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Conventional water purification technologies struggle to simultaneously address purification efficiency and energy consumption. Molecular orbital level surface micro-electric field (MEF)-driven water purification is an original and innovative concept conceived and developed by our group in recent years. The core idea involves creating electron-rich and electron-poor micro-areas on the nanomaterial surface, which drive pollutants or H2O molecules to provide electrons in the electron-poor micro-areas while other environmental factors (such as H2O2 and O2) obtain electrons in the electron-rich micro-areas. This process effectively utilizes the internal energy contained within wastewater and emerging contaminants (ECs). Centered on this core, this review systematically examines the discovery, construction, and characteristics of MEF and MEF-like systems and summarizes their application directions. The challenges, bottlenecks, and future development directions of MEF technology are also analyzed and discussed. Reviews of MEFs can facilitate the development of low-consumption, high-efficiency water purification technologies.

Plant pathogens are increasingly considered as important agents in promoting plant coexistence, while plant symbionts like ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) can facilitate plant dominance by helping conspecific individuals to defend against plant pathogens. However, we know little about their relationships with plants at large scales. Here, using soil fungal data collected from 28 forest reserves across China, we explored the latitudinal diversity gradients of overall fungi and different fungal functional guilds, including putative plant pathogens, EMF, and saprotrophic fungi. We further linked the spatial patterns of alpha diversities of putative plant pathogens and EMF to the variation of plant species richness. We found that the relationships between latitude and alpha diversities of putative plant pathogens and EMF were region-dependent with sharp diversity shifts around the mid-latitude (~35°N), which differed from the unimodal diversity distributions of the overall and saprotrophic fungi. The variations in the diversities of putative plant pathogens and EMF were largely explained by the spatial regions (south vs. north/subtropical zone vs. temperate zone). Additionally, the alpha diversities of these two fungal guilds exhibited opposing trends across latitude. EMF could alter the relationship between diversities of putative plant pathogens and plants in the south/subtropical region, but not vice versa. We also found that the ratio of their alpha diversities (EMF to putative plant pathogens) was negatively related to plant species richness across the spatial regions (north to south), and explained ~10% of the variation of plant species richness. Overall, our findings suggest that plant-microbe interactions not only shape the local plant diversity but also may have non-negligible contributions to the large-scale patterns of plant diversity in forest ecosystems.

Conventional advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) require significant external energy consumption to eliminate emerging contaminants (ECs) with stable structures. Herein, a catalyst consisting of nanocube BiCeO particles (BCO‐NCs) prepared by an impregnation‐hydrothermal process is reported for the first time, which is used for removing ECs without light/electricity or any other external energy input in water and simultaneous in situ generation of H2O2. A series of characterizations and experiments reveal that dual reaction centers (DRC) which are similar to the valence band/conducting band structure are formed on the surface of BCO‐NCs. Under natural conditions without any external energy consumption, the BCO‐NCs self‐purification system can remove more than 80% of ECs within 30 min, and complete removal of ECs within 30 min in the presence of abundant electron acceptors, the corresponding second‐order kinetic constant is increased to 3.62 times. It is found that O2 can capture electrons from ECs through the Bi─O─Ce bond bridge during the reaction process, leading to the in situ production of H2O2. This work will be a key advance in reducing energy consumption for deep wastewater treatment and generating important chemical raw materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat-triggered shape memory polymers (HSMPs) consisting of ethylene-acrylic acid copolymer (EAA) and nitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR) were fabricated by peroxide-induced dynamic vulcanization; meanwhile, in order to realize rapid and reconfigurable shape fixity and shape recovery, a facile and effective strategy was designed. Morphological structure and interface interaction are decisive factors for HSMPs, the FE-SEM images showed the average diameter of NBR particles in EAA/NBR TPVs was 5 to 8 pm and the strong interface interaction between EAA matrix and NBR particles provided critical assistance in keeping the temporary shape of deformed rubber particles and storing stronger elastic driving force. The shape memory behavior of EAA/NBR TPVs was characterized and the result demonstrated that excellent shape-fixity (>91%), shape-recovery (>93%), and fast recovery speed ( KEYWORDS EAA/NBR, sea-island structure, shape memory effect, thermomechanical properties, thermoplastic vulcanizate, 1 | INTRODUCTION Shape memory polymers (SMPs) as one of the typical type of shape memory materials that could return to their original shape after maintained a temporary form have [...]