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Organic heterostructures (OHTs) with the desired geometry organization on micro/nanoscale have undergone rapid progress in nanoscience and nanotechnology. However, it is a significant challenge to elucidate the epitaxial-growth process for various OHTs composed of organic units with a lattice mismatching ratio of > 3%, which is unimaginable for inorganic heterostructures. Herein, we have demonstrated a vivid visualization of the morphology evolution of epitaxial-growth based on a doped interfacial-layer, which facilitates the comprehensive understanding of the hierarchical self-assembly of core-shell OHT with precise spatial configuration. Significantly, the barcoded OHT with periodic shells obviously illustrate the shell epitaxial-growth from tips to center parts along the seeded rods for forming the core-shell OHT. Furthermore, the diameter, length, and number of periodic shells were modulated by finely tuning the stoichiometric ratio, crystalline time, and temperature, respectively. This epitaxial-growth process could be generalized to organic systems with facile chemical/structural compatibility for forming the desired OHTs.Organic heterostructures with controlled geometry on the micro and nanoscale are important in nanotechnology, but epitaxial growth processes with high lattice mismatching are challenging to achieve. Here, the authors report a visualisation process for morphology evolution on epitaxial growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the widely reported excited-state single proton-transfer, excited-state multiple proton transfer (ESMPT) containing two or more intra- or inter-molecular proton transfers has greatly expanded the research scope of the excited-state proton transfers. In recent decades, ESMPT-active organic molecules have attracted much attention owing to their unique photophysical properties, such as large magnitude Stokes shifts and dual emission. These photophysical properties facilitate the application of the organic molecules in organic solid-state lasers, fluorescent probes and sensors, and molecular switches. Herein, we introduce the fundamentals of the ESMPT and review the recent advances in different types of ESMPTs in organic molecules. Finally, we present our conclusions and the future development prospects of the ESMPT in organic molecules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic heterostructure nanowires, such as multiblock, core/shell, branch-like and related compounds, have attracted chemists' extensive attention because of their novel physicochemical properties. However, owing to the difficulty in solving the lattice mismatch of distinct molecules, the construction of organic heterostructures at large scale remains challenging, which restricts its wide use in future applications. In this work, we define a concept of lattice-mismatch-free for hierarchical self-assembly of organic semiconductor molecules, allowing for the large-scale synthesis of organic heterostructure nanowires composed of the organic alloys and cocrystals. Thus, various types of organic triblock nanowires are prepared in large scale, and the length ratio of different segments of the triblock nanowires can be precisely regulated by changing the stoichiometric ratio of different components. These results pave the way towards fine synthesis of heterostructures in a large scale and facilitate their applications in organic optoelectronics at micro/nanoscale. The large-scale synthesis of organic heterostructure nanowires is challenging. Here, the authors report the synthesis of organic triblock nanowires via a lattice mismatch-free strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The controlled self-assembly of organic heterostructures (OHSs) with precisely defined compositions, architectures, and interfaces, have largely remained a challenge. Herein, we introduce an effective approach to accurately construct three types of axial branching OHSs including unilateral axial OHSs, bilateral single-branching axial OHSs and bilateral multi-branching axial OHSs through modulating hierarchical charge-transfer intermolecular interactions and sequential crystal nucleation rate on account of the two different cocrystals with the low lattice mismatching rate of ∼ 2.2%. The present work opens an avenue for rationally designing and finely synthesizing more kinds of OHSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic luminescent materials play an integral role in the optoelectronic applications of displays and solid-state lighting. Nevertheless, high-performance organic luminescent materials require the efficient combination of two or more kinds of materials, which is extremely difficult owing to the completely different self-assembly behaviors of multicomponent molecules. Herein, based on a broad scale from the molecular, micro-/nano-scale, and macroscopic levels, we successfully demonstrate the multiscale construction of organic luminescent microwires of cocrystals, solid solutions, and core-shell microstructures. Through the wide selection of electron donor/acceptor pairs, a series of