This contribution is an attempt to explore the effectiveness of a series of newly obtained thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) as a toughening agent for modifying poly(lactic acid) (PLA). Selleck Cyclosporine A The TPEs, including ionically modified isotactic polypropylene-graft-PLA (iPP-g-PLA) copolymers with explicit graft length, graft density, and ionic group content, and an iPP-g-PLA copolymer with a very high molecular weight and explicit graft density, were elaborately designed and synthesized. The semicrystal or rubbery copolymer backbone originated from iPP was designed to improve the toughness and maintain a relatively high strength, while the grafted PLA side chain was to ensure a high level of compatibility with the PLA matrix. To obtain further enhancement in interfacial reinforcement, the imidazolium-based ionic group was also added during graft onto reaction. All of these graft copolymers were identified with randomly distributed PLA branches, bearing a very high molecular weight ((33-398) × 104) and very high PLA content (57.3-89.3 wt %). Unprecedentedly, with a very small amount of newly designed TPE, the modified PLA blends exhibited a significantly increased elongation at break (up to about 190%) and simultaneously retained the very high stiffness and excellent transparency. The nanometer-scale phase-separated particles with good compatibility and refractive index matching to the PLA matrix were demonstrated to play a crucial role in the excellent performance. The findings suggested that the newly designed iPP-g-PLA copolymers are very economic, promising, and effective modifying agents for developing highly transparent and tough PLA-based sustainable materials.Under catalyst- and additive-free conditions, a novel, convenient, environmentally friendly method was developed for the synthesis of 2-substituted benzothiazoles via the three-component one pot reaction from aromatic amines, aliphatic amines, and elemental sulfur. The reaction achieves double C-S and one C-N bond formations via cleavage of two C-N bonds and multiple C-H bonds. Furthermore, the mechanism research shows that DMSO acts as an oxidant in the cyclization reaction.The Freundlich isotherm is a classic model widely used to analyze the equilibrium of solution-phase adsorption. Further analysis of the adsorption mechanism has, however, been hindered by the empirical nature of the Freundlich isotherm. By deriving the Freundlich isotherm from the Gibbs equation, this study presents a novel interpretation of the classic model with theoretical definitions for model parameters. The new interpretation shows that the inverse of the Freundlich power is linearly correlated with the molecular weight of an adsorbate for congeners with similar chemical structures, revealing a previously unappreciated dependence of adsorption capacity on the molecular size of the adsorbate. The new interpretation also shows a linear correlation between the Freundlich power and the logarithm of the equilibrium constant, exposing the existence of an isocapacity concentration for the adsorption of congeners. The quantitative structure-activity relationships, known as QSARs, represented by these linear correlations are validated using experimental data reported in the literature, including the adsorption of aliphatic alcohols by an activated carbon and the adsorption of aromatic hydrocarbons adsorption by an aquitard soil. These results provide an unprecedented explanatory power to understanding experimental observations of solution-phase adsorption using the Freundlich isotherm.In this work, sensing and photocatalytic activities of green synthesized silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) are investigated. Ag NPs have been synthesized by the reduction of silver nitrate (AgNO3) using different leaf extracts. An optimum surface plasmon resonance (SPR) behavior is obtained for neem leaf extracts because of the presence of a high concentration of diterpenoids, as evidenced from gas chromatography mass spectroscopy results. The underlying mechanism for the formation of Ag NPs is highlighted. link2 The Ag NPs are in spherical shape and exhibit the hexagonal crystal phase and also show a good stability. The biosensing property of the Ag NPs is evaluated using mancozeb (MCZ) agro-fungicide, and the SPR peak position exhibited a linear response with MCZ concentration. The sensitivity is found to be 39.1 nm/mM. Further, the photocatalytic activity of Ag NPs is tested using 0.5 mM MCZ solution as a model under UV-visible illumination. It is observed that photocatalytic activity is caused by the formation of reactive oxygen species. Therefore, the green synthesized Ag NPs are potential candidates for biosensing and photocatalytic applications.Hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) and cyclic hydrofluorocarbons (c-HFCs) have been the most favored alternatives of the ozone depletion substances; however, because of the poor performance of the present chlorine/fluorine (Cl/F) exchange catalysts, the development and production of HFOs and c-HFCs are hindered. Here, we first report a novel and facile route to fabricate high-performance Cl/F exchange catalysts via a metal-organic framework (MOF) carbonization method. The MOF-derived catalyst not only has high selectivity but also can significantly lower the reaction temperature. Moreover, benefiting from the stable structure and coke-inhibiting ability, the MOF-derived catalyst has a long service life compared with the traditional precipitation method. Furthermore, the nanoscopic MOF-derived catalyst can greatly reduce the Cr dosage, which would help to minimize the risk of Cr contamination.