Solid physical properties are vital for the design, optimization, and scale-up of gas–liquid–solid multiphase reactors. The complex and interactional effects of the solid physical properties, including particle diameter, density, wettability, and sphericity, on the hydrodynamic behaviors in a new external airlift loop reactor (EALR) integrating mixing and separation are decoupled in this work. Two semi-empirical equations are proposed and validated to predict the overall gas holdup and liquid circulating velocity satisfactorily, and then the individual influence of such solid physical properties is further investigated. The results demonstrate that both the overall gas holdup in the riser and the liquid circulating velocity in the downcomer increase with the contact angle, but decrease with particle size, density, and sphericity. Additionally, the impact of the particle size on the liquid circulating velocity is also profoundly revealed on a micro-level considering the particle size distribution. Moreover, the axial solid concentration distribution is discussed, and the uniformity of the slurry is described by the mixing index of the solid particles. The results show that a more homogeneous mixture can be achieved by adding finer particles other than attaining violent turbulence. Therefore, this work lays a foundation for the design, scale-up, and industrialization of the EALRs.

Rotating packed bed (RPB) is one of the most effective gas–liquid mass transfer enhancement reactors, its effective specific mass transfer area (a_e) is critical to understand the mass transfer process. By using the NaOH–CO₂ chemical absorption method, the a_e values of three RPB reactors with different rotor sizes were measured under different operation conditions. The results showed that the high gravity factor and liquid flow rate were major affecting factors, while the gas flow rate exhibited minor influence. The radius of packing is the dominant equipment factor to affect a_e value. The results indicated that the contact area depends on the dispersion of the liquid phase, thus the centrifugal force of rotating packed bed greatly influenced the a_e value. Moreover, the measured a_e/a_p (effective specific mass transfer area/specific surface area of packing) values were fitted with dimensionless correlation formulas. The unified correlation formula with dimensionless bed size parameter can well predict the experimental data and the prediction errors were within 15%.

The conventional distillation is hard to accomplish the separation of acetonitrile/ethyl acetate/n-hexane mixture. Herein, a heterogeneous azeotropic distillation (HAD) without adding entrainer is proposed to separate ternary mixture. The proposed scheme is optimized via the simulated annealing algorithm and minimum total annual cost (TAC) is used as objective functions. To minimize energy consumption, heat pump is added on the basis of optimal heterogeneous azeotropic distillation and heat integration technology is used to further improve the energy recovery. The TAC, gas emission, energy consumption and exergy destruction are used to discuss the economy and environmental protection of processes. Among all the processes, the heat pump with higher preheating temperature (HPT) assisted HAD process by combining with heat integration (HAD-HPT-HI) has best performances on economic, environment, energy and exergy. Compared with conventional HAD process, the HAD-HPT-HI achieves the reductions of 52.17%, 68.86%, 65.87% and 65.46% on TAC, total energy consumption, gas emissions and exergy destruction, respectively.

Porous carbon sheets have wide application prospects in many fields, especially in energy storage of supercapacitor due to the features combining both 2D structure and porous architectures. Herein, a self-deposition approach is proposed to obtain N-doped mesoporous carbon nanosheets (N-MCNs), using 3-aminophenol (3-AF) as precursor and Mg(OH)₂ sheet as hard template. This process realizes the direct carbon formation using 3-AF monomer as carbon precursor under the catalysis of hard template avoiding the polymerization and utilization of solvent. The mass ratio of 3-AF to Mg(OH)₂ plays an important role in determining the pore structures and the resulting capacitance behavior. The results show that N-MCNs with a mass ratio of 3-AF and Mg(OH)₂ of 1:1 have good electrochemical behavior for supercapacitors. This N-MCNs based electrode exhibits a high capacitance of 240 F·g^-1 at 1 A·g^-1, good rate performance (75.4% retention ratio at 20 A·g^-1), and high cycling stability with 98.3% initial capacitance retained after 10000 cycles. Symmetric supercapacitors on N-MCNs achieve energy density of 18.2 W·h·kg^-1 and power density of 0.4 kW·kg^-1 operated within a wide potential range of 0–1.6 V in 1.0 mol·L^-1 Na₂SO₄ solution, exhibiting its potential for electrode materials with high performance.

