Search

It is an inevitable trend of sustainable manufacturing to replace flood and dry machining with minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) technology. Nevertheless, for aeronautical difficult-to-machine materials, MQL couldn’t meet the high demand of cooling and lubrication due to high heat generation during machining. Nano-biolubricants, especially non-toxic carbon group nano-enhancers (CGNs) are used, can solve this technical bottleneck. However, the machining mechanisms under lubrication of CGNs are unclear at complex interface between tool and workpiece, which characterized by high temperature, pressure, and speed, limited its application in factories and necessitates in-depth understanding. To fill this gap, this study concentrates on the comprehensive quantitative assessment of tribological characteristics based on force, tool wear, chip, and surface integrity in titanium alloy and nickel alloy machining and attempts to answer mechanisms systematically. First, to establish evaluation standard, the cutting mechanisms and performance improvement behavior covering antifriction, antiwear, tool failure, material removal, and surface formation of MQL were revealed. Second, the unique film formation and lubrication behaviors of CGNs in MQL turning, milling, and grinding are concluded. The influence law of molecular structure and micromorphology of CGNs was also answered and optimized options were recommended by considering diverse boundary conditions. Finally, in view of CGNs limitations in MQL, the future development direction is proposed, which needs to be improved in thermal stability of lubricant, activity of CGNs, controllable atomization and transportation methods, and intelligent formation of processing technology solutions.

Underground engineering is becoming increasingly sophisticated in recent years, exemplified by shale gas recovery, nuclear waste disposal and enhanced geothermal systems. Displacement Discontinuity Method (DDM) and Fictitious Stress Method (FSM) are two branches of boundary element method which can efficiently and accurately simulate fractures and openings embedded in large spatial domains. Nevertheless, in literature, studies engaging DDM/FSM to perform the aforementioned hot-topic research are rare, and one of the key reasons lies in the inconvenient access to DDM-FSM programs. In this study, we provide DDFS3D, a set of open-source codes incorporating the commonly used constant triangular and quadrilateral elements to implement 3D DDM, FSM and the hybrid of the two. The constant triangular element is reproduced from early studies, while the constant quadrilateral element is an independent work presented in this study. Gaussian quadrature and Hadamard finite-part integral are utilized to evaluate the regular and strongly singular integrals, respectively. To the authors’ best knowledge, DDFS3D is the first and the only open-source codes for 3D DDM-FSM implementation. We hope it could promote the application of DDM-FSM and advance the role of DDFS in coping with the ever-increasing new challenges in underground engineering.

Functional hydrogels have attracted enormous interest as wet adhesives for biomedical research and engineering applications. However, reversible hydrogel adhesives that can be used for gelid conditions were rarely reported. In this work, we have developed a freezing-tolerant (freezing temperature 30000% at 25 °C) glycerol-ionic hydrogel via the ultraviolet curing of acrylamide monomer and hyper-branched polyethylenimine polymer in CaCl2-water-glycerol solution. The fabricated hydrogel exhibited reversible gelid adhesion, rapid self-healing (recover in 3 s) and weight-retaining (>2 weeks) properties. The hydrogel allows two iron substrates to adhere together at −40 °C with the lap-shear adhesion strength as high as ~1 MPa. Such strong adhesion measured was reversible, specifically achieving ~100% of initial adhesion strength at 25 °C and ~36% at −40 °C. Additionally, decreasing the testing temperature significantly improved the tensile strength but decreased the fracture strain of the hydrogel. Interestingly, lap-shear adhesion tests suggested that the gelid adhesion strength was enhanced by 130 times as the testing temperature decreased from 25 °C to −40 °C, which was mainly attributed to the enhanced mechanical strength of the bulk hydrogel as well as the increased surface interaction at gel-substrate interfaces. More importantly, the adhesion failure gradually changed from cohesive failure to adhesive failure as the temperature decreased. This work provides new practical and fundamental insights into developing multifunctional freezing-tolerant hydrogel adhesive for gelid conditions.

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance (13C NMR) techniques were applied to establish the molecular models of anthracite combusted at 490 °C and 690 °C (490-C and 690-C). The evolution laws of functional groups were investigated based on the constructed models and quantitative changes calculated by FTIR results. The content of aromatic groups kept decreasing before 500 °C; –CH3/–CH2– showed a rising trend during combustion; and the content of oxygen functional groups kept declining before 400 °C. The chemical formulas of 490-C and 690-C were C217H106O12N2S2 and C201H59O8N3S2, respectively. 690-C model was more compact than that of original anthracite and 490-C due to the spilt of carbon skeleton and the shedding of aliphatic chains during combustion. Total sulfur content in anthracite showed a sudden rise at 690 °C which could be attributed to the generation of organic thiophene; one more pyrrole in 690-C model resulted from the conversion of pyridine at such high temperature.

Hypothesis Ion specificity is crucial in assembly and aggregation of polymers in water driven by hydrophobic interaction. An increasing number of studies have suggested that specific ion adsorption and consequent impact on interfacial water molecules should play an important role in modulating hydrophobic interaction. Experiments Here, bubble probe atomic force microscopy (AFM) combined with theoretical modeling analysis was applied to quantify hydrophobic interactions involving three model polymers in solutions containing different ions. Findings For polystyrene, the hydrophobic interaction’s decay length D0 was reduced from 0.75 nm to 0.60 nm by introducing weakly hydrated cations (e.g., K+ and NH4+), while varying anion type had little effect. For poly(methyl methacrylate) and polydimethylsiloxane, anion specificity was demonstrated more evident in shortening the hydrophobic interaction range, with D0 decreasing from 0.63 nm to 0.50 nm and from 0.72 nm to 0.58 nm respectively when strongly hydrated F- or Cl- was replaced by weakly hydrated I-. Such results could arise from specific ion adsorption at water/polymer interface which disrupts the water structuring effect. From the nanomechanical perspective, this work has revealed the importance of interfacial ion specificity in modulating hydrophobic interaction, which offers novel implications for tuning assembly behavior of macromolecules in relevant engineering applications such as micelle formation and foam stabilization.