(Li1-x Na x )2MnO3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.10) solid solutions were synthesized by a conventional solid-state reaction technique to investigate the relationship between the steric structure of the [MnO6] octahedra and coloration mechanisms. The color, optical properties, and crystal structure of the solid solutions were characterized. The (Li1-x Na x )2MnO3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.10) solid solutions absorbed the visible light at wavelengths shorter than 550 nm and around 680 nm. The former and latter optical absorption bands were attributed to the spin-allowed (4A2g → 4T1g, 4T2g) and spin-forbidden (4A2g → 2Eg, 2T1g) d-d transitions of tetravalent manganese ions, respectively. link3 The absorption band assigned to the 4A2g → 4T2g transition shifted toward longer wavelengths with the enlargement of the average [Mn(2)O6] bond distance by doping Na+. In contrast, the latter absorption bands did not shift but the absorption intensities increased due to the distortion of the [Mn(2)O6] octahedra. Consequently, the red color purity of the sample gradually increased with the increase in the Na+ concentration. Among the (Li1-x Na x )2MnO3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.10) samples synthesized in this study, the highest red color purity was obtained in the (Li0.93Na0.07)2MnO3 (hue angle h° = 39.1) sample. The results of this study provide important insights for the development of environment-friendly inorganic red pigments containing Mn4+ ions as a coloring source.We previously showed that commercially available rice peptide Oryza Peptide-P60 (OP60) increased the intracellular glutathione levels. This study aimed to evaluate the antioxidant potential of this peptide and assess its mechanism of action. Pretreatment of HepG2 cells with OP60 reduced the cytotoxicity caused by H2O2 or acetaminophen (APAP) (47.7 ± 1.3% or 12.2 ± 1.3% of the cytotoxicity for 5 mg/mL OP60 pretreatment compared to that in H2O2- or APAP-treated groups, respectively; p less then 0.01) through the restoration of glutathione homeostasis. Moreover, OP60 elevated the mRNA level of genes encoding heavy and light subunits of γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase (γ-GCS) by 2.9 ± 0.1-fold and 2.7 ± 0.2-fold (p less then 0.001), respectively, at 8 h and also increased the level of mRNA encoding other antioxidant enzymes. Besides, OP60 promoted Nrf2 nuclear translocation by 2.2 ± 0.3-fold (p less then 0.05) after 8 h. Conversely, knockdown of Nrf2 inhibited the increase of the intracellular glutathione levels and suppressed the induction of antioxidant enzyme expression by OP60. In animal studies, OP60 prevented APAP-induced liver injury by suppressing glutathione depletion (from 0.19 ± 0.02 mmol/mg protein to 0.90 ± 0.02 mmol/mg protein; p less then 0.01, by pretreatment with 500 mg/kg OP60) and increasing heavy subunit of γ-GCS and heme oxygenase-1 expression in the liver. Our results indicated that OP60 exhibits a cytoprotective effect via the Nrf2 signaling pathway and is one of the few peptides with excellent antioxidant properties.Although technological advances have greatly reduced the cost of DNA sequencing, sample preparation time and reagent costs remain the limiting factors for many studies. Based on low-cost targeted amplification, we developed an economical method for custom target library construction based on DNA nanoball (DNB) technology and two-step polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Here, we refer to this method as the two-step PCR, which was compared to traditional multiplex PCR methods in three aspects, data quality, efficiency, and specificity to humans. The results confirmed that two-step PCR reduces to finishing 128 sequencing libraries in only 2 h 24 min 59 s of the total PCR time and at a data utilization rate of 0.44 at a cost of approximately $1.70 per sample for targeted sequencing via the two-step PCR. The replacement of traditional multiplex PCR methods with this strategy makes the sample preparation process before sequencing relatively more cost-effective and further reduces the cost of next-generation sequencing (NGS). This method may also be free from the interference of other species and the limitations of sample type and DNA content. These findings reveal possibilities for broad applications of this approach in forensic research.In this work, we have developed a novel and facile method to prepare gallic acid-grafted chitosan/polysulfone (PS) composite membranes for dye removal from aqueous solutions. First, the gallic acid was grafted onto the eco-friendly chitosan through a free-radical grafting copolymerization reaction. Second, the gallic acid-grafted chitosan conjugates were codeposited onto the top surface of PS substrates by electrostatic interactions in order to transform the ultrafiltration membrane to the thin and defect-free nanofiltration membrane. The morphology and chemical composition of the as-prepared composite membranes were fully characterized by various spectroscopy and microscopy techniques. Moreover, after the optimization of preparation parameters, the obtained membrane displayed a high rejection of 97.2% for Congo red with a high permeance of 14.0 L h-1 m-2 bar-1. Furthermore, the composite membranes also exhibited good rejections for other dyes with different molecular weights such as Evan blue (97.3%), Acid red 94 (97.6%), and Alcian blue 8GX (98%) on the basis of size exclusion, accompanied with good permeance of 12.9, 11.9, and 10.9 L h-1 m-2 bar-1, respectively, which shows potential for scale-up industrial applications.Proteins of modern terrestrial organisms are composed of nearly 20 amino acids; however, the amino acid sets of primitive organisms may have contained fewer than 20 amino acids. Furthermore, the full set of 20 amino acids is not required by some proteins to encode their function. Indeed, simplified variants of Escherichia coli (E. coli) orotate phosphoribosyltransferase (OPRTase) constructed by Akanuma et al. and composed of a limited amino acid set exhibit significant catalytic activity for the growth of E. coli. However, its structural details are currently unclear. Here, we predict the structures of simplified variants of OPRTase using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and evaluate the accuracy of the MD simulations for simplified proteins. The three-dimensional structure of the wild-type was largely maintained in the simplified variants, but differences in the catalyst loop and C-terminal helix were observed. These results are considered sufficient to elucidate the differences in catalytic activity between the wild-type and simplified OPRTase variants.