity of 0.21 g/g, which was nearly twice that of the unmodified sorbent. The quick release of the combustion gases from burning rice husk could create porosity for the sorbents. In addition, the alkaline compositions in rice husk promoted the CO2 sorption due to the decreased CO2 diffusion resistance by the formation of molten phases. Moreover, the ashes of rice husk after high-temperature combustion were found to block the pores of the sorbents, leading to the capacity reduction. The comprehensive function of rice husk templating for Li4SiO4 pellets was the tradeoff between the positive effects of pore creation and alkaline doping and the negative effects of pore blockage by the ashes.

Tacrine was the first approved drug by the FDA for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) but was withdrawn from the market due to its dose-dependent hepatotoxicity. Herein, we describe our efforts toward the discovery of a novel series of tacrine derivatives for cancer therapeutics. Intensive structural modifications of tacrine led to the identification of N-(4-{9-[(3S)-3-aminopyrrolidin-1-yl]-5,6,7,8-tetrahydroacridin-2-yl}pyridin-2-yl)cyclopropanecarboxamide hydrochloride ((S)-45, ZLWT-37) as a potent antiproliferative agent (GI

Chemical solution deposition is a promising technology to fabricate YBCO superconducting thin films due to its low-cost advantage. As found in our previous study, the addition of lead acetate in precursor solution could enhance the critical current density of YBCO films, since the deteriorating a/b-axis orientated grains could be suppressed. In this study, the precursor solutions with lead acetate weight percentages of 0%, 1%, 2% and 3% were prepared. The molar concentration of all metal ions was 2.0 mol/L for all solutions. Crystallization temperatures of 720°C, 740°C, 760°C, 780°C, 800°C and 820°C were used in the heat treatment. The thickness of the finally obtained YBCO films was about 400 nm. It was found that 1% of lead acetate addition was favorable to achieve high critical current at 77 K in self-field, and the critical current generally increased along with the crystallization temperature. The cross-sectional microstructure of YBCO thin films fabricated by using lead acetate addition was denser than that of the counterpart samples. In situ measurement of the film's resistance during the heat treatment was carried out to analyze the growth and nucleation processes of YBCO thin film deposition. The mechanism of lead acetate addition for the a/b-axis oriented grain suppression reported in our previous study was investigated.

Cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4), which is involved in dynamic regulation of cell cycle, has gained particularly attention for its role in controlling tumor growth.Increasing evidence showed that β-carboline derivatives have the potential to inhibit CDK4. Herein, on the basis of previous work, we designed and synthesized a series of novel β-carbolines and evaluated their antitumor activity.Among them, compounds ZDLD13 and ZDLD20, with the most potent anti-proliferative activity and CDK4 enzymatic inhibition activity, were selected for further pharmacological research in vitro and in vivo. The results in vitro showed that ZDLD13 and ZDLD20 exhibited potent anti-HCT116 activityincluding inhibition of colony formation, inhibition of invasion and migration, inducing of apoptosis, and arresting of G1 phase in cell cycle.In vivo,ZDLD13showed significant tumor growth inhibition in HCT116 tumor xenograft model without causing significant weight loss and toxicityconsistent with the acute toxicity test. In addition, silico study showed ZDLD13 and ZDLD20 not only have good biological actions, but also acceptable predicted ADME and physicochemical properties.Taken together, compoundsZDLD13and ZDLD20 could be selected for further modification and preclinical evaluation.

While CaO has exhibited promising prospects and been identified as one of the best candidates for high-temperature CO2 capture, it suffers a well-known problem of loss-in-capacity; that is, its sorption capacity decays quickly with the increase of cycle numbers. In the last decade, extensive work has been conducted on the incorporation of CaO into inert solid support particles to preventing sintering and, thus, to enhance its cyclic CO2 sorption performance. With the rapid progress in this aspect, a timely review is highly required. This work summarized the state-of-the-art researches in the literature, mainly including the synthesis methods to finely disperse inert supports among CaO particles and various inert supports to prevent sintering. In addition, the effectiveness of various supports via different incorporating methods and test conditions are discussed and quantitatively compared in the current work. The highly required future development trends of synthetic CaO sorbents are also recommended in the last part of this work. We expect that this work will inspire and guide researchers from both academic and industrial communities and help pave the way for major breakthroughs in both fundamental research and industrial applications in this field.

The integration of dark and photo fermentation is a promising strategy to enhance biohydrogen productivity and substrate utilization, and therefore can be adopted to advance the development of industrial biohydrogen production. However, the mutualistic interactions between dark fermentative and purple non-sulfur photosynthetic microorganisms remain poorly understood due to the challenges of incorporating two physiologically different bacteria in one integrated fermentation system. In this work, an experimentally and genetically tractable model combining the cellulose-degrading bacterium Clostridium cellulovorans 743B and photosynthetic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris CGA009 was successfully established. The responses of this coculture system to different cellulose concentrations were characterized. At all four levels of initial cellulose concentrations (2, 3, 4 or 5 g/L), the hydrogen productivity and cellulose degradation of cocultures were all significantly enhanced to varying extents in comparison to monocultures. The mechanism of the beneficial interaction was due to consumption of volatile fatty acids by R. palustris , which in turn balanced the pH to increase cellulose consumption by C. cellulovorans . Overall, the results demonstrated that the mutualism between C. cellulovorans and R. palustris could lead to a more efficient biohydrogen production process, thus making the pairing of these two strains a suitable model for further study on syntrophic interactions.

Carbon nitride thin films were synthesized by the reactive ionized cluster beam (RICB) deposition. Raman scattering analysis shows the existence of a characteristic peak due to covalent CN single bonds. This is consistent with the results of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) transmission measurements. Rutherford backscattering (RBS) measurements show that the composition ratio, N/C, as high as 0.67, can be obtained. The films deposited under the optimized experimental conditions exhibit an extremely high hardness of 61 GPa. The friction and wear behavior of these films without any lubrication were measured by a reciprocating-motion ball-on-disk tribometer. It is noted that the deposited films have low initial and a steady-state friction coefficients less than 0.08. The wear factor of carbon nitride films is significantly lower than that of carbon thin films prepared by the same deposition system and evaluated under similar test conditions. These results are very encouraging for the tribological applications of carbon nitride films.