Since the global outbreak of COVID-19, membrane technology for clinical treatments, including extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and protective masks and clothing, has attracted intense research attention for its irreplaceable abilities. Membrane research and applications are now playing an increasingly important role in various fields of life science. In addition to intrinsic properties such as size sieving, dissolution and diffusion, membranes are often endowed with additional functions as cell scaffolds, catalysts or sensors to satisfy the specific requirements of different clinical applications. In this review, we will introduce and discuss state-of-the-art membranes and their respective functions in four typical areas of life science: artificial organs, tissue engineering, in vitro blood diagnosis and medical support. Emphasis will be given to the description of certain specific functions required of membranes in each field to provide guidance for the selection and fabrication of the membrane material. The advantages and disadvantages of these membranes have been compared to indicate further development directions for different clinical applications. Finally, we propose challenges and outlooks for future development.

The emerging one-dimensional wire-shaped supercapacitors (SCs) with structural advantages of low mass/volume structural advantages hold great interests in wearable electronic engineering. Although graphene fiber (GF) has full of vigor and tremendous potentiality as promising linear electrodefor wire-shaped SCs, simultaneously achieving its facile fabrication process and satisfactory electrochemical performance still remains challenging to date. Herein, two novel types of graphene hybrid fibers, namely ferroferric oxide dots (FODs)@GF and N-doped carbon polyhedrons (NCPs)@GF, have been proposed via a simple and efficient chemical reduction-induced fabrication. Synergistically coupling the electroactive units (FODs and NCPs) with conductive graphene nanosheets endows the fiber-shaped architecture with boosted electrochemical activity, high flexibility and structural integrity. The resultant FODs@GF and NCPs@GF hybrid fibers as linear electrodes both exhibit excellent electrochemical behaviors, including large volumetric specific capacitance, good rate capability, as well as favorable electrochemical kinetics in ionic liquid electrolyte. Based on such two linear electrodes and ionogel electrolyte, a high-performance wire-shaped SC is effectively assembled with ultrahigh volumetric energy density (26.9 mW·h·cm^-3), volumetric power density (4900 mW·cm^-3) and strong durability over 10,000 cycles under straight/bending states. Furthermore, the assembled wire-shaped SC with excellent flexibility and weavability acts as efficient energy storage device for the application in wearable electronics.

The design of Co-Mn composite oxides catalysts derived from MOF is significant for catalytic combustion of toluene. Here, a series of M-Co_aMn_bO_x, with enhanced catalytic properties compared with that of M-Co₃O₄, were successfully prepared through pyrolysis of Mn-doped Co-MOF. The as-synthesized M-Co₁Mn₁O_x (Co:Mn = 1:1) exhibits an optimal catalytic activity with 90% toluene conversion reached at 227 ℃, which benefits from the increase of Co³⁺, O_ads and the synergistic effect between Mn and Co. According to the analysis of the in situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy, toluene could be degraded easier on M-Co₁Mn₁O_x with lower activation energy than M-Co₃O₄. The main intermediate products are benzaldehyde, benzoic acid, anhydride, and maleate species. Those findings reveal the value of Mn doping for improved activity of toluene oxidation on MOF derived Co₃O₄, which provide a feasible method for the construction of toluene-oxidation catalysts.

Conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) are a unique class of porous organic materials, which are constructed with π-conjugation structures leading to intrinsic micropores. The CMPs properties such as high surface area, intrinsic and rich micropores, interlocking and rigid structure, extensive π-conjugation and tunable band-gap, chemical and thermal stability, together with tailored functionalities, contribute to its abundant potential for application in fields such as photocatalysis, optoelectronics, energy storage, and chemical sensors. Recently, CMPs have gained importance in the field of membranes for chemical separation. In this review, we briefly discuss the historical development of CMPs, followed by a detailed description of the progress in state-of-the-art design, preparation, and application of CMPs in membranes. Additionally, we provide inference on the future prospects of CMPs as membranes.

