Self-directed reconstitution of proteorhodopsin with amphiphilic block copolymers induces the formation of hierarchically ordered proteopolymer membrane arrays

Manipulating recognition and transport at the nanoscale holds great promise for technological breakthroughs in energy conversion, catalysis, and information processing. Living systems evolve specialized membrane proteins (MPs) embedded in lipid bilayers to exquisitely control communications across the insulating membrane boundaries. Harnessing MP functions directly in synthetic systems opens up enormous opportunities for nanotechnology, but there exist fundamental challenges of how to address the labile nature of lipid bilayers that renders them of inadequate value under a broad range of harsh non-biological conditions, and how to reconstitute MPs coherently in two or three dimensions into non-lipid-based artificial membranes. Here we show that amphiphilic block copolymers can be designed to direct proteorhodopsin reconstitution and formation of hierarchically ordered proteopolymer membrane arrays spontaneously, even when the membrane-forming polymer blocks are in entangled states. These findings unfold a viable approach for the development of robust and chemically versatile nanomembranes with MP-regulated recognition and transport performance.     

Synthesis and Crystal Structures of the Molybdenum(II) Complexes with the N,N‐dimethylthiocarbamoyl Containing Ligand: Crystal Structures of [Mo(CO)2(η2‐S2COEt)(η2‐SCNMe2)(PPh3)] and [Mo(CO)2(η2‐S2CNC4H8)(η2‐SCNMe2)(PPh3)]

The reaction of the thiocarbamoyl‐molybdenum complex [Mo(CO)₂(η²‐SCNMe₂)(PPh₃)₂Cl] 1 , with EtOCS2K and C4H8NCS2NH4 in dichloromethane at room temperature yielded the seven coordinated ethyldithiocarbonate thiocarbamoyl‐molybdenum complex [Mo(CO)₂(η²‐S₂COEt)(η²‐SCNMe₂)(PPh₃)] 2 , and the dithiocarbamate thiocarbamoyl‐molybdenum complex [Mo(CO)₂(η²‐S₂CNC₄H₈)(η²‐SCNMe₂)(PPh₃)] 3 . The geometry around the metal atom of compounds 2 and 3 are capped octahedrons as revealed by X‐ray diffraction analyses. The thiocarbamoyl and ethyldithiocarbonate or pyrrolidinyldithiocarbamate ligands coordinate to the molybdenum metal center through the carbon and sulfur and two sulfur atoms, respectively. Structure parameters, NMR, IR and Mass spectra are in agreement with the crystal chemistry of the two compounds.     

Fe-doped and ZnO-pillared titanates as visible-light-driven photocatalysts

Fe-doped cesium titanate was obtained by a solid state reaction with a mixture of Cs(2)CO(3), TiO(2), and Fe(2)O(3). ZnO-pillared doped titanate nanocomposite was successfully fabricated by exfoliating doped titanate and restacking its nanosheets with ZnO nanoparticles. The resulting nanocomposite was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, N(2) adsorption-desorption measurement, thermogravimetric analysis and UV-vis spectroscopy. It was revealed that the present nanocomposite exhibits greatly increased specific surface area with mesoporous texture and that there exists an electronic coupling between the host sheets and the guest nanoparticles in the pillared system. The results of degradation of methylene blue under visible light radiation suggest that doping iron ions improves the material spectral response region and that hybridizing with ZnO nanopillars can suppress the recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs.     

Nanotubular metal-organic frameworks with high porosity based on T-shaped pyridyl dicarboxylate ligands

Two nanotubular metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), {Cu(L1)·2H(2)O·1.5DMF}(∞) (1) and {Cu(2)(L2)(2)(H(2)O)(2)·7H(2)O·3DMF}(∞) (2), with novel topologies have been constructed based on Cu(2+), 5-(pyridin-4-yl)isophthalic acid (L1) and 5-(pyridin-3-yl)isophthalic acid (L2), respectively. Two MOFs were characterized by IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetry, single-crystal, and powder X-ray diffraction methods. Network analysis reveals a two-nodal (3,6)-connected (4·6(2))(2)(4(2)·6(10)·8(3)) net and a three-nodal (3,4)-connected (4·8(2))(4)(4(2)·8(2)·10(2))(2)(8(4)·12(2)) net. Interpenetration is inherently prevented by both of the topologies of the frameworks. The porosity of MOF 1 was confirmed by N(2) and CO(2) gas adsorption investigations. MOF 1 exhibits remarkable hydrogen sorption hysteresis at low pressure and a H(2) uptake capacity of 1.05 wt% at 77 K and 1 atm.     