In atmospheric conditions, Cu^I is easily oxidized to Cu^II due to the coexistence of moisture and oxygen. The poor oxidation inhibition of Cu^I restricts the practical application of Cu^I-containing materials. Herein we introduce an approach to construct a superhydrophobic microenvironment in Cu^I-functionalized metal–organic frameworks by coordinatedly grafting organic amine compounds onto open metal sites (OMSs), which can hinder the accessibility of moisture to pores thereby enhancing the stability of Cu^I. As a proof of concept, MIL-101(Cr) with abundant OMSs and octadecylamine (OA) with long hydrophobic alkyl groups are used as carrier and surface coating. As superhydrophobic porous materials, the resultant Cu^IM-OA exhibits improved Cu^I stability in addition to retaining high crystallinity and intact porosity while almost all Cu^I is oxidized in hydrophilic Cu^IM upon exposure in a humid atmosphere for 30 h. Cu^IM-OA owns excellent adsorption desulfurization performance (ADS) with regard to thiophene, benzothiophene, and 4,6-dimethyl dibenzothiophene. Even from hydrated fuel, the adsorption performance of Cu^IM-OA maintains well while the adsorption capacity of Cu^IM decreases to 7% after 4 cycles. The remarkable moisture resistance, Cu^I stability, and high porosity make the current adsorbent Cu^IM-OA highly promising for the practical ADS process.

Adding Na₂CO₃ to the NaHCO₃ cooling crystallizer, using the common ion effect to promote crystallization and improve product morphology, is a new process recently proposed in the literature. However, the mechanism of the impact of Na₂CO₃ on the crystal morphology is still indeterminate. In this work, the crystallization of NaHCO₃ in water and Na₂CO₃–NaHCO₃ aqueous solution was investigated by experiments and molecular dynamics simulations (MD). The crystallization results demonstrate that the morphology of NaHCO₃ crystal changed gradually from needle-like to flake structure with the addition of Na₂CO₃. The simulation results indicate that the layer docking model and the modified attachment energy formula without considering the roughness of crystal surface can obtain the crystal morphology in agreement with the experimental results, but the lower molecules of the crystal layer have to be fixed during MD. Thermodynamic calculation of the NaHCO₃ crystallization process verifies that the common ion effect from Na⁺ and the ionization equilibrium transformation from CO₃^2– jointly promote the precipitation of NaHCO₃ crystal. The radial distribution function analysis indicates that the oxygen atoms of Na₂CO₃ formed strong hydrogen bonds with the hydrogen atoms of the (0 1 1) face, which weakened the hydration of water molecules at the crystal surface, resulting in a significant change in the attachment energy of this crystal surface. In addition, Na⁺ and CO₃^2– are more likely to accumulate on the (0 1 1) face, resulting in the fastest growth rate on this crystal surface, which eventually leads to a change in crystal morphology from needle-like to flake-like.

Although hydrophilic membranes are desired for reducing resistance to water permeation, hydrophilic surfaces are not used in the water-in-oil (W/O) membrane emulsification process because water spreads on the hydrophilic surface without forming droplets. Here, we report that a hydrophilic ceramic membrane can form a hydrophobic interface in diesel at a higher temperature; interestingly, the experiments show that the contact angle increases when the temperature rises. The hydrophilic membrane surface evolves into a hydrophobic interface, particularly near the boiling point of water, resulting in a water contact angle of 147.5° ±1.2°. This work established a method for preparing W/O monodispersed emulsions by direct emulsification of hydrophilic ceramic membranes at a temperature close to the boiling point of water. Additionally, it made high flux of membrane emulsification of monodispersed W/O emulsions possible, which satisfied the industrial requirements of fluidized catalytic cracking in the petrochemical industry.

Sinomenine hydrochloride is generally produced from Caulis Sinomenii. At present, the purification process in industrial production suffers from large amount of solid waste, high solvent toxicity, and low sinomenine hydrochloride yield. In this study, a new purification process for sinomenine hydrochloride was proposed by using the extract obtained from acid extraction of Caulis Sinomenii as the starting material. The process included the following steps: alkalization, extraction, water washing, acid–water stripping, drying, and crystallization. 1-Heptanol was used as the extractant. The distribution coefficients of sinomenine and sinomenine hydrochloride in 1-heptanol–water system were 27.4 and 0.0167, respectively. The dissociation constants of sinomenine hydrochloride were 8.27 and 11.24, respectively. Process parameters of the new purification process were optimized with experimental design. The extractant 1-heptanol and sinomenine hydrochloride in the crystallization mother solution can be recycled in the new process. The purity of the obtained sinomenine hydrochloride crystals exceeded 85%, and the yield was about 70%. Compared with current industrial processes, safer extractant, less solid waste, and higher sinomenine hydrochloride yield can be achieved using the new purification process of sinomenine hydrochloride provided in this study.