In this study, biochar (BC) derived from pomelo was prepared via a high-temperature calcination method to modify the graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) to synthesize the BC/g-C₃N₄ composite for the degradation of the tetracycline (TC) antibiotic under visible light irradiation. The experimental results exhibit that the optimal feeding weight ratio of biochar/urea is 0.03:1 in BC/g-C₃N₄ composite could show the best photocatalytic activity with the degradation rate of tetracycline is 83% in 100?min irradiation. The improvement of photocatalytic activity is mainly attributed to the following two points: (i) the strong bonding with π-π stacking between BC and g-C₃N₄ make the photogenerated electrons of light-excited g-C₃N₄ transfer to BC, quickly and improve the separation efficiency of carriers; (ii) the introduction of BC reduces the distance for photogenerated electrons to migrate to the surface and increases the specific surface area for providing more active sites. This study provides a sustainable, economical and promising method for the synthesis of photocatalytic materials their application to wastewater treatment.

Studies on the degradation process of waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) have become increasingly mature, but there are relatively few studies on the separation of degradation products. The products contain many components and the separation of which is difficult. Therefore, the study on phase equilibrium thermodynamics of bis-2-hydroxyethyl terephthalate (BHET) is of great theoretical significance and practical value to provide basic data for the BHET crystallization separation. In this work, the degraded products were purified and characterized. The solubility of BHET in methanol, ethanol, ethylene glycol, water and the mixture of ethylene glycol + water were determined by static method. The experimental results were correlated with different models, such as ideal solution (IS) model, λh equation, Apelblat equation and NRTL model. Based on the van't Hoff equation, the mixing Gibbs energy, enthalpy and entropy were calculated. From this work, the basic data which can be used to guide the crystallization process of BHET were obtained, including solubility data, correlation model and thermodynamic properties.

Enantiopure vicinal diols are important building blocks used in the synthesis of fine chemicals and pharmaceutical compounds. Diol dehydrogenase (DDH) mediated stereoselective oxidation of racemic vicinal is an efficient way to prepare enantiopure vicinal diols. In this study, four new bacterial DDHs (AnDDH from Anoxybacillus sp. P3H1B, HcDDH from Hazenella coriacea, GzDDH from Geobacillus zalihae and LwDDH from Leptotrichia wadei) were mined from the GenBank database and expressed in E. coli T7. The four DDHs were purified and biochemically characterized for oxidation activity toward (R)-1-phenyl-1,2-ethanediol, with the optimal reaction condition of pH9.0 (AnDDH), 10.0 (HcDDH) and 11.0 (GzDDH and LwDDH) and the temperatures at 40℃ (AnDDH), 50℃ (HcDDH) and 60℃ (GzDDH and LwDDH), respectively. The four enzymes were stable at the pH from 7.0 to 9.0 and below 40℃. Kinetic parameters of four DDHs showed that the HcDDH from Hazenella coriacea had high activity toward a broad range of vicinal diols. A series of racemic vicinal diols were successfully resolved by recombinant E. coli (HcDDH-NOX) resting cells co-expression of an NADH oxidase (NOX), affording (S)-diols and (1S, 2S)-trans-diols in ≥ 99% ee. The synthetic potential of HcDDH was proved by E. coli (HcDDH-NOX) via kinetic resolution of racemic trans-1,2-indandiol on a 100 ml scale reaction, (S, S)-trans-1,2-indandiol was prepared in 46.7% yield and >99% ee. In addition, asymmetric reduction of four α-hydroxy ketones (10-300 mmol·L^-1) by E. coli (HcDDH-GDH) resting cells resulted in >99% ee and 69-98% yields of (R)-vicinal diols. The current research expands the toolbox of DDHs to synthesize chiral vicinal diols and demonstrated that the mined HcDDH is a potential enzyme in the synthesis of a broad range of chiral vicinal diols.

A redox process combining propane dehydrogenation (PDH) with selective hydrogen combustion (SHC) is proposed, modeled, simulated, and optimized. In this process, PDH and SHC catalysts are physically mixed in a fixed-bed reactor, so that the two reactions proceed simultaneously. The redox process can be up to 177.0% higher in propylene yield than the conventional process where only PDH catalysts are packed in the reactor. The reason is twofold:firstly, SHC reaction consumes hydrogen and then shifts PDH reaction equilibrium towards propylene; secondly, SHC reaction provides much heat to drive the highly endothermic PDH reaction. Considering propylene yield, operating time, and other factors, the preferable operating conditions for the redox process are a feed temperature of 973 K, a feed pressure of 0.1 MPa, and a mole ratio of H₂ to C₃H₈ of 0.15, and the optimal mass fraction of PDH catalyst is 0.5. This work should provide some useful guidance for the development of redox processes for propane dehydrogenation.