color-tunable charge-transfer (CT) cocrystals are formed via the intermolecular cooperative self-assembly process. On this basis, the high structural compatibility and perfect lattice mismatching (∼1.1%) of cocrystals are critical factors that facilitate the combination of dissimilar materials to form solid solutions and core/shell microwires. Significantly, because of the full-spectrum light transport from 400 to 800 nm, the nano-micro-scaled solid solution microwires act as microscale white-light sources [CIE (0.32, 0.36)]. Meanwhile, the macroscopic-scale core/shell organic-microwires demonstrate tunable white-light emission with a high color-rendering index (CRI) of 83, whose CIE coordinates span from (0.37,0.39) to (0.40,0.31). Therefore, our work provides a feasible approach to the multiscale synthesis of novel luminescent organic semiconductor materials, which could lay a solid foundation for organic optoelectronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present work, we tried to identify the mechanism why by which the steroid alcohols accumulated when hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) was present to enhance the sterol conversion rate. Compared with the bioconversion system without HP-β-CD, the reaction rate was greatly improved in presence of HP-β-CD, but the steroid alcohols largely accumulated concurrently. In a reaction system with an enhanced reaction rate, the higher intracellular NADH/NAD+ level was detected, and the production of steroid alcohols increased also. Mycobacterium neoaurum mutants with higher KshA activity (3-ketosteroid 9α-hydrolase, a monooxygenase hydroxylating the nucleus at C-9 at the expense of NAD(P)H consumption) reduced the steroid alcohol production, and in the meantime, the NADH/NAD+ level was decreased consequently. Further research found that oxygen availability was seriously inhibited by the cyclodextrin in a reaction system. These results indicated that NADH formed in the bioconversion was not properly regenerated via the respiratory chain because of the poor oxygen bioavailability. The inhibitory effect of cyclodextrin on oxygen bioavailability is a key factor for the metabolic flux redistribution toward steroid alcohols in phytosterol resting cells bioconversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal sulfide nanomaterials have attracted great interest because of their excellent properties and promising applications in sensing, energy harvesting, magnetic and optoelectronic devices, especially their well-aligned crystalline nanostructures are highly desirable for the enhanced performance and novel applications. In this study, the cobalt monosulfide (CoS) nanofibers with uniform shape and good crystallinity were firstly obtained via electrospinning and atmospheric calcination routes under controllable conditions. It was found that the CoS nanofibers exhibited ethanol sensing properties at the optimum working temperature of 200 °C, the response was 11.6 toward 100 × 10−6 ethanol gas, and the CoS nanofibers-based sensor exhibits a short response time and recovery time of 5 and 6 s at the optimum temperature, respectively, the result also shows that the sensor has good stability after 50 days, which would be a favorable characteristic as a promising sensor. In addition, the Pauli paramagnetic property of CoS nanofibers was also investigated at room temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationally designing and precisely constructing the dimensions, configurations and compositions of organic nanomaterials are key issues in material chemistry. Nevertheless, the precise synthesis of organic heterostructure nanomaterials remains challenging owing to the difficulty of manipulating the homogeneous/heterogeneous-nucleation process and the complex epitaxial relationships of combinations of dissimilar materials. Herein, we propose a hierarchical epitaxial-growth approach with the combination of longitudinal and horizontal epitaxial-growth modes for the design and synthesis of a variety of organic superstructure microwires with accurate spatial organisation by regulating the heterogeneous-nucleation crystallisation process. The lattice-matched longitudinal and horizontal epitaxial-growth modes are separately employed to construct the primary organic core/shell and segmented heterostructure microwires. Significantly, these primary organic core/shell and segmented microwires are further applied to construct the core/shell-segmented and segmented-core/shell type's organic superstructure microwires through the implementation of multiple spatial epitaxial-growth modes. This strategy can be generalised to all organic microwires with tailored multiple substructures, which affords an avenue to manipulate their physical/chemical features for various applications. Rationally designing and precisely constructing the dimensions, configurations and compositions of organic micro- and nanomaterials are key issues in material chemistry, but remain challenging. Here, the authors realize the fine synthesis of organic superstructure microwires via a hierarchical epitaxial-growth approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic heterostructures (OHSs) consist of organic micro/nanocrystals are of essential importance for the construction of integrated optoelectronics in the future. However, the scarcity of materials and the problem of phase separation still hinder the fine synthesis of OHSs. Herein, based on the α phase one-dimensional (1D) microrods and the β phase 2D microplates of one organic compound 3,3′-((1E,1′E)-anthracene-9,10-diylbis(ethane-2,1-diyl))dibenzonitril (m-B2BCB), we facilely synthesized the OHSs composed of these two polymorph phases, whose growth mechanism is attributed to the low lattice mismatch rate of 5.8% between (001) plane of α phase (trunk) and (010) crystal plane of β phase (branch). Significantly, the multiport in/output channels can be achieved in the OHSs, which demonstrates the structure-dependent optical signals with the different output channels in the OHSs. Therefore, our experiment exhibits the great prospect of polymorphism in OHSs, which could provide further applications on multifunctional organic integrated photonics circuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic emitters with persistent phosphorescence have shown potential application in optoelectronic devices. However, rational design and phosphorescence tuning are still challenging. Here, a series of metal-free luminophores without heavy atoms and carbonyl groups from commercial/lab-synthesized carbazole and benzene were synthesized to realize tunable molecular emission from fluorescence to phosphorescence by simply substituent variation. All the molecules emit blue fluorescence in both solution and solid state. Upon removal of excitation source, the fluorinated luminophores show obvious phosphorescence. The lab-synthesized carbazole based molecules exhibit a huge lifetime difference to the commercially purchased ones due to the existence of isomer in the latter samples. The small energy gap between singlet and triplet state and low reorganization energy help enhance intersystem crossing to contribute to a more competitive radiative process from triplet to ground state. Blue and white organic light-emitting devices are fabricated by using fluorinated luminophore as emitting layer. Though organic emitters with room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) are attractive for various applications, realizing highly efficient and long lifetime emission remains a challenge. Here, the authors report the role of push-pull electronic effects on emission for organic RTP emitters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The syntheses and lithium storage performances of a Co-based metal-organic framework (MOF) and its derivatives were reported. Co2(NDC)2DMF2 was synthesized by a facile one-pot solvothermal method. Its derivatives were obtained via controllably calcining Co-based MOF at different annealing temperatures. Both the pristine MOFs and derivatives had electrochemical performance; especially, the Co3O4 derivative obtained by calcined at 350 °C for 3 h (denoted as Co-3) exhibited the best lithium storage capacity. As anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), Co-3 showed a high reversible specific capacity (1058.9 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles at a current density of 200 mA g−1), remarkable cycling performance and an excellent rate performance with high average discharge specific capacities of 1066, 843, 552, 428 and 348 mAh g−1 at 100, 200, 500, 1000 and 2000 mA g−1, respectively. The excellent electrochemical performance may be attributed to the formation of small particles in nanoscale and meso-pores during the calcination process which increase the contact surface areas between electrolyte and active materials, shorten the lithium-ions diffusion pathways and accommodate the volume variations during cycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of new benzothiazol-based 1,3,4-oxadiazole derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for their neuroprotective effects against Aβ-induced toxicity in SH-SY5Y cells. The bioassay results indicated that most of the tested compounds exhibited promising neuroprotective activity. In particular, compound 2-[[[5-[(4-bromophenylmethyl)thio]-1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-yl]methyl]thio]benzothiazole showed the most potent activity (95.7% of cell viability at 10 μM), better than the positive control EGCG (90.7% of cell viability at 10 μM). Furthermore, compounds 2-[[[5-[(2-bromophenylmethyl)thio]-1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-yl]methyl]thio]benzothiazole, 2-[[[5-[(4-bromo-2-fluorophenylmethylyl)thio]-1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-yl]methyl]thio]benzothiazole, and 2-[[[5-[(4-methoxyphenylmethyl)thio]-1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-yl]methyl]thio]benzothiazole displayed neuroprotective activity similar to EGCG (87.7, 89.1, and 87.7% of cell viability, respectively, at 10 μM). The preliminary SARs analysis indicated that benzene ring is the key factor for the neuroprotective activity and the bromo atom substituted at 4-position of the benzene ring favors the neuroprotective activity. In addition, the fluoro group in the benzene ring appears not beneficial for the neuroprotective activity. Graphical abstract: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aims of our study were to evaluate the effects of Saccharomyces boulardii ( S. boulardii) on deoxynivalenol (DON)-induced injury in porcine alveolar macrophage cells (PAMCs) and to explore the underlying mechanisms. 