Nowadays, oil contamination has become a major reason for water pollution, and presents a global environmental challenge. Although many efforts have been devoted to the fabrication of oil/water separation materials, their practical applications are still hindered by their weak durability, poor chemical tolerance, environmental resistance, and potential negative impact on health and the environment. To overcome these drawbacks, this work offers a facile method to fabricate the eco-friendly and durable oil/water separation membrane fabrics by alkaline hydrolysis and silicon polyurethane coating. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy results demonstrate that silicon polyurethane membrane could be coated onto the surface of hydrolyzed polyester fabric and form a micro-/nano-scaled hierarchical structure. Based on this, the modified fabric could have a stable superhydrophobic property with a water contact angle higher than 150°, even after repeated washing and mechanical abrasion 800 times, as well as chemical corrosion. Moreover, the modified fabrics show excellent oil/water separation efficiency of up to 99% for various types of oil–water mixture. Therefore, this durable, eco-friendly and cost-efficient superhydrophobic fabric has great potential in large-scale oil/water separation.

The selective aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde has attracted considerable attention because benzaldehyde is a high value-added product. The rate of this typical gas–liquid reaction is significantly affected by mass transfer. In this study, CoTPP-mediated (CoTPP: cobalt (II) meso-tetraphenylporphyrin) selective benzyl alcohol oxidation with oxygen was conducted in a membrane microchannel (MMC) reactor and a bubble column (BC) reactor, respectively. We observed that 83% benzyl alcohol was converted within 6.5 min in the MMC reactor, but only less than 10% benzyl alcohol was converted in the BC reactor. Hydrodynamic characteristics and gas–liquid mass transfer performances were compared for the MMC and BC reactors. The MMC reactor was assumed to be a plug flow reactor, and the dimensionless variance was 0.29. Compared to the BC reactor, the gas–liquid mass transfer was intensified significantly in MMC reactor. It could be ascribed to the high gas holdup (2.9 times higher than that of BC reactor), liquid film mass transfer coefficient (8.2 times higher than that of BC reactor), and mass transfer coefficient per unit interfacial area (3.8 times higher than that of BC reactor). Moreover, the Hatta number for the MMC reactor reached up to 0.61, which was about 15 times higher than that of the BC reactor. The computational fluid dynamics calculations for mass fractions in both liquid and gas phases were consistent with the experimental data.

Hollow core-shell structure nanomaterials have been broadly used in energy storage, catalysis, reactor, and other fields due to their unique characteristics, including the synergy between different materials, a large specific surface area, small density, large charge carrying capacity and so on. However, their synthesis processes were mostly complicated, and few researches reported one-step encapsulation of different valence states of precious metals in carbon-based materials. Hence, a novel hollow core-shell nanostructure electrode material, RuO₂@Ru/HCs, with a lower mass of ruthenium to reduce costs was constructed by one-step hydrothermal method with hard template and co-assembled strategy, consisting of RuO₂ core and ruthenium nanoparticles (Ru NPs) in carbon shell. The Ru NPs were uniformly assembled in the carbon layer, which not only improved the electronic conductivity but also provided more active centers to enhance the pseudocapacitance. The RuO₂ core further enhanced the material's energy storage capacity. Excellent capacitance storage (318.5 F·g^-1 at 0.5 A·g^-1), rate performance (64.4%) from 0.5 A·g^-1 to 20 A·g^-1, and cycling stability (92.3% retention after 5000 cycles) were obtained by adjusting Ru loading to 0.92% (mass). It could be attributed to the wider pore size distribution in the micropores which increased the transfer of electrons and protons. The symmetrical supercapacitor device based on RuO₂@Ru/HCs could successfully light up the LED lamp. Therefore, our work verified that interfacial modification of RuO₂ and carbon could bring attractive insights into energy density for next-generation supercapacitors.