Three-dimensional graphene-based aerogels have promising applications in oil adsorption and environmental restoration. However, current research of graphene-based aerogels is often hindered by high preparation cost, poor mechanical properties and low recycling efficiency. Here, super-elastic graphene aerogel (SGA) was prepared through one-step freezing and twice hydrothermal reduction followed by drying under ambient pressure. The simple atmospheric drying provides a possibility for large-scale preparation of high performance graphene-based aerogels. The prepared SGA not only has the ability of highly repeatable compression rebound, but also exhibits excellent oil adsorption performance. And the overall performance of SGA is better than most of graphene-based aerogels prepared by freeze drying. After the SGA was cyclically compressed with 70% strain for 300 times, it can return to the original shape and height substantially. SGA retained about 90% of the initial adsorption capacity after 50 cycles of adsorption and compression regeneration for cyclohexane.

The kinetic behavior of esterification between methacrylic acid and methanol catalyzed by NKC-9 resin was studied in a fixed bed reactor. The reaction was conducted in the temperature range of 323.15 to 368.15 K with the molar ratio of reactants from 0.8 to 1.4 under certain pressure. The measurement data were regression with the pseudo-homogeneous (P-H), Eley-Rideal (E-R), and Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) heterogeneous kinetic models. Independent adsorption experiments were implemented to gain the adsorption equilibrium constants of four components. Among the above three models, the L-H model exhibited the best fitting results. The stability of NKC-9 was evaluated by long-term running with the yield of methyl methacrylate no decrease during 3000 h operation. The structure and physicochemical properties of the new and used catalyst were performed by several characterizations including thermogravimetric analysis (TG), scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and so on.

Vortices motion in the anisotropic turbulent flow of cyclones makes a vital impact on flow stability and collection performance. Nevertheless, there remains a lack of clarity in the overall feature of vortices motion. In this work, a numerical analysis was conducted to clarify the complex motion of the vortex core in a cyclone separator. The validity of the numerical model was demonstrated by comparing the computational results with experimental data in the literature. As revealed by the results, the vortex core not only has a precession motion about the geometrical center axis but also does a nutation motion in the axial direction. The frequencies of the precession motions show two main peaks. And the magnitudes of the precession and nutation motions have non-uniform distributions in the cyclone. Moreover, the precession-nutation motions of the vortex cores exhibit a similar fluctuant pattern to the dust ring on the separator wall. The inlet gas velocity and the inlet solid loading show vital effects on the magnitudes and frequencies of precession and nutation motion.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenator (ECMO) has been in development for nearly 70 years, and the oxygenator has gone through several generations of optimizations, with advances from bubble oxygenators to membrane oxygenators leading to more and more widespread use of ECMO. Membrane is the core of a ECMO system and the working mechanism of membrane oxygenator depends on the membrane material, from PDMS flat membrane to PMP hollow fiber membrane, which have experienced three generations. Blood compatibility on the surface of the membrane material is very vital, which directly determines the use duration of the oxygenator and can reduce the occurrence of complications. The mechanism of mass transfer is the basis of oxygenator operation and optimization. This review summarizes the membrane development history and preparation technology, modification approaches and mass transfer theory in the process of oxygen and blood exchange. We hoped that this review will provide more ideas for the study of gas blood exchange membrane.

Recently, there has been considerable interest in the use of microchannel reactors for hydrometallurgy of rare earths (REs). Here, a novel integrated microchannel reactor based on the hollow-strut SiC foam material is presented and demonstrated to extract Ce³⁺ and Pr³⁺ using 2-ethylhexyl phosphoric acid mono-2-ethylhexyl ester (P507) as the extractant. The typical three-dimensional reticulated structure of the hollow-strut SiC foam was characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray micro computed tomography. Since the reactor’s structure plays a key role in fluid mixing and mass diffusion during the extraction process, the structure-performance relationship of the foam was studied by extraction experiments combined with numerical simulations. Using the foam with the optimal structure, the influence of the flow rate Q₀ of the two liquid phases on the extraction efficiency η and overall volume mass transfer coefficient K_La was discussed. For both RE ions, with increasing Q₀, η decreases while K_La increases. For the total flow rate of the two phases of 4 ml·min^-1, the η values of Pr³⁺ and Ce³⁺ reached 98.7% and 97.0%, respectively. For the total flow rate of 36 ml·min^-1 which was much higher than that of many other microchannel reactors reported in the literatures, the η values of Pr³⁺ and Ce³⁺ still reached 92.2% and 86.9%, respectively, and the K_La values of Pr³⁺ and Ce³⁺ were 0.198 and 0.161 s^-1, respectively, similar to the high values reported for other microchannel reactors studied in previous work. These findings indicate that the hollow-strut SiC foam microchannel reactor is suitable for use in REs extraction.