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay, flow cytometric analysis, ELISA, qRT-PCR, and western blot were performed to assess whether S. boulardii could prevent DON-induced injury by p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase ( p38 MAPK) signal pathway. The results showed that pretreatment with 8 μM DON could decrease the viability of PAMC and significantly increase the apoptosis rate of PAMC, whereas S. boulardii could rescue apoptotic PAMC cells induced by DON. Further experiments revealed that S. boulardii effectively reversed DON-induced cytotoxicity via downregulating the expression of TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-lβ. In addition, S. boulardii significantly alleviated DON-induced phosphorylation and mRNA expression of p38 and further increased the expression of apoptosis regulation genes Bcl-xl and Bcl-2 and inhibited the activation of Bax. Our results suggest that S. boulardii could suppress DON-induced p38 MAPK pathway activation and reduce the expression of downstream inflammatory cytokines, as well as promote the expression of anti-apoptotic genes to inhibit apoptosis induced by DON in PAMC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of boiler combustion regulation on NOx emission of two 1025t/h boilers has been studied. The researches show that NOx emission is influenced by coal species, operation conditions, etc, and can be reduced by regulating the combustion conditions. The effect of combustion regulation on boiler efficiency has also been checked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bioconversion process of producing GM1 (monosialotetrahexosylganglioside) on an industrial scale was developed with a novel sialidase-producing strain Brevibacterium casei. The sialidase hydrolyzed polysialogangliosides to produce GM1 but did not act on GM1. When Brevibacterium casei was cultured in a synthetic medium containing crude pig brain gangliosides (10% w/v) at 30°C for 24 h in a 50 l fermenter, most of the polysialogangliosides were converted to GM1. The content of GM1 was increased from 9% in crude gangliosides to 45% with 70% (w/w) yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A class of new planar dual-mode filters without coupling gaps is proposed. The proposed structures use a single patch wiuhout coupling gaps. Attenuation poles can be implemented on either side of the passband by changing the locations of two feed lines. By cutting two corners in the patch, two attenuation poles on both sides of passband are implemented. A novel dual-mode elliptic-function bandpass filter structure without coupling gaps is also proposed. These new filters can provide a low insertion loss and reduce uncertainty in fabrication owing to the absence of coupling gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the resonant frequency of a dual-mode dielectric resonator is calculated using a finite difference time-domain method. A new type of bandpass filter is designed with the calculated coupling coefficient. The filter designed in this paper has reached the design goal, verified by simulation with Ansoft HFSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic heterostructures (OHSs) integrating the intrinsic heterostructure characters as well as the organic semiconductor properties have attracted intensive attention in material chemistry. However, the precise bottom-up synthesis of OHSs is still challenging owing to the general occurrence of homogeneous-nucleation and the difficult manipulation of noncovalent interactions. Herein, we present the rational synthesis of the longitudinally/horizontally-epitaxial growth of one-dimensional OHSs including triblock and core/shell nanowires with quantitatively-manipulated microstructure via a hierarchical self-assembly method by regulating the noncovalent interactions: hydrogen bond (−15.66 kcal mol−1) > halogen bond (−4.90 kcal mol−1) > π-π interaction (−0.09 kcal mol−1). In the facet-selective epitaxial growth strategy, the lattice-matching and the surface-interface energy balance respectively facilitate the realization of triblock and core/shell heterostructures. This hierarchical self-assembly approach opens up avenues to the fine synthesis of OHSs. We foresee application possibilities in integrated optoelectronics, such as the nanoscale multiple input/out optical logic gate with high-fidelity signal. Organic heterostructures attract attention in material chemistry but the precise bottom-up synthesis is still challenging. Herein the authors present a hierarchical self-assembly approach to synthesize one-dimensional organic heterostructures by regulating the noncovalent interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]