Porous carbon materials (PCMs) play a pivotal role in diverse applications, such as energy storage, adsorption, catalysis, environmental remediation, and microwave adsorption. The selection of carbon precursors, in particular, is crucial for tailoring porous structures with specific functionalities. Biomass, with its rich carbon feedstock, abundant availability, renewability, and versatile structures, has emerged as a promising precursor for porous carbon material synthesis. This review comprehensively summarizes the recent advances in biomass-derived porous carbon materials (BPCMs) encompassing synthetic strategy, morphology, structural composition, and multiple applications. We first review synthetic approaches aiming at regulating porosity, followed by morphological and composition features of BPCMs, with a special emphasis on elucidating the dimensional clarification and heteroatom doping effects. The discussion then extends to the wide-ranging applications of BPCMs, covering energy-related applications and CO2 adsorption to environmental remediation. Finally, the review outlines the existing challenges and prospects in the field. In summary, this review systematically describes BPCMs and provides valuable guidance for researchers to select and synthesize BPCMs that meet specific functional requirements.
Terpenoids are a diverse class of natural products widely used as pharmaceuticals, perfumes, flavors, and biofuels. Traditionally, terpenoids are obtained from natural sources, such as plants, but their production is limited by the insufficiency of resources and low yields of extraction. Microbial production of terpenoids has emerged as a promising alternative due to that it is sustainable and easy to scale up. This review aims to summarize recent advances in microbial production of terpenoids from inexpensive biomass-derived feedstocks. Metabolic pathways and key enzymes involved in terpenoid biosynthesis are introduced. Microorganisms that can utilize low-cost lignocellulosic feedstocks for terpenoid production are highlighted. The challenges and prospects faced by microbial terpenoid production are proposed. We believe that continuous progress in the fields of biomass transformation and synthetic biology will ultimately achieve industrial production of microbial terpenoids.
The challenge of breaking 5-5′ bonds in lignin, attributed to their high bonding energy, has prompted the development of a new transformation pathway. Biphenyl, an important model compound for lignin, contains these 5-5′ bonds, making it crucial to devise a strategy for their cleavage in lignin transformation. This study introduces a novel method for transforming biphenyl, involving selective hydrogenation to cyclohexylbenzene by Ni/SiO2 catalyst, followed by its oxidation to phenol and cyclohexanone through a radical mechanism. Results demonstrate that the catalysts with small particles have strong catalytic activity, while there is little difference in selectivity. The reason for the high selectivity of cyclohexylbenzene is due to the limited adsorption of cyclohexylbenzene on Ni/SiO2. This work presents a fresh approach to breaking resilient C—C bonds in lignin.
Selective activation of C-O bond is of fundamental importance in the precise conversion of oxygenates into value-added compounds in an atom-economic and sustainable manner, and meanwhile, the structurally well-defined dual-atoms catalysts (DACs) have been scarcely investigated in this field. In this study, a series of transition metal DACs anchored on nitrogen-doped graphene (TM2/NC, TM= Pt, Ir, Rh, Pd, Ru, Co, Ni and Cu) was constructed to make a comprehensive investigation of their selectivity in the hydrogenative transformation of furfuryl alcohol (FAL), an important biomass platform molecule, to 1,2-pentanediol (1,2-PeD) via selective cleavage of furanic C5-O bond, by density functional theory (DFT) calculations and microkinetic modeling. We found that Ir2/NC demonstrated a high selectivity for the cleavage of furanic C5-O bond to produce 1,2-PeD, while the production of THFAL or 1,5-pentanediol (1,5-PeD) on other TM2/NC catalysts are more favorable. Furthermore, we found that the selective C-O bond cleavage of FAL furan ring is affected by the orbital overlap between the d-orbitals of the anchored metal atoms and the p-orbitals of the adsorbed C atom in FAL, suggesting that the selectivity of the C-O bond cleavage is inextricably related with the electronic property of the anchored metals.