The liquid phase direct ammoximation of 5-isooctyl salicylaldehyde with ammonia and hydrogen peroxide was studied using titanium silicalite-1 (TS-1) catalyst. The effect of reaction parameters on the yield of the product was studied, which include reaction temperature, reaction time, molar ratio of ammonia to aldehyde as well as hydrogen peroxide to aldehyde. The influence of the amount of catalyst on the reaction results was also investigated. The maximum 5-isooctyl salicylaldoxime yield of 98.76% was achieved under the following optimal reaction conditions:the molar ratio of 5-isooctylaldehyde to hydrogen peroxide and ammonia of 1:1.4:1.6, the reaction temperature of 70℃, the amount of TS-1 of 17.5 g·mol^-1 (5-isooctyl salicylaldehyde), and the feeding time of 2 h. This method has the mild reaction conditions and avoids the shortcomings of traditional methods. Moreover, useless inorganic salts by-products are avoided, and there is no environmental pollution.

The crystallization has significant influence on fluidity of slag and slag discharge of entrained-flow-bed (EFB) gasifier. The crystallization characteristics and fluidity of five synthetic slags with different MgO/CaO ratios prepared on the basis of the range of oxide contents of Zhundong coal ash were investigated in this study. The results show that with the MgO/CaO ratio increase, the initial crystallization temperature increases, and the main temperature range of crystallization ratio growth moves to higher temperature range gradually which causes T_p25 (T_p25 is the temperature corresponding to the viscosity of 25 Pa·s) to increase. Mg-rich crystals are formed preferentially than Ca-rich crystals when adding the same amount of MgO and CaO during cooling. The effective slagging operating temperature range decrease from 217 ℃ for the slag with a 0:4 MgO/CaO ratio to 44 ℃ for the slag with a 4:0 MgO/CaO ratio with the MgO/CaO ratio increase. The slags with 2:2 and 1:3 MgO/CaO ratios show similar effective slagging operating temperature range, T_p25 and the temperature corresponding to the viscosity of 2 Pa·s. However, compared with the slag with a 1:3 MgO/CaO ratio, the crystallization ratio and rate of slag with a 2:2 MgO/CaO ratio are lower within lower temperature range (1300–1200 ℃), causing its lower critical viscosity temperature and wider actual operating temperature range. Of the five slags, the widest effective slagging operating temperature range and the lowest T_p25 of the slag with a 0:4 MgO/CaO ratio due to its low crystallization ratio, and wider actual operating temperature range of the slag with a 2:2 MgO/CaO ratio make the two slags suitable for slag discharge of EFB gasifier.

In this study, different sizes of microcapsules with alginate and bentonite as natural macromolecular materials were prepared to investigate the release property of Pseudomonas putida Rs-198. The characteristics of three microcapsules were evaluated by SEM, FTIR, TG-DSC, XRD and wall thickness. The sizes of three microcapsules (MA, MB, and MC) were 1270.50, 831.79 and 42.52?μm, respectively. First, the encapsulation efficiency of three MA, MB, and MC microcapsules were 82.20%, 90.41%, and 85.84%, respectively. Second, the contact angles of MA and MB samples were similar, while smaller microcapsules MC have higher contact angle (85.05°), indicating poor hydrophilia and decreasing the swelling degrees. Third, the release cumulant of Rs-198 and macromolecule BSA linear stage was fitted to self-established mathematic model. Results show that the microcapsule size had a considerably positive effect on release detail. The large microcapsule possessed strong leak-tightness for Rs-198 as a slow-release microbial agent. Furthermore, the porosity of microcapsules determined their swelling and release and may affect bacterial growth and survival. In conclusion, the Rs-198 microcapsule with different sizes will be pertinently selected based on the characteristics of agricultural production requirements.

