全氟磺酸功能化碳纳米管的制备及其催化性能

采用全氟磺酸-全氟乙烯共聚物的液相沉积方法制备了全氟磺酸功能化碳纳米管催化剂,利用N2吸附、扫描电子显微镜、透射电子显微镜、傅里叶变换红外光谱以及酸碱滴定等方法对材料的结构和酸性进行了表征,考察了温度和溶剂对催化剂稳定性的影响.结果表明,催化剂在极性和非极性溶液中均十分稳定,并且具有良好的热稳定性,使用温度可达300°C.该催化剂在对苯二酚与叔丁醇的烷基化反应中表现出优异的催化性能,其催化活性与稳定性均高于聚苯乙烯磺酸功能化的碳纳米管催化剂.     

Metabolic Profiling of Amino Acids by Liquid Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC–MS) to Characterize the Significance of Glutamine in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is considered to be aggressive based on its low overall survival and disease-free rates. Currently, there is no molecular-targeted therapy. The identification of a suitable biomarker is still a research focus for TNBC at the present time. Amino acid metabolism fulfills multiple important physiological roles in humans. Their metabolic abnormalities have been reported in numerous cancer studies and amino acid pathways may also be chemotherapeutic targets. This study reports the profiling analysis of amino acids in TNBC and non-TNBC cell lines for detecting biomarkers based on the strategy of N-phosphorylation labeling with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS). Glutamine (Gln) was found to be significantly down-regulated in TNBC cells because it was largely absorbed and consumed in the TNBC cell lines. These results indicate faster proliferation of TNBC and higher consumption of glutamine to meet the material and energy demand, suggesting its potential role in TNBC progression. Hence, glutamine may be regarded as a biomarker and Gln-targeted approaches may become a new therapeutic strategies for TNBC.     

Two 2D uranyl coordination complexes showing effective photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B and mechanism study

Two new hydrostable two-dimensional(2 D) uranyl coordination complexes [(UO_2)_5(μ_3-O)_2(nbca)_2].7 H_2O(1) and [(UO_2)_3(nbca)_2(H_2O)_3]·2 H_2O(2)(H_3 nbca=5-nitro-1,2,3-benzenetricarboxylic acid) were hydrothermal synthesized.Single-crystal structural refinements reveal that both of the two complexes were formed by the packing of 2D uranyl coordination sheets via the hydrogen bonds.The nbca ligand coordinating to the uranyl polyhedron centers constructed the 2D sheets.There are UO_8 hexagonal bipyramids and UO_7 pentagonal bipyramids in 1 while only U07 pentagonal bipyramids in 2.Photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B(RhB) in aqueous solution was studied.Complex 2 possesses better performance than 1 with 96.2 % of the RhB was degraded in only 60 min.Mechanism studies reveal that the dissolved oxygens are essential to the RhB degradation.The photocurrent density of 2 is more stable than that of 1,which indicating the stronger ability to separate photoexcited electrons and hole pairs of 2.     

Numerical and Experimental Investigation of the Conjugate Heat Transfer for a High-Pressure Pneumatic Control Valve Assembly

This paper uses heat transfer experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to investigate the conjugate heat transfer (CHT) in a high-pressure pneumatic control valve assembly. A heat transfer test rig was constructed, and time–temperature histories of five test points placed on the valve assembly’s outer surface were recorded for study validation. The Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) CFD methods with the standard k-ε turbulence closure equations were adopted in the numerical computations. Polyhedral grids were used; time step and mesh convergence studies were conducted. Simulated and measured temperatures profile comparisons revealed a good agreement. The CHT results obtained from CFD showed huge velocity fields downstream of the valve throat and the vent hole. The airflow through the valve was icy, mainly in the supersonic flow areas. Low temperatures below 273.15 K were recorded on the internal and external walls of the valve assembly. The consistency of the measured data with the numerical results demonstrates the effectiveness of polyhedral grids in exploring the CHT using CFD methods. The local entropy production rate analysis revealed that irreversibility is mainly due to viscous dissipation. The current CHT investigation provides a potential basis for thermostress analysis and optimization.     

Controllably Growing Topologies in One-shot RAFT Polymerization via Macro-latent Monomer Strategy

The controlled and efficient synthesis of polymers with tailored topologies is challenging but important for exploring structure/property research. Herein, we proposed a concept of macro-latent monomer to achieve the controlled growth of polymer topologies.The macro-latent monomer was installed by a dynamic furan/maleimide covalent bond at the chain terminal. One-shot reversible additionfragmentation chain transfer(RAFT) polymerization of styrene and the macro-latent monomer created controlled growth of polymer topologies.Low temperature such as 40 ℃ could not activate the macro-latent monomer and thus the polymerization created the homo-polystyrene. By contrast, high temperature of ～110 ℃ activated the macro-latent monomer, and a maleimide-terminated macro-monomer was released via the retro-Diels Alder reaction. This macro-monomer immediately joined the cross polymerization with styrene and thus produced the side chains. By delicately manipulating the polymerization temperature, the predetermined placement of the macro-latent monomer-derived polymeric sidechains created controllably growing topologies, including star-, π-shaped, and density-variable grafting copolymers. This work paved a new way for creating on-demand topologies and would greatly enrich the topology synthesis.     

