Ni/Al2O3 catalysts for CO methanation: Effect of Al2O3 supports calcined at different temperatures

The correlation between phase structures and surface acidity of Al2O3 supports calcined at different temperatures and the catalytic performance of Ni/Al2O3 catalysts in the production of synthetic natural gas(SNG) via CO methanation was systematically investigated. A series of 10 wt% NiO/Al2O3 catalysts were prepared by the conventional impregnation method, and the phase structures and surface acidity of Al2O3 supports were adjusted by calcining the commercial γ-Al2O3 at different temperatures(600–1200 C). CO methanation reaction was carried out in the temperature range of 300–600 C at different weight hourly space velocities(WHSV = 30000 and 120000 mL·g-1h-1) and pressures(0.1 and 3.0 MPa). It was found that high calcination temperature not only led to the growth in Ni particle size, but also weakened the interaction between Ni nanoparticles and Al2O3 supports due to the rapid decrease of the specific surface area and acidity of Al2O3 supports. Interestingly, Ni catalysts supported on Al2O3 calcined at 1200 C(Ni/Al2O3-1200) exhibited the best catalytic activity for CO methanation under different reaction conditions. Lifetime reaction tests also indicated that Ni/Al2O3-1200 was the most active and stable catalyst compared with the other three catalysts, whose supports were calcined at lower temperatures(600, 800 and 1000 C). These findings would therefore be helpful to develop Ni/Al2O3 methanation catalyst for SNG production.     

Determination of Formaldehyde Traces in Fabric and in Indoor Air by a Kinetic Fluorimetric Method

A simple and sensitive kinetic fluorimetric method is reported for the determination of trace amount of formaldehyde. The proposed method is based on the catalytic effect of formaldehyde on the oxidation reaction of rhodamine B with potassium chlorate in sulfuric acid solution. Formaldehyde in the range of 0.020-0.340 µg/mL can be determined with a limit of detection of 5.73 ng/mL. The method has been used to determine trace formaldehyde in fabric and in indoor air. The results thus obtained show good agreement with those determined by acetyl acetone method.     

Synthesis and characterization of intrinsic high‐barrier polyimide derived from a novel diamine monomer containing rigid planar moiety

A new diamine monomer containing rigid planar fluorenone moiety, 2,7‐bis(4‐aminophenyl)‐9H‐fluoren‐9‐one, was synthesized through Suzuki coupling reaction. Then it was reacted with pyromellitic dianhydride to obtain a polyimide (FOPPI) via a conventional two‐step polymerization process. The prepared FOPPI exhibits excellent barrier properties, with the oxygen transmission rate and water vapor transmission rate low to 3.2 cm³·m^?2·day^?1 and 2.9 g·m^?2·day^?1, respectively. The results of wide angle X‐ray diffractograms, positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the excellent barrier properties of FOPPI are mainly ascribed to the crystallinity, high chain rigidity, and low free volume, which are resulted from the rigid planar moiety. FOPPI also shows outstanding thermal stability and mechanical properties with a glass transition temperature up to 420 °C, 5% loss temperature of 607 °C, coefficient of thermal expansion of 1.28 ppm K^?1, and tensile strength of 150.8 MPa. The polyimide has an attractive potential application prospect in the flexible electronics encapsulation area. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2017 , 55 , 2373–2382     

Secure pairing with wearable devices by using ambient sound and light

Wearable devices usually work together with smart phones. To ensure only legitimate smart phones can read the data, they must conduct pairing to establish a shared key. Traditional pairing methods require that the pairing devices have a keyboard or screen for user interaction. However, due to the size limitation, keyboards or screens are hard to be installed in the wearable devices. To solve this problem, we propose a novel pairing method by using ambient sound and light. In this new scheme, any pairing request from smart phone will trigger wearable device vibration. Only after users press the confirm key on the device can the pairing process continues. Then pairing devices collect ambient sound and light at the predetermined time and establish a shared key by using the Diffie-Hellman protocol. To protect against potential man-in-the-middle attacks in the key establishment process, an improved interlock protocol with sound and light comparison is conducted to authenticate the key. If both the sound and light collected by the pairing devices are similar enough, the key is accepted. Otherwise, it is rejected. Compared with current context based pairing methods, our scheme does not impose strict synchronization on devices to collect ambient context data. Moreover, our scheme need not collect and exchange contextual information for multiple times to resist offline brute force attacks. The experimental results and security analysis prove the effectiveness of our scheme.     

