De novo assembly of the seed transcriptome and search for potential EST-SSR markers for an endangered, economically important tree species: Elaeagnus mollis Diels

Seeds of Elaeagnus mollis(Elaeagnaceae) produce an edible oil and contain more vitamin E(Ve) than major oil-seed crops. Despite its economic value, there is no information on its genome sequence. Here, we used the Illumina platform to determine the seed transcriptome of E.mollis to identify the genes related to Ve biosynthesis and potential simple sequence repeat(SSR) markers. In total, 100,999 unigenes were obtained with an average length of 605 bp and N50 of 985 bp. Of these unigenes,52,256(51.7%) were annotated in at least one public database(NT, NR, PFAM, Swiss Prot, KOG, KO, and GO)in searches using blastn/x. The unigene annotation identified 15 unigenes encoding six enzymes(GGR, HPPD,HPT/VTE2, MPBQ-MT/VTE3, TC/VTE1, and c-TMT/VTE4) putatively involved in Ve biosynthesis. In addition,16,810 SSRs distributed in 14,057 unigenes were mined.Of these, 2820, 583, and 3423 SSRs were located in the 50–UTR, coding sequence(CDS), and 30–UTR regions,respectively, while the remaining 9984 SSRs had undetermined physical locations. The largest group of repeat motifs comprised mononucleotide repeats(70.76%), followed by dinucleotide(15.59%) and trinucleotide(12.10%)repeats. AG/CT(8.69%) and AAG/CTT(4.15%) were the main dinucleotide and trinucleotide repeats, respectively.Furthermore, 9597 SSR-specific primer pairs were designed. Among 100 primer pairs selected randomly to determine their usefulness, 53 proved to be efficient. To the our best of knowledge, this work is the first study of the E. mollis transcriptome and constitutes valuable genomics data for future genetic engineering studies to alter the amount of Ve. The identified potential EST-SSR markers can be used for population genetics studies and assistedbreeding of E. mollis.

Effect of Xenon Arc Lamp Irradiation on Properties of Polymethyl Methacrylate for Aviation

YB-2 aviation polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is irradiated in a xenon arc lamp weather resistance test chamber for 1620 hours. The tensile strength, light transmittance, surface morphology, relative molecular mass, infrared absorption spectrum and glass transition temperature (Tg) of PMMA exposed in xenon arc lamp for different durations are tested and characterized by universal testing machine, optical haze instrument, scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), gel permeation chromatograph (GPC), fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), so as to comprehensively analyze the influence of xenon arc lamp irradiation on the performance of PMMA. The results reveal that under the effect of 1620 hours xenon arc lamp irradiation and periodic spraying water, the light transmittance and glass transition temperature do not change significantly, and no new chemical group is produced. After irradiated 360 hours, tiny cracks occur in the surface of PMMA, indicating that they occur at a certain degree of degradation, meanwhile, the main chain may be broken and the relative molecular mass of surface of the material decreases. After exposure of 720 hours, the tensile strength decreases about 30%.

Low-loading gold in situ doped with sulfur by biomolecule-assisted approach for promoted electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction

For electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction(CO_(2)RR),CO_(2)-to-CO conversion is considered an ideal route towards carbon neutrality for practical applications.Gold(Au)is known as a promising catalyst with high selectivity for CO;however,it suffers from high cost and low mass-specific activity.In this study,we design and prepare a catalyst featuring uniform S-doped Au nanoparticles on N-doped carbon support(denoted as S-Au/NC)by an in situ synthesis strategy using biomolecules.The S-Au/NC displays high activity and selectivity for CO in CO_(2)RR with a Au loading as low as 0.4 wt.%.The Faradaic efficiency of CO(FECO)for S-Au/NC is above 95%at−0.75 V(vs.RHE);by contrast,the FECO of Au/NC(without S)is only 58%.The Tafel slope is 77.4 mV·dec−1,revealing a favorable kinetics process.Furthermore,S-Au/NC exhibits an excellent long-term stability for CO_(2)RR.Density functional theory(DFT)calculations reveal that the S dopant can boost the activity by reducing the free energy change of the potential-limiting step(formation of the*COOH intermediate).This work not only demonstrates a model catalyst featuring significantly reduced use of noble metals,but also establishes an in situ synthesis strategy for preparing high-performance catalysts.

Accelerated Ageing Tests for Evaluations of a Durability Performance of Glass-fiber Reinforcement Polyester Composites

The paper presented accelerated ageing test results of a durability study on ortho-phthalic anhydride-type unsaturated polyester resin （191#） and its glass-fiber reinforcement polyester composites （GFRPC）. The samples were exposed in an artificial xenon arc lamp ageing cell or a thermo-oxidative ageing cell. Morphology and gloss of the specimens were investigated by using a microscope and a gloss-meter, respectively. The tensile strength, bending strength and inter-laminar shear strength （ILSS） of GFRPC were tested before and after exposure, and were considered to evaluate the durability performance of this material. The polyester resin was analyzed by fourier transform infrared （FT-IR） spectroscopy. The results showed that the glossiness of the specimens got worse and some cracks appeared on their surface during the course of ageing, the tensile strength and bending strengths of the specimens first increased and then decreased. The ILSS of the composites decreased after they were aged in the xenon arc lamp cell, but increased while they were aged in the thermo-oxidative cell. The changes of these trends become more obvious during ageing in the xenon arc lamp cell, so the main influencing factor leading to the failure of this material is UV irradiation.