Nanoporous NiO@SiO2 photo-catalyst prepared by ion-exchange method for fast elimination of reactive dyes from wastewater

Photo-catalytic elimination of organic contaminants plays a significant role in wastewater treatment. Developing a highly efficient photo-catalyst is one of the leading research topic. Herein, we reported the fabrication of a novel nanoporous NiO@SiO₂ photo-catalyst by a simple ion-exchange method to eliminate the reactive dyes. The synthesized NiO@SiO₂ catalyst exhibited fast photo-degradation and excellent adsorption capability and could efficiently remove Red FN-3GL dye from wastewater, due to a high loading of NiO and a large specific surface area, abundant electron-withdrawing groups, as well as narrow bandgap energy. In addition, the NiO@SiO₂ photo-catalyst also displayed a high capability to remove reactive dyes over a wide range of pH values (pH 3–9). The prominent adsorption and photo-degradation of dyes were strongly dependent on the surface charge of the catalyst and the generation of hydroxyl radicals (OH^?) by the catalyst, respectively. Furthermore, the NiO@SiO₂ photo-catalyst also exhibited excellent recyclability, thus demonstrating the feasibility of practical applications in industries. The strategy of covering the metal oxide to nanoporous silica is a promising method for developing active photo-catalysts and applying them in the wastewater treatments.     

Visible-light-induced,autopromoted nickel-catalyzed three-component arylsulfonation of 1,3-enynes and mechanistic insights

Science China Chemistry - A light-induced, nickel-catalyzed three-component arylsulfonation of 1,3-enynes in the absence of photocatalyst is reported. This methodology exhibited mild conditions,...     

Evaluation of green and efficient deep eutectic solvents as media for extracting alkaloids from lotus leaf

Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were applied as eco-friendly solvents in this study for the extraction of alkaloids from lotus leaf, including O-nornuciferine, N-nornuciferine, nuciferine and roemerine. A series of hydrophilic and hydrophobic DESs with different hydrogen bond donors and a acceptors were synthesized and screened for a suitable DESs for extraction of alkaloids from lotus leaf. The study results showed that the hydrophilic DES with choline chloride and propanediol had the highest extraction yield. The main factors affecting the extraction efficiency—choline chloride–propanediol ratio, water content in deep eutectic solvents, solid–liquid ratio and extraction time—were investigated via a single-factor experiment. The optimized extraction conditions were 30% of water in choline chloride–propanediol (1:4) for heated extraction for 30 min and solid–liquid ratio 1:100 g/ml. Under optimum conditions, the extraction yields of O-nornuciferine, N-nornuciferine, nuciferine and roemerine were 0.069, 0.152, 0.334 and 0.041 g/100 g respectively, which were higher than those of methanol in acidified aqueous solution. This study suggests considerable potential for DESs as promising materials for the green and efficient extraction solvents for bioactive alkaloids from natural sources.     

Viscoelastic-mapping of cellulose nanofibrils using low-total-force contact resonance force microscopy (LTF-CRFM)

Cellulose - Low-total-force contact resonance force microscopy (LTF-CRFM), an atomic force microscopy method, is introduced as a non-destructive means to quantify the local viscoelastic loss...     

Estimation of optimal parameters yielding target amplitude–frequency response in nonlinear vibrating systems by a generalised cluster-based algorithm

Nonlinear Dynamics - Optimisation procedures for nonlinear vibrating systems are made cumbersome due to the fact that the regimes of periodic response are not known beforehand. Moreover, such...     

Correction to: Multivariate cluster weighted models using skewed distributions

Advances in Data Analysis and Classification - In the original publication of the article, the line after equation (5) has been published incorrectly     

A posteriori error analysis of a quadratic finite volume method for nonlinear elliptic problems

In this article, we construct and analyze a residual-based a posteriori error estimator for a quadratic finite volume method (FVM) for solving nonlinear elliptic partial differential equations with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. We shall prove that the a posteriori error estimator yields the global upper and local lower bounds for the norm error of the FVM. So that the a posteriori error estimator is equivalent to the true error in a certain sense. Numerical experiments are performed to illustrate the theoretical results.     

Numerical Simulation of the Yield of α Particles and Neutrons from the 11B(p, 3α) and 11B(p,n)11C Nuclear Reactions Induced by Intense Picosecond Laser Radiation

Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics - The yields of alpha particles and neutrons from the promising 11B(p, 3α) fusion reaction and the reference 11B(p, n)11C nuclear reaction,...     

Prospects for Solving the Muon Puzzle on the NEVOD-DECOR-TREK Complex

Physics of Atomic Nuclei - The muon puzzle is an excess of muon bundles generated by primary cosmic rays (PCR) at energies above 10 $${}^{17}$$ eV compared to estimations that assume even a heavy...