Organic dye bearing asymmetric double donor-π-acceptor chains for dye-sensitized solar cells

A novel efficient metal free sensitizer containing asymmetric double donor-π-acceptor chains (DC) was synthesized for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Comparing to 3.80%, 4.40% and 4.64% for the DSSCs based on the dyes with single chain (SC1, SC2) and cosensitizers (SC1 + SC2), the overall conversion efficiency reaches 6.06% for DC-sensitized solar cells as a result of its longer electron lifetime and higher incident monochromatic photon-to-current conversion efficiency.     

Preparation, characterization and photoluminescence properties of BaB2O4: Eu3+ red phosphor

A new red emitting BaB2O4: Eu3+ phosphor was synthesized by solid-state reaction method. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) analysis confirmed the monoclinic formation of BaB2O4. Field-emission scanning electron-microscopy (FE-SEM) observation indicated that the microstructure of the phosphor consisted of irregular grains with heavy agglomerate phenomena. Upon excitation with 394 nm light, the BaB2O4: Eu3+ phosphor shows bright red emissions with the highest photoluminescence (PL) intensity at 611 nm due to 5D0→7F2 transitions of Eu3+ ions. The CIE chromaticity coordinates are calculated from the emission spectrum to be x=0.64, y=0.35. The effects of the Eu3+ concentration on the PL were investigated. The results showed that the optimum concentration of Eu3+ in BaB2O4 host is 6 mol% and the dipole-dipole interaction plays the major role in the mechanism of concentration quenching of Eu3+ in BaB2O4: Eu3+ phosphor. The effect of charge compensation on the emission intensity was also studied. The charge compensations of Li+, Na+ and K+ anions all increased the luminescent intensity of BaB2O4: Eu3+. K+ anion gave the best improvement to enhance the intensity of the emission, indicating K+ is the optimal charge compensator. All properties show that this phosphor could serve as a potential candidate for application as a red phosphor for NUV chip LED.     

Investigations on the electron paramagnetic resonance parameters for Mn2+ in the ABF3 fluoroperovskites

The electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) parameters (g factor, the hyperfine structure constant A and the superhyperfine parameters A' and B') for Mn(2+) in the fluoroperovskites ABF(3) (A=K and Cs; B=Zn, Mg, Cd and Ca) are theoretically investigated from the perturbation formulas of these parameters for a 3d(5) ion under ideal octahedra. In the above treatments, not only the crystal-field mechanism but also the charge transfer mechanism is considered uniformly on the basis of the cluster approach. The theoretical EPR parameters are in good agreement with the experimental data. The charge transfer contribution to the g-shift Δg (≈g-g(s), where g(s)≈2.0023 is the spin-only value) is opposite (positive) in sign and comparable in magnitude to the crystal-field one. Nevertheless, the charge transfer contribution to the hyperfine structure constant shows the same sign and about 10% that of the crystal-field one. So, the conventional argument that the charge transfer contributions to the zero-field splittings are negligible for 3d(5) ions under low symmetrically distorted fluorine octahedra is proved no longer valid for the Δg analysis of ABF(3):Mn(2+) in view of the dominant second-order charge transfer perturbation terms. The unpaired spin densities of the fluorine 2s, 2p σ and 2p π orbitals are determined from the quantitative dependences upon the related molecular orbital coefficients, rather than obtained by fitting the observed superhyperfine parameters in the previous works.     

Physical variational principle and thin plate theory in electro-magneto-elastic analysis

Under the assumption of the quasi-static electric and magnetic fields the electro-magneto-elastic analysis including medium and its environment is studied in this paper. The complete governing equations under the finite deformation can be derived from the physical variational principle. In the physical variational principle the variations of the electric potential and magnetic potential are divided into local variations and migratory variations. From the virtual change of the sum of the electromagnetic energy and the couple energy produced by the migratory variation we can get the electromagnetic force and in this case the virtual variation of the volume should be considered. It is also found that the Maxwell stress is directly related to the strain in a material with piezoelectric or piezomagnetic behavior for the finite deformation case. The thin plate theory in first order is derived from the general theory in this paper and the Maxwell stress is naturally included in the governing equations.     

Sample-Based Optimal Transport and Barycenter Problems

A methodology is developed for the numerical solution to the sample-based optimal transport and Wasserstein barycenter problems. The procedure is based on a characterization of the barycenter and of the McCann interpolants that permits the decomposition of the global problem under consideration into various local problems where the distance among successive distributions is small. These local problems can be formulated in terms of feature functions and shown to have a unique minimizer that solves a nonlinear system of equations. Both the theoretical underpinnings of the methodology and its practical implementation are developed, and illustrated with synthetic and real data sets. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.