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Bacterial mismanagement: how inferior treating genital dysbiosis drive your HIV epidemic in females.
As a result, Li-S batteries assembled with an as-developed PBI membrane demonstrated a remarkable rate capability of 780 mAh g-1 at 2C and an impressive reversible capacity of 523 mAh g-1 at 0.5C after 400 cycles, which is much higher than the commercial separators. More importantly, even with a lofty sulfur loading of 3 mg cm-2, a high discharge capacity of 744 mAh g-1 (capacity retention 93.96%, at 0.1C after 100 cycles) can also be achieved. Overall, the current study highlighted a robust material platform for stable, safe, and efficient multifunctional separators for high-performance Li-S batteries.This work reports a plasmonic surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) biosensor that allows for quantitative analysis of hematin in erythrocytes without the need of separating it from hemoglobin (Hb). The biosensor exploits the tunable localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) characteristics of multibranched gold nanoparticles (M-AuNPs) and the strong plasmon coupling between an Au thin film and a flexible substrate consisting of M-AuNPs embedded in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) (i.e., M-AuNP-embedded PDMS substrate). In the assay, the hematin (or hematin-containing erythrocyte hemolysate) was deposited on Au film surface and covered with M-AuNP-embedded PDMS. Strong SERS signals were generated under excitation at 785 nm; the signals were sensitive to hematin concentration but not to several common coexisting biological substances. The intensities of the SERS signal (at 1623 cm-1) displayed a wide linear range using hematin concentrations in a range of at least ∼1.5 nM-1.1 μM; the limit of detection (LOD) was ∼0.03 ± 0.01 nM at a signal/noise (S/N) of 3. This assay is simple and sensitive without tedious separation procedures, thereby saving time and enhancing efficiency. This biosensor can be used to determine hematin concentration in human erythrocyte cytosols giving concentrations of ∼18.5 ± 4.5 (by averaging eight samples) and 51.5 ± 6.2 μM (by averaging three samples) for healthy and sickle erythrocytes, respectively, making it a potential application in clinical detection.Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), due to their fascinating properties, have emerged as potential next-generation semiconducting nanomaterials across diverse fields of applications. When combined with other material systems, precise control of the intrinsic properties of the TMDs plays a vital role in maximizing their performance. Defect-induced atomic doping through introduction of a chalcogen vacancy into the TMDs lattices is known to be a promising strategy for modulating their characteristic properties. As a result, there is a need to develop tunable and scalable synthesis routes to achieve vacancy-modulated TMDs. Herein, we propose a facile liquid-phase ligand exchange approach for scalable, uniform, and vacancy-tunable synthesis of TMDs films. Varying the relative molar ratio of the chalcogen to transition metal precursors enabled the in situ modulation of the chalcogen vacancy concentrations without necessitating additional post-treatments. When employed as the electrocatalyst in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the vacancy-modulated TMDs, exhibiting a synergetic effect on the energy level matching to the reduction potential of water and optimized free energy differences in the HER pathways, showed a significant enhancement in the hydrogen production via the improved charge transfer kinetics and increased active sites. The proposed approach for synthesizing tunable vacancy-modulated TMDs with wafer-scale synthesis capability is, therefore, promising for better practical applications of TMDs.ConspectusEmerging solar cells that convert clean and renewable solar energy to electricity, such as organic solar cells (OSCs) and perovskite solar cells (PSCs), have attracted increasing attention owing to some merits such as facile fabrication, low cost, flexibility, and short energy payback time. The power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of OSCs and PSCs have exceeded 18% and 25%, respectively.Fullerene derivatives have high electron affinity and mobility with an isotropic transport feature. Fullerene-based OSCs yielded superior PCEs to other acceptors and have dominated electron acceptor materials from 1995 to 2015. However, some drawbacks of fullerenes, such as weak visible absorption, limited tunability of electronic properties, laborious purification, and morphological instability, restrict further development of OSCs toward higher PCEs and practical applications. The theoretical PCE of fullerene-based OSCs is limited to ∼13% due to the relatively large energy losses. Many efforts have been dedicated tnsport layers, or active layers, improving both efficiency and stability of the devices. Beyond photovoltaic applications, FREAs can also be used in photodetectors, field-effect transistors, two-photon absorption, photothermal therapy, solar water splitting, etc.In this Account, we review the development of the FREAs and their applications in OSCs, PSCs, and other related fields. Molecular design, device engineering, photophysics, and applications of FREAs are discussed in detail. Future research directions toward performance optimization and commercialization of FREAs are also proposed.A successful homogeneous photoredox catalyst has been fruitfully heterogenized on magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) coated with a silica layer, keeping intact its homogeneous catalytic properties but gaining others due to the easy magnetic separation and recyclability. The amine-terminated magnetic silica nanoparticles linked noncovalently to H[3,3'-Co(1,2-C2B9H11)2]- (H[1]), termed