Compared to inorganic supports, polymeric supports can offer additional benefits, e.g., easier processing and cheaper. However, the organic surface has weak adhesion to the zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) membrane layer, which usually requires complex surface modification or seeding. Herein, we demonstrate that a dual-layer asymmetric polymer support prepared by a simple spinning process is a good candidate for the preparation of ZIF-8 membrane. The inner layer of the support is an organic hollow fiber (PES) with finger-like pores, and the outer layer is a ZnO-PES composite layer with finger-like pores also. The ZnO-PES composite layer is expected to contain uniform ZnO crystals in the polymer matrix, i.e., the ZnO particles in the skin layer of the support are not easy to fall off. Under the induction of ZnO particles in the outer layers, continuous ZIF-8 membranes can be prepared by single in-situ crystallization, showing good adhesion to the supports. The obtained ZIF-8 membranes show a H₂ permeance of 8.7×10^-8 mol·m^-2·s^-1·Pa^-1 with a H₂/N₂ ideal separation selectivity of 18.0. The design and preparation of this dual-layer polymer support is expected to promote the large-scale application of MOF membranes on polymer supports.

The hydrodynamic performance of three mixers (single shaft central mixer (SSC), single shaft off-centred mixer (SSO), dual shaft off-centred mixer (DSO), was investigated in the mixing of yield-pseudoplastic fluids (xanthan gum solutions) in the laminar regime. To explore and determine the efficiency of three mixers, both numerical and experimental approaches were adopted. The fluid rheology was described by the Herschel–Bulkley rheological model. Computational fluid dynamics was employed to simulate the apparent viscosity distribution, mixing time, and the flow pattern inside the stirred tank. The developed model was validated through experimentally measured torque. The influence mechanism of the rotational speed and fluid rheology on the cavern evolution was explored deeply. The performances of three mixers in this work were compared at the constant power input and fluid rheology with respect to the flow pattern, mixing time, and mixing efficiency. The results verify that the faster the rotating speed, the greater influence of the fluid rheology on the cavern evolution, and the more uniform apparent viscosity distribution. Moreover, the mixing time decreases continuously as the increasing power consumption per unit volume, and the dimensionless mixing time of DSO mixer was nearly 42.8% and 6.1% shorter than that of SSC and SCO mixer at the same Reynolds number, respectively. According to the mixing efficiency criteria, these data also revealed that DSO was more efficient than SSC and SSO.

The presence of impurities in the bioethanol fermentation broth should be removed to mitigate any possible ineffective refining processes as well as to enhance bioethanol production. In this study, a pre-filtration process was carried out for separating fermentation yeast cells and residual substrates using a microfiltration membrane. Hydrophilic polyvinylidene fluoride-graphene oxide/titanium dioxide (PVDF-GO/TiO₂) membrane with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) surface-coating modification was fabricated and characterized. Membrane modification attempts have succeeded in increasing the hydrophilicity as indicated by contact angle decline from 72.10° to 34.83° and affinity towards water leading to higher water permeability. The performance evaluation showed that 90.77% of unwanted by-products (yeast cells and residual substrate) can be removed. This high rejection is also followed by a high and stable flux performance at 40.20 L·m^-2·h^-1 where the flux was increased by 13 times compared to that of the neat membrane. The PVA-coated PVDF-GO/TiO₂ showed the best anti-biofouling performance with a flux recovery ratio after 5 days incubation (FRR_5d) of 93.55%. This membrane material has excellent prospects in future membrane development for either in-situ application or as a pre-filtration in the fermentation process to separate living cells and residual substrates before being further processed in the refining processes.