Investigating bottom-quark Yukawa interaction at Higgs factory

Measuring the fermion Yukawa coupling constants is important for understanding the origin of the fermion masses and their relationship with spontaneously electroweak symmetry breaking.In contrast,some new physics(NP)models change the Lorentz structure of the Yukawa interactions between standard model(SM)fermions and the SM-like Higgs boson,even in their decoupling limit.Thus,the precise measurement of the fermion Yukawa interactions is a powerful tool of NP searching in the decoupling limit.In this work,we show the possibility of investigating the Lorentz structure of the bottom-quark Yukawa interaction with the 125 GeV SM-like Higgs boson for future e^+e^- colliders.     

DNA microarray: a high throughput approach for methylation detection

We described a DNA microarray-based method combined with bisulphite treatment of DNA and regular PCR to examine hyper-methylation in promoter 1A of APC gene. A set of oligonucleotide probes were designed and immobilized on the aldehyde-coated glass slides for detecting the methylation pattern of 15 selected CpG sites in the region. The methylation status of 30 colorectal tumor samples have been examined by both of methylation-specific PCR (MS-PCR) and the present microarray method. The methylation pattern of the 15 CpG sites for the samples have been obtained with the microarray. A total of 19 samples out of 30 were methylated by microarray, in which five samples cannot be detected by MS-PCR due to the methylated CpG patterns not accordant to the MS-PCR primers. The detecting ratio for methylation of APC gene of colorectal tumor samples increased from 46.7% with MS-PCR to 63.3% with the microarray, which successfully demonstrated that DNA microarray-based method not only can obtained the methylation patterns for the related genes, but also decrease the false-negative results of methylation status by the conventional MS-PCR for the investigated genes.     

Encapsulations of La@C82 and La2@C80 inside single-walled boron nitride nanotubes

Possibility of encapsulations of metallofullerenes inside single-walled boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) is studied by using first-principles calculations. We find that both La@C₈₂ and La₂@C₈₀ can be exothermically encapsulated inside the (17, 0) and (14, 7) BNNTs. The minimum diameters of exothermically encapsulating both La@C₈₂ and La₂@C₈₀ inside BNNTs are predicated to be about 13.4 Å.     

Layer-by-layer assembly of polyoxometalates into microcapsules

The polyoxometalate (POM) chemistry world has been experiencing an unparalleled development of rapid synthesis of new compounds and slow development of POM-based functional materials and devices. Meanwhile, researchers in the microcapsule world, encouraged by the introduction of the layer-by-layer method, are pursuing good components for constructing functional capsule devices. Here, in view of the versatile properties that POM-based microcapsules may possess, various types of POM-polyelectrolyte composite microcapsules were constructed using the layer-by-layer method. Microscopy reveals that polyoxometalates form nanoparticles on the shell in the presence of cationic polyelectrolytes. These nanoparticles connected with polyelectrolytes constitute the shell and support the microcapsule from collapse after drying, and this is an interesting characteristic different from those of common composite and polyelectrolyte capsules. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), UV-vis absorption, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to examine the properties of the POMs in the microcapsules. The obtained microcapsules exhibit higher thermal stability than polyelectrolyte microcapsules. Furthermore, the functions of POMs were maintained when they were assembled into microcapsules. It is proved that microcapsules bearing POMs with redox activity can provide a reduction environment, which can lead to the realization of in situ synthesis of materials, and that microcapsules with photoluminescent POMs as a component can also have a photoluminescent property, providing a way to develop functional capsule devices. This work may provide an opportunity to enrich both the polyoxometalate chemistry and the capsule field.     

Synthesis of an enzyme-like imprinted polymer with the substrate as the template, and its catalytic properties under aqueous conditions

Transition state analogues (TSAs) have long been regarded as ideal templates for the preparation of catalytically active synthetic imprinted polymers. In the current work, however, a new type of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was synthesized with the substrate (homovanillic acid, HVA) as the template and hemin introduced as the catalytic center, with the use of plural functional monomers to prepare the active sites. The MIP successfully mimicked natural peroxidase, suggesting that it may not be imperative to employ a TSA as the template when preparing enzyme-like imprinted polymers and that the imprinted polymer matrix provided an advantageous microenvironment around the catalytic center (hemin), essentially similar to that supplied by apo-proteins in natural enzymes. Significantly, by taking advantage of the special structure of hemin and multiple-site interactions provided by several functional monomers, the intrinsic difficulties for MIPs in recognizing template molecules in polar solutions were overcome. The newly developed polymer showed considerable recognizing ability toward HVA, catalytic activity, substrate specificity and also stability, which are the merits lacked by the natural peroxidase. Meanwhile, the ease of recovery and reuse the MIP implies the potential for industrial application.