MSNPs-NH2@H[1], are highly stable and do not produce any leakage of the photoredox catalyst H[1] in water. The magnetite MNPs were coated with SiO2 to provide colloidal stability and silanol groups to be tethered to amine-containing units. These were the MSNPs-NH2 on which was anchored, in water, the cobaltabis(dicarbollide) complex H[1] to obtain MSNPs-NH2@H[1]. Both MSNPs-NH2 and MSNPs-NH2@H[1] were evaluated to study the morphology, characterization, and colloidal stability of the MNPs produced. The heterogeneous MSNP-NH2@H[1] system was studied for the photooxidation of alcohols, such as 1-phenylethanol, 1-hexanol, 1,6-hexanediol, or cyclohexanol among others, using catalyst loads of 0.1 and 0.01 mol %. Surfactants were introduced to prevent the aggregation of MNPs, and cetyl trimethyl ammonium chloride was chosen as a surfactant. This provided adequate stability, without hampering quick magnetic separation. The results proved that the catalysis could be speeded up if aggregation was prevented. The recyclability of the catalytic system was demonstrated by performing 12 runs of the MSNPs-NH2@H[1] system, each one without loss of selectivity and yield. The cobaltabis(dicarbollide) catalyst supported on silica-coated magnetite nanoparticles has proven to be a robust, efficient, and easily reusable system for the photooxidation of alcohols in water, resulting in a green and sustainable heterogeneous catalytic system.Self-assembly of an achiral acceptor of square-planar Pd(II) or Pt(II) ion with a symmetric donor generally yields achiral architecture or a racemic mixture of chiral assemblies. Selective formation of an enantiopure assembly in such processes is very challenging. PF-06700841 chemical structure We report here a new approach of converting a dynamic mixture of multiple homochiral assemblies to an enantiopure architecture through the interaction of a chiral guest molecule. One-pot reaction of a cationic C3-symmetric tripyridyl donor L·HNO3 with cis-[(tmeda)Pd(NO3)2] (M) [tmeda = N,N,N',N'-tetramethylethane-1,2-diamine] yielded a complex mixture of stereoisomers of a chiral octahedral cage. Surprisingly, the presence of R-BINOL as a chiral guest in the above self-assembly induced selective formation of a single enantiopure octahedral cage. S-BINOL induced formation of the other enantiomer of the cage selectively. While selective recognition of an enantiomeric guest from a racemic mixture by a chiral host is well-known, present observation of "reverse chiral recognition" where the guest molecule determines the handedness of the host leading to the formation of an enantiopure cage is noteworthy.The production of CO from the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) is of great interest in the renewable energy storage and conversion, the neutral carbon emission, and carbon recycle utilization. Silver (Ag) is one of the catalytic metals that are active for electrochemical CO2 reduction into CO, but the catalysis requires a large overpotential to achieve higher selectivity. Constructing a metal-oxide interface could be an effective strategy to boost both activity and selectivity of the catalysis. Herein, density functional theory (DFT) calculations were first conducted to reveal the chemical insights of the catalytic performance on the interface between metal oxide and Ag(111) (MO x /Ag(111)). The results show that the *COOH intermediates can be more stabilized on the surfaces of MO x /Ag(111) than pure Ag(111). The hydrogen evolution reaction on MO x /Ag(111) can be suppressed due to the significantly higher Gibbs free energy for hydrogen adsorption (ΔGH*), thereby enhancing the selectivity toward CO2RR. A series of MO x /Ag composites with the unique interface based on the DFT results were then introduced though a two-step approach. The as-obtained MO x /Ag catalysts boosted both the CO activity and selectivity at a relatively positive potential range, especially in the case of MnO2/Ag. The reduction current density on the MnO2/Ag catalyst can reach 4.3 mA cm-2 at -0.7 V (vs RHE), which is 21.5 times higher than that on pure Ag, and the overpotential of CO2 to CO (390 mV) possesses is much lower than that on pure Ag NPs (690 mV). This study proposes an effective design strategy to construct a metal-oxide interface for CO2RR based on the synergistic effect between metals and MO x .Detection of biomarkers at the cellular level can provide more accurate and comprehensive information that is important for early diagnosis of diseases and evaluation of new drugs. However, the interference of a large number of components in cells and the requirement of high sensitivity bring great challenges for their detection. Herein, a robust and enzyme-free electrochemical platform was proposed for microRNA-21 (miRNA-21) detection by integrating the efficient separation of magnetic nanobeads (MBs) with the multisignal amplification of strand displacement amplification (SDA) and electrochemically mediated atom transfer radical polymerization (eATRP). The eATRP is capable of de novo growth of a number of electroactive polymers on the electrode surface for signal amplification. Compared to simple hybridization, SDA and eATRP can enhance the signals by ∼35-fold, achieving high signal-to-noise ratio for low-abundant target detection. Owing to their superparamagnetism and strong magnetic response ability, MBs endow the method with excellent specificity and anti-interference ability to detect miRNA-21 in cells. Using MBs as capture carriers, SDA and eATRP for signal amplification, and gold nanoflower (AuNF)-modified electrodes as working electrodes, as low as 0.32 aM miRNA-21 was detected. Furthermore, the successful detection of miRNA-21 in cells indicated the great prospect of this method in the early diagnosis of cancers, life science research, and single-entity electrochemical detection.
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