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A simple and facile method for fabricating the cotton fabric with flame retardancy is adopted in the present work. This study deals with crosslinking of cotton fabric using different polycarboxylic acids such as citric acid and 1,2,3,4-butane tetracarboxylic acid and using different catalysts such as sodium hypophosphite and sodium propionate through conventional pad-dry-cure method for flame-retardant application. The results exhibited moderate waterproofing durability and flame retardancy of the cotton fabric after treatment, offering a good opportunity to accelerate the large-scale production textile materials for new industrial applications.

Mitigating membrane fouling extensively occurred in membrane-based water treatment techniques in an efficient and durable way is a pressing challenge. The novel electro-assisted membrane coupling technology showed great potentials for tackling the problem. Foulants like charged natural organic matter, colloids and bacteria can be successfully repelled from membrane surface in the presence of electric field, contributing to less adoption, accumulation, and blocking. More importantly, the inactivation of microorganisms induced by electric field played a significant role in inhibiting the formation of the stubborn biofilm, which showed distinct and excellent advantages over other membrane fouling control approaches like surface hydrophilic modification, chemical cleaning, and pretreatment optimization. This thorough and long-term effective coupling means will actually open a new sight for membrane fouling mitigation fields. Herein, we reviewed the configuration of direct current (DC) membrane coupling technology to control membrane fouling, fouling alleviating mechanisms, and membrane filtration performances of DC electric field membrane coupling process. Additionally, some potential drawbacks and corresponding strategies were also discussed; hopefully to supply some viewpoints for prospective developments in membrane fouling mitigation fields.

Previous studies have shown that co-catalysts play a pivotal role for improving both the activity and reliability of semiconductors in photocatalytic hydrogen production, however, designing highly efficient and cost-effective co-catalysts to replace expensive and rare metals is still a big challenge. In this work, DFT (density functional theory) is utilized to guide the application of CoP NWs (nanowires) as an earth-abundant co-catalyst for photocatalytic hydrogen production. Metallic 1D CoP NWs is rationally integrated with Zn0.5Cd0.5S solid solution semiconductor for the first time, to induce a remarkably improved photocatalytic hydrogen production activity of 12,175.8 μmol h−1 g−1, which is 22 times higher than that of the pristine Zn0.5Cd0.5S. This outstanding activity benefits from the collaborative advantages of excellent metallic conductivity and the rigid 1D nanostructure of CoP NWs. Moreover, the mechanism investigations demonstrate that this excellent activity arises from the strong electronic coupling, favourable band structure, highly efficient charge separation and migration based on the powerful characterizations, such as time-resolved PL decay spectra and photoelectrochemical methodology. This work brings new opportunities to employ 1D co-catalysts on photocatalysts for improving the catalytic activities in hydrogen production from water.