BiOBr nanosheets coupling with biomass carbon derived from locust leaves for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B

A series of BiOBr@biomass carbon derived from locust leaves materials(BiOBr@BC)were fabricated and the photocatalytic property was investigated for photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B(RhB)under visible light.The morphology,structure and photoelectrochemical properties of the photocatalysts were characterized by means of SEM,TEM,XRD,XPS,FT-IR,BET,PL,UVevis/DRS,and EIS techniques.The results showed that the introduction of BC significantly enhanced the photocatalytic activity.When the content of biomass carbon(BC)in a composite is 3%(based on the mass of BiOBr),the obtained BiOBr@BC-3 exhibits excellent photocatalytic activity,degrading 99%of RhB within 20 min.The excellent degradation efficiency after the introduction of BC can be attributed to the enhanced visible light absorption,narrower band gap,and fast electron-hole pair separation rate.The photocatalytic mechanism on the degradation of RhB was illustrated based on the radicals'trapping experiments and semiconductor energy band position.The proposed material is expected to be of significant application value in the field of wastewater treatment.

Cellular Oxidative Damage of HEK293T Cells Induced by Combination of CdCl_2 and Nano-TiO_2

This study investigated the conjoined cellular oxidative damage of human embryo kidney 293T（HEK293T） cells induced by cadmium chloride（CdCl2） and nanometer titanium dioxide（nano-TiO2）.RT-PCR technique was used to detect the expressions of Heme oxygenase-1（HO-1） and 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase（OGG1）.The activities of superoxide dismutase（SOD） and catalase enzyme（CAT） and concentrations of reactive oxygen species（ROS） and maldondialdehyde（MDA） were measured by different approaches.The results showed that CdCl2 and nano-TiO2 at a low concen-tration of 0.75 total toxic unit（TU） exerted an additive effects on HO-1 gene expression,CAT activities and MDA concentrations.When the total TU was increased to 1 or 1.25 TU,the interaction was syner-getic.Moreover,the mixture with high proportion of CdCl2 produced an additive effect on the OGG1 gene expression,and the interaction was changed to be synergetic when the concentration of CdCl2 was lower than or equal to that of nano-TiO2.Synergetic effects of CdCl2 and nano-TiO2 on cellular oxida-tive damage of HEK293T cells were found as indicated by the changes in the SOD activities and ROS concentrations.It was concluded that CdCl2 and nano-TiO2 exerts synergistic effects on the cellular oxidative damage of HEK293T cells,and the sensitivity of these indicators of oxidative damage varies with the proportion of CdCl2 and nano-TiO2 in the mixture.