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) can synthesise materials with atomic-scale precision. The ability to tune the material composition, film thickness with excellent conformality, allow low-temperature processing, and in-situ real-time monitoring makes this technique very appealing for a wide range of applications. In this review, we focus on the application of ALD layers in a wide range of solar cells. We focus on industrial silicon, thin film, organic and quantum dot solar cells. It is shown that the merits of ALD have already been exploited in a wide range of solar cells at the lab scale and that ALD is already applied in high-volume manufacturing of silicon solar cells.

Hammerhead ribozyme-based aptazyme (HHAz), inheriting the advantages of small size and high efficiency from the RNA-cleaving ribozyme and the specific recognition ability of aptamers to specific targets, exhibits the huge potential to be a transgene expression regulator. Herein, we report a selection strategy for HHAz by using a toxin protein IbsC as the reporter to offer a positive phenotype, thus realizing an easy-operating, time- and labor-saving selection of HHAz variants with desired properties. Based on this strategy, we obtained a new HHAz (TAP-1), which could react sensitively toward the extracellular regulatory molecule, theophylline, both in prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems. With fluorescent protein reporter, the intracellular switching efficiencies of TAP-1 and other reported theophylline-dependent HHAzs has been quantitatively evaluated, showing that TAP-1 not only exhibits the best downregulating ability at high concentration of theophylline but also maintains high activity with 0.1 mM theophylline, which is a safe concentration in the human body., Graphical Abstract

The photocatalytic conversion of toxic heavy metal ions with the simultaneous degradation of pollutants is considered to be a promising wastewater treatment strategy. In this study, a novel Z-scheme (CNT-Ni2P-CNT/Er3+:Y3Al5O12)@Bi12GeO20 photocatalyst is successfully prepared. This photocatalyst displays excellent photocatalytic activity in the conversion of Cr(VI) with the simultaneous degradation of Rhodamine B under solar light irradiation, which is ascribed to the enhanced separation efficiency of photogenerated carrier, increased oxidation surface and broadened light response range. Certain influencing factors, such as the irradiation time, initial concentrations and catalyst dosage, are discussed. These results show that when the concentrations of Cr(VI) and Rhodamine B are 15 mg/L and 5.0 mg/L, respectively, and the photocatalyst dosage is 1.0 g/L, the highest conversion ratio (93.66%) and degradation ratio (73.34%) can be obtained. This work utilizes solar light to achieve the conversion of toxic heavy metal ions with the simultaneous degradation of pollutants.

Dandelion is a well-known traditional medical herb, also used as functional food. Dandelion possesses many medical properties, such as anti-bacterial and antioxidant activity and contains a variety of triterpenes, such as α-amyrin, β-amyrin, taraxerol and taraxasterol. In this study, we found that triterpenes biosynthesis was promoted by methyl jasmonate (MeJA), while the transcriptional mechanism underlying triterpenes biosynthesis was rarely investigated. Here, a MeJA-induced bHLH transcription factor TaMYC2 was identified. The content of taraxasterol and taraxerol in dandelion was obviously enhanced in overexpression TaMYC2 transgenic lines and expression level of the squalene synthase gene (TaSS) was elevated to about 3-5 folds compared with the control lines. Dual-LUC, Y1H and EMSA experiments revealed that TaMYC2 bound to the E-box motif in the promoter of TaSS and activated its transcription. Taken together, this study suggested that TaMYC2 acted as a positive regulator for bioengineering approaches to produce high content triterpenes-producing dandelions.

In this work, a novel Z-scheme sonocatalyst, KTaO3/FeVO4/Bi2O3, is prepared via ultrasonic-assisted isoelectric point method. The prepared samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The catalytic activity of Z-scheme KTaO3/FeVO4/Bi2O3 sonocatalyst is studied in degradation of ceftriaxone sodium under ultrasonic irradiation. In addition, the influences of ultrasonic irradiation time, scavengers and sonocatalyst used times on sonocatalytic degradation of ceftriaxone sodium are examined. Under the experimental conditions of 150 min ultrasonic irradiation time, 1.00 g/L KTaO3/FeVO4/Bi2O3 addition amount and 10.00 mg/L ceftriaxone sodium concentration, the sonocatalytic degradation ratio of ceftriaxone sodium achieves 81.30%. Finally, the possible sonocatalytic degradation mechanism of ceftriaxone sodium caused by Z-scheme KTaO3/FeVO4/Bi2O3 sonocatalyst is proposed. The enhanced sonocatalytic activity may be attributed to the fact that the FeVO4 as a special conductive channel provides a strong driving force to transfer electrons through valence state changes of iron and vanadium, which accelerates electron transfer from conduction band (CB) of Bi2O3 to valence band (VB) of KTaO3. Perhaps, the KTaO3/FeVO4/Bi2O3 composite is an excellent Z-scheme sonocatalyst which can be used to effectively degrade the organic pollutants in wastewater under ultrasonic irradiation.