Activity

Triclosan (TCS) and methyl-triclosan (MTCS), an environmental transformation product of biocide of TCS, have been detected in water, sediment, fish, and invertebrates. In this study, the key pathway perturbation in zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos exposed to TCS (300 μg/L) and TCS/MTCS mixture (300 μg/L TCS + 30 μg/L MTCS) was assessed by integrating the metabolomic and transcriptomic dysregulation. The differential expressed genes (DEGs) were obtained from the subtracted cDNA libraries by using the suppression subtractive hybridization and next-generation sequencing approach. The dysregulation of twenty-eight GO terms and four KEGG pathways, including oxidative phosphorylation and cardiac muscle contraction, were shown in the TCS treatment group, indicating that TCS could disrupt the mitochondrial inner membrane function by downshifting the electrochemical gradient. Meanwhile, the addition of MTCS in the exposure would cause fourteen additional significant KEGG pathway changes, demonstrating the different effects between two exposure. A pathway-based analysis using the identified DEGs and the altered metabolites in zebrafish embryos treated with TCS and TCS/MTCS mixture, collectively, has been applied. This study demonstrated that the integration of SSH-NGS and metabolomics could reveal toxic effects and potential diseases associated with the exposures of TCS and MTCS in aquatic environments.Plasma Cu-decorated TiO2-x/CoP particle-level hierarchical heterojunction photocatalysts with surface engineering were fabricated through solvothermal and solid phase reduction strategies. The CoP nanoparticles not only serve as a cost-effective cocatalyst but also provide abundant surface active sites, which facilitate rapid transfer of photogenerated carriers. The Ti3+ and oxygen vacancy defects extend photoresponse from UV to visible light region, and enhance the separation efficiency of photogenerated carriers efficiently. Because of surface plasma resonance (SPR) of Cu, Cu/TiO2-x/CoP with average particle size of 100-200 nm has significant photothermal effect, in which the temperature of Cu/TiO2-x/CoP is increased by 76 °C with irradiation for 30 s, ~ 8 times higher than that of the original TiO2. Cu/TiO2-x/CoP exhibits a high photocatalytic degradation rates for highly toxic 2,4-dichlorophenol (99.2%) and 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (98.5%), which higher 7.6 and 8.9 times than the initial TiO2, respectively. Thanks to the particle-level hierarchical heterojunction, the efficient surface engineering and SPR effect favoring the spatial charge separation, Cu/TiO2-x/CoP shows excellent photocatalytic-photothermal Performance. This particle-level hierarchical heterojunction architectural design provides a new insight for synthesizing particulate photocatalysts with high-efficiency.Owing to strengthened regulations toward vehicle emissions, the use of diesel particulate filter technology to reduce particulate matter emissions has attracted significant attention. To achieve low temperature oxidation of particulate matter, numerous studies on Ag/CeO2 catalysts for soot oxidation have been reported. Herein, Ag/La-CeO2 catalysts with different La contents are synthesized and compared to analyze the effect of La. Hydrogen temperature programmed reduction analysis confirms that the reducibility increases with an increase in the La content in La-CeO2. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Raman analysis confirm an increase of oxygen vacancies with La doping. Accordingly, the soot oxidation performances estimated by temperature programmed oxidation experiments increase with La doping. However, the catalytic activity of Ag/La-CeO2 exhibits a volcano trend. When an appropriate amount of La is incorporated in Ag/CeO2, peroxide generation and reducibility improve, thereby enhancing the soot oxidation performance. Conversely, the catalytic activities gradually decrease with excess La-doping. Scanning transmission electron microscopy analysis and density functional theory calculations confirm that excess amounts of La induce the sintering of Ag particles, which lead to the degradation of peroxide generation and reducibility of the catalysts. Consequently, an optimal amount of La incorporation on Ag/La-CeO2 results in the best soot oxidation performance.It is highly challenging to prepare durable and chemical resistant ultra-permeable membranes that can quickly separate small organic molecules like dye or inorganic salt in the complex textile wastewater industry. Here, side-chain sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) was synthesized and prepared the poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) – SPEEK nanofiltration (NF) membrane by a simple dipping coating and heat treatment. Single component filtration tests of the optimized membrane showed ultrahigh pure water flux (126 Lm-2 h-1 bar-1) and relatively low NaCl rejection (6.7%). Moreover, the negatively charged membrane exhibited excellent rejection of 98.8% toward Congo red (CR). The pure water flux was about 9 folds than that of commercial NF270 with comparable solutes rejection. The separation tests of CR and NaCl mixed solution at optimized conditions exhibited ultra-high permeation flux (34 Lm-2 h-1 bar-1), satisfactory dye (98.8%)/salt ( less then 10%) rejection and the separation performance remained stable after 10 cycles. Glycyrrhizin Finally, the contaminated membrane was washed with ethanol, the permeation flux and the CR rejection remained constant after several cycles, while the commercial NF1 membrane exhibited serious swelling only within one cycle. The prepared membrane exhibited good organic solvents resistance and antifouling properties. Thus, this work confirmed the PEEK-SPEEK NF membrane showed great potential in the sustainable treatment of textile wastewater.Cefazolin (CFZ) is widely present in the wastewater treatment effluents and in receiving waters and has caused severe impacts to the ecosystem. CFZ degradation by photocatalysis has attracted increasing attention due to its eco-friendly features. Herein, we presented a green synthesis strategy for a highly active BiOBr photocatalyst for CFZ removal with L-cysteine as a directing agent, and the role of thiol in cysteine for facets control and morphology regulation was discussed. We found that the photoactivity of cysteine-induced BiOBr nanosheet was much higher than those prepared by using arginine and glycine as directing agent. Further experiments showed that the cysteine preferentially coordinated Bi3+ with thiol rather than carboxyl. The strong interactions of thiol group with the external surface of the BiOBr crystals stabilize the small crystals that have high surface energy without the cysteine. Such a chemical environment favors forming BiOBr crystalline with small size of high surface area and oriented growth in [110] direction, which facilitates the photogenerated electron-hole separation to achieve significantly promoted photocatalytic activity.