This study investigated catalytic decomposition and mass transfer of aqueous ozone promoted by Fe-Mn-Cu/γ-Al₂O₃ (Cat) in a rotating packed bed (RPB) for the first time. The results showed that the value of the overall decomposition rate constant of ozone (K_c) and overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient (K_La) are 4.28×10^-3 s^-1 and 11.60×10^-3 s^-1 respectively at an initial pH of 6, β of 40, of 60 mg·L^-1 and Q_L of 85 L·h^-1 in deionized water, respectively. Meanwhile, the K_c and K_La values of Fenhe water are 0.88×10^-3 s^-1 and 2.51×10^-3 s^-1 lower than deionized water, respectively. In addition, the K_c and K_La values in deionized water for the Cat/O₃-RPB system are 44.86% and 47.41% higher than that for the Cat/O₃-BR (bubbling reactor) system, respectively, indicating that the high gravity technology can facilitate the decomposition and mass transfer of ozone in heterogeneous catalytic ozonation and provide some insights into the industrial wastewater.

A spray-drying assisted solid-state method to prepare spherical layer-structured H₂TiO₃ ion sieve (LSTIS) particles is reported herein. The effects of synthesis parameters (calcination temperature, calcination time, and the lithium-titanium molar ratio) on adsorption–desorption performance (the delithiation ratio, titanium dissolution loss, and the adsorption capacity) were investigated. The as-prepared LSTIS exhibited an equilibrium adsorption capacity of 30.08 mg·g^-1 (average of 25.85 mg·g^-1 over 5 cycles) and ultra-low titanium dissolution loss of less than 0.12% (average of 0.086% over 5 cycles). The LSTIS showed excellent selectivity toward Li⁺ in Na⁺, K⁺, Mg²⁺, and Ca²⁺ coexisting saline solutions where its adsorption capacity reached 27.45 mg·g^-1 and the separation factors of Li⁺ over the coexisting cations exceeded 100. The data suggests that the LSTIS is promising to competitively enrich Li⁺ from saline solutions.

The separation of propylene and propane is an important but challenging process, primarily achieved through energy-intensive distillation technology in the petrochemical industry. Here, we reported two natural C₄ linkers based metal–organic frameworks (MIP-202 and MIP-203) for C₃H₆/C₃H₈ separation. Adsorption isotherms and selectivity calculations were performed to study the adsorption performance for C₃H₆/C₃H₈ separation. Results show that C₃H₆/C₃H₈ uptake ratios (298 K, 100 kPa) for MIP-202 and MIP-203 are 2.34 and 7.4, respectively. C₃H₆/C₃H₈ uptake ratio (303 K, 100 kPa) for MIP-203 is up to 50.0. The mechanism for enhanced separation performance of C₃H₆/C₃H₈ on MIP-203 at higher temperature (303 K) was revealed by the in situ PXRD characterization. The adsorption selectivities of C₃H₆/C₃H₈ on MIP-202 and MIP-203 (298 K, 100 kPa) are 8.8 and 551.4, respectively. The mechanism for the preferential adsorption of C₃H₆ over C₃H₈ in MIP-202 and MIP-203 was revealed by the Monte Carlo simulation. The cost of organic ligands for MIP-202 and MIP-203 was lower than that of organic ligands for those top-performance MOFs. Our work sets a new benchmark for C₃H₆ sorbents with high adsorption selectivities.

Though membrane distillation (MD) has gained more and more attention in the field of desalination, the wetting phenomenon was still a non-negligible problem. In this work, a method combined dip-coating and UV in situ polymerization for preparing hydrophobic/hydrophilic perfluoropolyether (PFPE)/polyvinylidene fluoride composite membranes. This composite membrane consisted of a top thin hydrophobic coating layer and hydrophilic substrate membrane. In terms of anti-wetting properties, contact angle and liquid entry pressure of all composite membranes (except for those based on 0.45 μm) exceeded 160° and 0.3 MPa, respectively. In particular, the desalination performance was tested in vacuum membrane distillation tests by feeding 3.5% (mass) saline solution (NaCl) at 60 ℃. The composite membranes with larger support pore size and lower PFPE content had higher membrane distillation flux. And for stability tests (testing the 0.22 μm membrane coated by 5% (mass) PFPE), the highest MD flux 29.08 kg·m^-2·h^-1 and stable salt rejection (over 99.99%) during the period. Except that, the effects of coating material concentration and pore sizes of substrate membrane were also investigated for surface morphology and topography, porosity, mechanical strength and pore size characteristics. This work provided a simple and effective alternative to prepare excellent hydrophobic composite membranes for MD applications.