Activation of α-Fe2O3 for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Strongly Enhanced by Low Temperature Annealing in Low Oxygen Containing Ambient

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising method for the conversion of solar energy into chemical energy stored in the form of hydrogen. Nanostructured hematite (α-Fe₂O₃) is one of the most attractive materials for a highly efficient charge carrier generation and collection due to its large specific surface area and the short minority carrier diffusion length. In the present work, the PEC water splitting performance of nanostructured α-Fe₂O₃ is investigated which was prepared by anodization followed by annealing in a low oxygen ambient (0.03 % O₂ in Ar). It was found that low oxygen annealing can activate a significant PEC response of α-Fe₂O₃ even at a low temperature of 400 °C and provide an excellent PEC performance compared with classic air annealing. The photocurrent of the α-Fe₂O₃ annealed in the low oxygen at 1.5 V vs. RHE results as 0.5 mA cm⁻², being 20 times higher than that of annealing in air. The obtained results show that the α-Fe₂O₃ annealed in low oxygen contains beneficial defects and promotes the transport of holes; it can be attributed to the improvement of conductivity due to the introduction of suitable oxygen vacancies in the α-Fe₂O₃. Additionally, we demonstrate the photocurrent of α-Fe₂O₃ annealed in low oxygen ambient can be further enhanced by Zn-Co LDH, which is a co-catalyst of oxygen evolution reaction. This indicates low oxygen annealing generates a promising method to obtain an excellent PEC water splitting performance from α-Fe₂O₃ photoanodes.     

Fabrication of solid‐state nanopores and its perspectives

Nanofluidics is becoming an extensively developing technique in the field of bioanalytical chemistry. Nanoscale hole embed in an insulating membrane is employed in a vast variety of sensing platforms and applications. Although, biological nanopores have several attractive characteristics, in this paper, we focused on the solid‐state nanopores due to their advantages as high stability, possibility of diameter control, and ease of surface functionalizing. A detection method, based on the translocation of analyzed molecules through nanochannels under applied voltage bias and resistive pulse sensing, is well established. Nevertheless, it seems that the new detection methods like measuring of transverse electron tunneling using nanogap electrodes or optical detection can offer significant additional advantages. The aim of this review is not to cite all related articles, but highlight the steps, which in our opinion, meant important progresses in solid‐state nanopore analysis.     

Theranostic Approach for the Protein Corona of Polysaccharide Nanoparticles

Polysaccharide nanoparticles are promising materials in the wide range of disciplines such as medicine, nutrition, food production, agriculture, material science and others. They excel not only in their non‐toxicity and biodegradability but also in their easy preparation. As well as inorganic particles, a protein corona (PC) around polysaccharide nanoparticles is formed in biofluids. Moreover, it has been considered that the overall response of the organism to nanoparticles presence depends on the PC. This review summarises scientific publications about the structural chemistry of polysaccharide nanoparticles and their impact on theranostic applications. Three strategies of implementation of the PC in theranostics have been discussed: I) Utilisation of the PC in therapy; II) How the composition of the PC is analysed for specific disease markers; III) How the formed PC can interact with the immune system and enhances the immunomodulation or immunoelimination. Thus, the findings from this review can contribute to improve the design of drug delivery systems. However, it is still necessary to elucidate the mechanisms of nano‐bio interactions and discover new connections in nanoscale research.     

Prebiotic Route to Thymine from Formamide—A Combined Experimental–Theoretical Study

Synthesis of RNA nucleobases from formamide is one of the recurring topics of prebiotic chemistry research. Earlier reports suggest that thymine, the substitute for uracil in DNA, may also be synthesized from formamide in the presence of catalysts enabling conversion of formamide to formaldehyde. In the current paper, we show that to a lesser extent conversion of uracil to thymine may occur even in the absence of catalysts. This is enabled by the presence of formic acid in the reaction mixture that forms as the hydrolysis product of formamide. Under the reaction conditions of our study, the disproportionation of formic acid may produce formaldehyde that hydroxymethylates uracil in the first step of the conversion process. The experiments are supplemented by quantum chemical modeling of the reaction pathway, supporting the plausibility of the mechanism suggested by Saladino and coworkers.     

Evidence of Strange Attractors in Class C Amplifier with Single Bipolar Transistor: Polynomial and Piecewise-Linear Case

This paper presents and briefly discusses recent observations of dynamics associated with isolated generalized bipolar transistor cells. A mathematical model of this simple system is considered on the highest level of abstraction such that it comprises many different network topologies. The key property of the analyzed structure is its bias point since the transistor is modeled via two-port admittance parameters. A necessary but not sufficient condition for the evolution of autonomous complex behavior is the nonlinear bilateral nature of the transistor with arbitrary reason that causes this effect. It is proved both by numerical analysis and experimental measurement that chaotic motion is miscellaneous, robust, and it is neither numerical artifact nor long transient motion.     

Big,Strong, Neutral,Twisted, and Chiral π Acids

General synthetic access to expanded π‐acidic surfaces of variable size, topology, chirality, and π acidity is reported. The availability of π surfaces with these characteristics is essential to develop the functional relevance of anion–π interactions with regard to molecular recognition, translocation, and transformation. The problem is that, with expanded π surfaces, the impact of electron‐withdrawing substituents decreases and the high π acidity needed for strong anion–π interactions can be more difficult to obtain. To overcome this problem, it is herein proposed to build large surfaces from smaller fragments and connect these fragments with bridges that are composed only of single atoms. Two central surfaces for powerful anion–π interactions, namely, perfluoroarenes and naphthalenediimides (NDIs), were selected as fragments and coupled with through sulfide bridges. Their oxidation to sulfoxides and sulfones, as well as fluorine substitution in the peripheral rings, provides access to the full chemical space of relevant π acidities. According to cyclic voltammetry, LUMO levels range from ?3.96 to ?4.72 eV. With sulfoxide bridges, stereogenic centers are introduced to further enrich the intrinsic planar chirality of the expanded surfaces. The stereoisomers were separated by chiral HPLC and characterized by X‐ray crystallography. Their topologies range from chairs to π boats, and the latter are reminiscent of the cation–π boxes in operational neuronal receptors. With pentafluorophenyl acceptors, the π acidity of NDIs with two sulfoxide groups in the core reaches ?4.45 eV, whereas two sulfone moieties give a value of ?4.72 eV, which is as low as with four ethyl sulfone groups, that is, a π superacid near the limit of existence. Beyond anion–π interactions, these conceptually innovative π‐acidic surfaces are also of interest as electron transporters in conductive materials.