Two novel metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), JLU-MOF130 ([In(NH2−BDC)(Imi)(1H−Imi)]·DMF·H2O, NH2−H2BDC=2-aminobenzene-1,4-dicarboxylic acid, 1H−Imi=1H-imidazole, DMF=N,N-dimethylformamide) and JLU-MOF131 ([In(1,4-NDC)(Imi) (1H−Imi)]·DMF0.5, 1,4-H2NDC=1,4-naphthalene-dicarboxylic acid), were synthesized. JLU-MOF130 features a three-dimensional (3D) architecture with a neb topology. JLU-MOF131 is characterized by a two-dimensional (2D) structure with an sql topology. JLU-MOF130 has excellent fluorescence detection performance towards Fe3+, 2,4-dinitrophenol (2,4-DNP), and 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP), but the fluorescence detection performance of JLU-MOF131 is further improved by converting NH2−H2BDC to more conjugated 1,4-H2NDC. The Stern-Volmer (SV) quenching constant (K SV) values of JLU-MOF130 sensing 2,4-DNP, TNP, and Fe3+ are 5.24×104, 4.44×104, and 4.73×103 L/mol, respectively. The corresponding limit of detection (LOD) values are 1.17, 1.36, and 14.59 µmol/L. The K SV values for JLU-MOF131 are 1.26×105, 9.02×104, and 8.48×103 L/mol, and the corresponding LOD values are 0.35, 0.42, and 3.60 µmol/L, respectively. interestingly, the emission wavelengths of the two MOFs obviously shift as the fluorescence emission intensities decrease upon the addition of 2,4-DNP and TNP, which can be applied in selective detection.
Maximizing the sustainable recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) shows economic and environmental significance. This study recovered lithium cobaltate (LiCoO2, LCO) from spent LIBs cathode powder. The recovered LCO was then combined with NaHSO3 to remove refractory organic pollutants of carbamazepine (CBZ) in water. The degradation of CBZ reached 80.0% within 60 min, by 1O2, , and generated in the LCO/NaHSO3 reaction. The electron transfer between Co (III) and Co (II) was beneficial to the generation of free radicals. The LCO/NaHSO3 degraded CBZ effectively in both secondary outlet water and tap water. However, high concentrations of inorganic ions (Cl−, HCO3 −, HPO4 2−, SO4 2−, NO3 −) and natural organic matter (humic acid, HA) could inhibit the degradation of CBZ. After three cycles, the stability of the LCO/NaHSO3 system was demonstrated by the maintained high efficiency in the degradation of CBZ. The obtained data indicate that the LCO/NaHSO3 system holds great application potential in the field of advanced oxidation degradation of pollutants.
Lung cancer produces a high incidence of malignant tumors. There have been many studies on lung cancer using mass spectrometry (MS) technologies. However, most studies have focused on humoral samples. In this work, 26 pairs of tissue samples (tumor vs. para-tumor) from patients with lung cancer were analyzed using liquid chromatography-tandem MS (LC-MS/MS) with data-independent acquisition mode. In total, 3152 proteins were quantified from tissue samples with high confidence, including 189 up-regulated and 522 down-regulated proteins (tumor vs. para-tumor). In addition, 79 and 690 proteins were identified only in para-cancerous samples and cancerous samples, respectively. The results from bio-informatics tools indicated that altered proteins like PEBP1, HRG and LYZ could be ideal reservoirs for screening the potential biomarkers for lung cancer. It is believed these tissue-specific proteomics results will assist in the studies of lung cancer.
Polypeptoids are widely used in biological applications owing to their diverse functions and proteolytic stability. One type of polypeptoids, poly-N-methoxyethylglycine (P-Nmeg), has been found to possess remarkable hydrophilicity and notable properties in terms of protein, cell, and bacterial antifouling. However, the currently known synthesis methods of P-Nmeg include solid-phase synthesis, which is time-consuming and difficult to scale up, and N-substituted N-carboxyanhydride (NNCA) ring-opening polymerization, whose monomers were difficult to store. In this study, we used the chemical stable Nmeg N-phenoxycarbonyl (NPC) as the monomer, which was obtained without the use of highly toxic reactants, such as phosgene or phosphorus halide, to synthesize P-Nmeg under open-vessel conditions. By adding BnNH2 as an initiator at 80 °C, we can obtain controllable short chain length P-Nmeg with narrow dispersity.