Insights into constructing a stable and efficient microbial consortium

Microbial consortia are ubiquitous in nature,in which multiple microbial species cooperate to complete some important tasks such as lignocellulose degradation.Because of the advantages such as reduced metabolic burden and robustness to environment disturbances,developing a microbial consortium is a promising approach for valuable product synthesis,lignocellulose utilization,human health care,bioremediation and sustainable energy,etc.Despite the benefits,however,most artificial microbial consortia confront the problems of instability and low efficiency due to growth competition and metabolite incompatibility.To overcome these challenges,multiple strategies to design efficient synthetic microbial consortia have been reported.In this review,the interactions that determine the stability and performance of microbial consortia were described.Progress of artificial microbial consortia research was summarized,and the key strategies i.e.,spatial or temporal segregation,separated utilization of nutrients,nutrient cross-feeding and division of labor,that will be of great importance for achieving a stable and efficient microbial consortium were highlighted.Two novel advanced tools,signaling molecule systems and computational models,were also introduced and discussed.We believed that combining the universal cell–cell signaling molecule systems with computational models will be promising for synthetic microbial consortia construction in the future.

Recent advances of emerging tin disulfide for room temperature gas sensing

Effectively monitoring of hazardous gases has become increasingly important for ecological environment and human health.As an emerging component of two-dimensional materials,layered metal dichalcogenides are gaining significant attention due to their unique physical and chemical properties,thus catering well to the gas sensing application.Particularly,tin disulfide(SnS_(2))has been widely examined recently owing to its low-cost,earth-abundant,and environmental friendliness features,which meet the requirements of advanced sensing platforms.Herein,the booming research advancements of SnS_(2)-based gas sensors have been presented.Firstly,the basic attributes of SnS_(2) and its ability to detect various hazardous gases are introduced.Secondly,innovative approaches that have demonstrated the effectiveness of improving the room temperature sensing performance of SnS_(2) are summarized.Finally,the major challenges and future opportunities of SnS_(2) are also outlined.It is ultimately expected that this timely review could offer guidance for designing high-performance gas sensing materials and further push forward their potential applications.