Search

Human milk is the most important source of nutrition in early infancy, which can meet all the nutritional needs in the first 6 months after birth. It contains many bioactive substances that can regulate the intestinal flora, promote the development of the immune system, and enhance the intestinal barrier. Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are one of the active substances in human milk. They cannot be directly digested and absorbed by infants, but can be used as a prebiotic to stimulate the establishment and evolution of the gut microbiota. Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis is a dominant microorganism in the gut of breastfed infants, which has almost all gene clusters required for metabolizing the major HMOs, and its interaction with HMOs plays a key role in the early intestinal health of infants. This review summarizes the composition and structure of HMOs, describes the utilization of HMOs by B. longum subsp. infantis and summarizes the beneficial effects B. longum subsp. infantis exerts in infants by metabolizing HMOs, which will lay the foundation for exploring the interaction mechanism between HMOs and the gut microbiota, as well as its role in infant intestinal development and maturation.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract whose pathogenesis is not yet clear and it tends to recurrent. The global prevalence of IBD has reached 0.3% and is increasing as a result of changes in living environment and dietary habits. Current treatments for IBD focus on anti-inflammatory drugs and intestinal immunomodulatory therapy, and recent studies on intestinal microorganisms have shown that the occurrence of IBD is closely related to changes in the intestinal flora and some intestinal microorganisms can alleviate IBD in various ways. In this paper, we review the application and action mechanism of the probiotic intestinal bacterium Bifidobacterium and its preparations in IBD treatment, expecting to provide a reference for the treatment of IBD by probiotics.

Formamidinium lead iodide (FAPbI3) has endowed power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) up to 25.5% in regular‐structured perovskite solar cells (PSCs) because of its optimal bandgap and enhanced thermal stability. However, the performance of FAPbI3‐based inverted‐structured PSCs is unsatisfactory. Herein, four kinds of commonly used hole transport materials (HTMs) are selected, including PEDOT:PSS, PTAA, NiOx, and MeO‐2PACz, to study their impact on the methylamine chloride (MACl)‐assisted one‐step deposition of FAPbI3 films. It is found that MeO‐2PACz is the optimal substrate for stabilizing black‐phase FAPbI3 and the corresponding inverted‐structured PSCs show the best photovoltaic performance. Nonetheless, the PCE is restricted by low open‐circuit voltage (VOC) due to non‐radiative recombination caused by MACl residues. Therefore, homologous PbI2 in situ passivation is implemented to passivate defects at grain boundaries. The addition of excess PbI2 in precursor solution remarkably decreases charge trap densities and elongates carrier lifetimes. As a result, the optimized device achieves an impressive PCE of 22.13%, which is the highest efficiency of FAPbI3 based on inverted‐structured PSCs. Moreover, the best device exhibits free hysteresis and excellent long‐term stability, maintaining 92% of the initial PCEs after 800 h aging under ambient conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing dopant‐free hole transporting materials (HTMs) is of vital importance for addressing the notorious stability issue of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, efficient dopant‐free HTMs are scarce. Herein, we improve the performance of dopant‐free HTMs featuring with a quinoxaline core via rational π‐extension. Upon incorporating rotatable or chemically fixed thienyl substitutes on the pyrazine ring, the resulting molecular HTMs TQ3 and TQ4 show completely different molecular arrangement as well as charge transporting capabilities. Comparing with TQ3, the coplanar π‐extended quinoxaline based TQ4 endows enriched intermolecular interactions and stronger π–π stacking, thus achieving a higher hole mobility of 2.08×10−4 cm2 V−1 s−1. It also shows matched energy levels and high thermal stability for application in PSCs. Planar n‐i‐p structured PSCs employing dopant‐free TQ4 as HTM exhibits power conversion efficiency (PCE) over 21 % with excellent long‐term stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formamidinium lead iodide (FAPbI 3 ) represents an optimal absorber material in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), while the application of FAPbI 3 in inverted-structured PSCs has yet to be successful, mainly owing to its inferior film-forming on hydrophobic or defective hole-transporting substrates. Herein, we report a substantial improvement of FAPbI 3 -based inverted PSCs, which is realized by a multifunctional amphiphilic molecular hole-transporter, (2-(4-(10H-phenothiazin-10-yl)phenyl)-1-cyanovinyl)phosphonic acid (PTZ-CPA). The phenothiazine (PTZ) based PTZ-CPA, carrying a cyanovinyl phosphonic acid (CPA) group, forms a superwetting hole-selective underlayer that enables facile deposition of high-quality FAPbI 3 thin films. Compared to a previously established carbazole-based hole-selective material (2-(3,6-dimethoxy-9H-carbazol-9-yl)ethyl)phosphonic acid (MeO-2PACz), the crystallinity of FAPbI 3 is enhanced and the electronic defects are passivated by the PTZ-CPA more effectively, resulting in remarkable increases in photoluminescence quantum yield (four-fold) and Shockley-Read-Hall lifetime (eight-fold). Moreover, the PTZ-CPA shows a larger molecular dipole moment and improved energy level alignment with FAPbI 3 , benefiting the interfacial hole-collection. Consequently, FAPbI 3 -based inverted PSCs achieve an unprecedented efficiency of 25.35 % under simulated air mass 1.5 (AM1.5) sunlight. The PTZ-CPA based device shows commendable long-term stability, maintaining over 90 % of its initial efficiency after continuous operation at 40 °C for 2000 hours., (© 2024 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

As the key properties of perovskite solar cells (PSCs), the hole extraction and transport capabilities of the hole transport material (HTM) affect the photovoltaic performance of PSCs to a considerable extent, while both capabilities can be adjusted by molecular planarity. Therefore, in this work, the molecular planarity of the HTM is systematically optimized to regulate the hole extraction and transport capabilities. Along with the improvement in planarity, the HTM's HOMO level is increased, leading to the enhancement of hole extraction capability. Meanwhile, the hole transport capability can also be improved due to the intensification of molecular stacking during the film formation. As a result, the planar HTM achieves a relatively high efficiency of 18.48 %, which is higher than that of spiro-OMeTAD. Accordingly, the molecular planarity presents an important impact on the photovoltaic performance of PSCs, providing us with a promising strategy for further optimization of efficient HTMs., (© 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Herein, we demonstrate that a thiophene-modified quinoxaline core small molecule can be applied in Sb 2 (S,Se) 3 solar cells. We reveal that the interaction between thiophene and Sb 2 (S,Se) 3 through the Sb-S bond essentially improves the interfacial hole-extraction ability. This study provides a cost-effective dopant-free hole-transporting material for inorganic thin film solar cell applications with excellent stability.