Biofilm response and removal via the coupling of visible-light-driven photocatalysis and biodegradation in an environment of sulfamethoxazole and Cr(Ⅵ)

The widespread contamination of water systems with antibiotics and heavy metals has gained much attention.Intimately coupled visible-light-responsive photocatalysis and biodegradation(ICPB)provides a novel approach for removing such mixed pollutants.In ICPB,the photocatalysis products are biodegraded by a protected biofilm,leading to the mineralization of refractory organics.In the present study,the ICPB approach exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity and biodegradation,providing up to~1.27 times the degradation rate of sulfamethoxazole(SMX)and 1.16 times the Cr(Ⅵ)reduction rate of visiblelight-induced photocatalysis.Three-dimensional fluorescence analysis demonstrated the synergistic ICPB effects of photocatalysis and biodegradation for removing SMX and reducing Cr(Ⅵ).In addition,the toxicity of the SMX intermediates and Cr(Ⅵ)in the ICPB process significantly decreased.The use of MoS_(2)/CoS_(2)photocatalyst accelerated the separation of electrons and holes,with·O_(2)^(–)and h+attacking SMX and ereducing Cr(Ⅵ),providing an effective means for enhancing the removal and mineralization of these mixed pollutants via the ICPB technique.The microbial community results demonstrate that bacteria that are conducive to pollutant removal are were enriched by the acclimation and ICPB operation processes,thus significantly improving the performance of the ICPB system.

Identifying human body states by using a flexible integrated sensor

Flexible sensors are required to be lightweight,compatible with the skin,sufficiently sensitive,and easily integrated to extract various kinds of body vital signs during continuous healthcare monitoring in daily life.For this,a simple and low-cost flexible temperature and force sensor that uses only two carbon fiber beams as the sensing layer is reported in this work.This simple,flexible sensor can not only monitor skin temperature changes in real time but can also extract most pulse waves,including venous waves,from most parts of the human body.A pulse diagnostic glove containing three such flexible sensors was designed to simulate pulse diagnostic methods used in traditional Chinese medicine.Wearable equipment was also designed in which four flexible sensors were fixed onto different body parts(neck,chest,armpit,and fingertip)to simultaneously monitor body temperature,carotid pulse,fingertip artery pulse,and respiratory rate.Four important physiological indicators—body temperature(BT),blood pressure(BP),heart rate(HR),and respiratory rate(RR)—were extracted by the wearable equipment and analyzed to identify exercise,excited,tired,angry,and frightened body states.

Highly active bifunctional catalyst: Constructing FeWO_(4)-WO_(3) heterostructure for water and hydrazine oxidation at large current density

Developing high performance anode catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) at large current density is an efficient pathway to produce hydrogen. Herein, we synthesize a FeWO_(4)-WO_(3) heterostructure catalyst growing on nickel foam (FeWO_(4)-WO_(3)/NF) by a combination of hydrothermal and calcination method. It shows good catalytic activity with ultralow potentials for OER (ζ_(10) = 1.43 V, ζ_(1.000) = 1.56 V) and HzOR (ζ_(10) = −0.034 V, ζ_(1.000) = 0.164 V). Moreover, there is little performance degradation after being tested for _(10)0 h at 1,000 (OER) and _(10)0 (HzOR) mA·cm−2, indicating good stability. The superior performance could be attributed to the wolframite structure and heterostructure: The former provides a high electrical conductivity to ensure the electronic transfer capability, and the later induces interfacial electron redistribution to enhance the intrinsic activity and stability. The work offers a brand-new way to prepare good performance catalysts for OER and HzOR, especially at large current density.

Fiber-junction design for directional bending sensors

Flexible sensors in wearable electronics have become increasingly multifunctional due to the development of materials synthesis and structure design.In particular,structural design can not only add capabilities to sensors fabricated from existing available and normal materials,but also offer opportunities for the fabrication of sensors with certain desired functions.Here,we designed a series of fiber-junction structure models,in which two fibers were simply hooked to each other to form a junction on a flexible printed circuit,for fabrication of directional bending sensors.The value and direction of bending angle are related to the change in electronic signal by a theoretical expression,allowing us to employ a simple and practicable method to use available conductive fiber materials to fabricate high-sensitivity,high-resolution and directional bending sensors.In addition,these models are generally applicable,which have broad combination with different conductive fiber,and corresponding bending sensors all possess capability of directional identification.Furthermore,the capability of identifying directional bending was demonstrated by human motion monitoring such as joint bending and muscle contraction.