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Harmful components in cigarette smoke, such as nicotine, tar, and organic particulate matter, are the primary culprits behind lung diseases. While conventional filter materials based on cellulose, carbon, and molecular sieves exhibit commendable filtration capabilities, their high cost restricts their widespread applications. Based on this, the authors aim to prepare PET‐based filter materials with good adsorption properties through a simple surface functionalisation strategy. The adsorption performance of the PET‐based non‐woven fabric was enhanced by the introduction of sodium alginate (SA). The gas adsorption experiments results reveal that SA‐modified PET (SA‐PET) exhibits significantly improved filtration efficiency for nicotine, tar, and total particulate matter—increasing by 27.1%, 26.2%, and 21.3%, respectively. Moreover, SA‐PET exhibits more odour control ability than traditional activated carbon‐based filter materials. These results prove that surface‐functionalised SA‐PET has better filtration performance for harmful substances in smoke and provides a new strategy for the design of high‐performance filtration materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TiO2 nanotubes arrays with dominant (001) facets were fabricated by multi-anodic oxidation technology. The influence factor of the electrolyte composition on the ratio of different facets for anatase TiO2 and the bioactivity were investigated. Besides, the characterization of the surface morphologies and crystal structures were analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD),etc. Finally, the bioactivity was estimated by the CaP salt deposition vis biomin-eralization process and protein adsorption experiment. The results show that the relative proportions of different facets in the TiO2 nanotubes can be adjusted by changing the content of H2O in the electrolyte. The (004) facet texture coefficient of TiO2 nanotubes arrays prepared in 2% H2O(volume fraction) electrolyte reaches up to 4.76. The TiO2 nanotubes with dominant (001) facets can accelerate the deposition of hydroxyapatite and raise the amount of protein adsorption in the humanoid environment by providing more active sites for biomineralization and protein adsorption. The TiO2 nanotubes with a higher proportion of (001) facets have the more excellent biological activity.

Cryptochrome 1 (CRY1) is an important light receptor essential for de-etiolation of Arabidopsis seedlings. However, its function in regulating plant architecture remains unclear. Here, we show that mutation in CRY1 resulted in increased branching of Arabidopsis plants. To investigate the underlying mechanism, we analyzed the expression profiles of branching-related genes and found that the mRNA levels of Phytochrome Interaction Factor 4 (PIF4) and PIF5 are significantly increased in the cry1 mutant. Genetic analysis showed that the pif4 or pif4pif5 mutant is epistatic to the cry1 mutant, and overexpression of PIF4 conferred increased branching. Moreover, we demonstrated that PIF4 proteins physically associate with the G-box motif within the PIF4 promoter to form a self-activated transcriptional feedback loop, while CRY1 represses this process in response to blue light. Taken together, this study suggests that the CRY1–PIF4 module regulates gene expression via forming a regulatory loop and shoot branching in response to ambient light conditions.

The glass fiber reinforced polypropylene (GF/PP) composite plate with different glass fiber contents was fabricated by the laminated hot-pressing experiment method using the glass fiber felt and polypropylene film, then tensile experiments were carried on under different loading rates. The strain rate sensitive properties of the composites were investigated, and the feasibility of the Burgers model fitting to predict the constitutive relation of the material was analyzed. The results show that the GF/PP composite in the low strain rates is sensitive to strain rate, with the increase of strain rate, the fracture stress and tensile strength increase, and with the increase of the glass fiber content, the strain rate effect decreases. Meanwhile, the Burgers model can effectively fit to predict the tensile stress-strain curves of the composites, then compared with the experimental curves, which further validates the strain rate sensitive properties of the GF/PP composites and its trend.