Synthesis of Cyclohexene Carbonate Catalyzed by Polymer-Supported Catalysts

A series of polystyrene-divinylbenzene cross-linked resin (PS)–supported zinc chloride catalysts were prepared in this study. They can efficiently catalyze the solventless cycloaddition of cyclohexene oxide with carbon dioxide in the presence of tetrabutylammonium bromide (TBAB) as cocatalyst under relatively mild reaction conditions. The catalyst is composed of carrier, connecting arm, ligand, and active ingredient. The connecting arms of different lengths can significantly affect the catalytic activity. Among these catalysts, the one using diethylene glycol as connecting arm and 2-aminopyridine as ligand, named PS-DEG-2ap-ZnCl₂, showed the optimal catalytic performance. The yield of cyclohexene carbonate was 95.18% calculated by gas chromatographic analysis under the optimal conditions (393 K, 5 MPa, 6 h). Moreover, the catalyst showed good stability and reusability. From the viewpoint of industrial application, the catalyst is attractive because of its excellent catalytic efficiency on the synthesis of cyclohexene carbonate.     

Tissue distribution and excretion study of neopanaxadiol in rats by ultra‐performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry

Neopanaxadiol (NPD), a major ginsenoside in Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer (Araliaceae), was reported to have neuroprotective effect. In this study, a method of ultra‐performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/QTOF‐MS) was developed and validated for quantitative analysis of NPD in tissues, urine and feces, using liquid–liquid extraction (LLE) to isolate NPD from different biological samples, and chromatographic separation was performed on an Agilent Zorbax Stable Bond C₁₈ (2.1 × 50 mm, 1.8 µm) column with 0.1% formic acid in water and acetonitrile. All standard calibration curves were linear (all r² > 0.995) within the test range. After oral administration, NPD was extensively distributed to most of the tissues without long‐term accumulation. The higher levels were observed in stomach and intestine, followed by kidney and liver. Approximately 64.56 ± 20.32% of administered dose in feces and 0.0233 ± 0.0356% in urine were found within 96 h, which indicated that the major elimination route was fecal excretion. This analytical method was applied to the study of NPD distribution and excretion in rats after oral intake for the first time. The results we found here are helpful for us to understand the pharmacological effects of NPD, as well as its toxicity. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Chitosan/Ce(IV) redox polymerization‐based amplification for detection of DNA point mutation

Polymerization‐based signal amplification, a technique developed for use in rapid diagnostic tests, hinges on the ability to localize initiators as a function of interfacial binding events. We report here a new DNA detection method in which polymer growth in redox‐polymerization is used as a means to amplify detection signals. The introduction of biotin‐labeled chitosan (biotin‐CS) with highly dense amino groups into the polymerization amplification as macromolecular reducing agent, beneficially simplifies amplification operation, as well as, provides a large amount of initiation points to improve the sensitivity of detection. DNA hybridization, SA and biotin binding reactions led to the attachment of CS on a solid surface where specific DNA sequences were located. With the addition of the mixture containing monomer AM, crosslinker PEGDA and oxidant CAN onto the CS location, the growth of polymer films was triggered to render the corresponding spots readily distinguishable to the naked eye. Direct visualization of 0.21 fmol target DNA molecules of interest was demonstrated. Non‐small cell lung cancer p53 sequence was further selected as a proof‐of‐principle to detect DNA point mutation. The proposed method exhibited an efficient amplification performance for molecule detection, and paved a new way for visual diagnosis of biomolecules. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2016 , 54, 1929–1937     

Properties of cat-eye modulating retro-reflector and its application with piezoelectric transducer

Piezoelectric cat-eye modulating retro-reflector (MRR) is the core component of an acousto-optic retro-identification system. The influence of the optical parameters (link distance l, lens focal length f and the detector diameter r) to the cat-eye effect was analyzed theoretically and experimentally. A piezoelectric cat-eye retro-identification (PCERI) system was built, and an information transmission ratio of 2 kHz was achieved which can satisfy an access control system.     

Effect of quality control on the proliferation of the extract from Taraxacum mongolicum Hand.‐Mazz. in Lactobacillus plantarum

In recent years, the fingerprint of high‐performance liquid chromatography has been extensively applied in the identification and quality control of traditional Chinese medicine. It can be a potential protocol for assessing the authenticity, stability and consistency of traditional Chinese medicine and guaranteeing the expected biological activity. In this paper, a method using high‐performance liquid chromatography to identify and control the quality of the extract of Taraxacum mongolicum Hand.‐Mazz. (TME) was established. With this method, the correlation coefficients of the similarity of 10 batches were ≥0.994. The TME displayed a steady proliferative effect in Lactobacillus plantarum. In brief, this study successfully built a reliable, simple and efficient method to control and confirm the quality and the stability of biological activity of the TME.