A flame retardant containing multiple antiflaming elements usually exhibits high-efficient flame retardancy. Here, a novel P/N/Si-containing ammonium polyphosphate derivative (APTES-APP) is synthesized from ammonium polyphosphate (APP) and silane coupling agent (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES) via cation exchange, which is quite different in the chemical structure from APTES-modified APP for retaining silicon hydroxyls. APTES-APP is highly efficient for the epoxy resin. 8% (mass) APTES-APP imparts excellent flame retardancy to the epoxy resin, with a V-0 rating at the UL-94 test (1.6 mm) and an LOI value of 26% (vol). The peak heat release rate and total smoke production of the flame-retardant epoxy resin are decreased by 68.1% and 31.3%, respectively. The synergy of P/N/Si contributes to the well-expanded char residue with a strong and dense surface layer, which is a very good barrier against heat and mass transfer. Besides, there is no significant deterioration in the mechanical properties of flame-retardant epoxy resin thanks to silicon hydroxyls forming hydrogen bonds with epoxy molecules. Meanwhile, other molecules can be grafted onto APTES-APP via these silicon hydroxyls, if needed. Briefly, this work has developed a new strategy for amino silane as flame retardants. In conjunction with a low-cost and simple preparation method, APTES-APP has a promising prospect in the high-performance flame-retardant epoxy.

Membrane contactor is regarded as a promising method for reaction and process intensification. The feasibility of formaldehyde carbonylation to synthesize glycolic acid using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane contactor has been proved in our previous study. In this paper, the effect of membrane microstructure on process performance was further investigated. Three porous PTFE hollow fibers with different pore sizes and one polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/PTFE composite membrane with dense layer were fabricated for comparison. The physical and chemical properties of four membranes, including chemical composition, morphology, contact angle, liquid entry pressure, thermodynamic analysis and gas permeability, were systemically characterized. Experiments of formaldehyde carbonylation under different reaction conditions were conducted. The results indicated that the yield of glycolic acid increased with decreasing pore size for porous membranes, which was due to the improvement of wetting behavior. The dense layer of PDMS in composite hollow fiber could effectively prevent the solvent from entering membrane pores, thus the membrane exhibited the best performance. At reaction temperature of 120 ℃ and operation pressure of 3.0 MPa, the yield of glycolic acid was always higher than 90% as the mass ratio of trioxane and phosphotungstic acid increased from 0.2:1 to 0.8:1. The highest turnover frequency was up to 26.37 mol·g^-1·h^-1. This study provided a reference for the understanding and optimization of membrane contactors for the synthesis of glycolic acid using solvent with low surface tension.

Continuous preparation of pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) from durene has been studied using a fixed-bed reactor. The reaction was performed using a phosphorus-vanadium-titanium ternary catalyst. Relatively high selectivity and yield of PMDA was obtained. The in-situ characterization was combined with theoretical calculation to reveal the reaction mechanisms, and the remarkable doping effect was discussed.

Since paraffins catalytic cracking was of significant importance to light olefins and aromatics production, this work was intended to gain insights into the feature and model of coke formation and catalyst deactivation in n-heptane catalytic cracking over HZSM-5 zeolites. 18 tests of n-heptane catalytic cracking were designed and carried out over HZSM-5 zeolites in a wide range of operating conditions. A particular attention was paid to the measurement of the conversion, product distribution, coke content, and the porosity and acidity of the fresh and spent HZSM-5 zeolites. It was found that alkene and aromatic promoted coke formation, and it reduced the pore volume and acid site of HZSM-5 zeolites, tailoring its performance in n-heptane catalytic cracking. The specific relationship between HZSM-5 zeolites, n-heptane conversion, product distribution and coke formation was quantitively characterized by the exponential and linear function. Based on the reaction network, the coupled scheme of coke formation and catalyst deactivation were specified for n-heptane catalytic cracking. The dual-model was proposed for the process simulation of n-heptane catalytic cracking over HZSM-5 zeolites. It predicted not only the conversion and product distribution but also coke content with the acceptable errors.

Amyloid β-protein (Aβ) and Tau, two common pathogenic proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), cross-interact, and thus co-assemble into hybrid aggregates. However, molecular mechanism of the cross-interactions remains unclear. To explore the issue, docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were coupled to study the cross-interactions between Aβ pentamer and Tau pentamer. Four stable hybrid decamer conformations including double layer, single layer, block, and part-in were obtained by protein-protein docking software HADDOCK 2.2. Then, MD simulations were used to explore the molecular mechanism of cross-interactions between Aβ pentamer and Tau pentamer. The results of MD simulations showed that the part-in structure was the most stable among all the above four representative ones. The binding energy between Aβ and Tau was about -759.77 kJ·mol^-1 in the part-in structure. Moreover, the part-in conformation would undergo conformational transition, which would improve its hydrophobicity and make the structure more compact. This work offers a structural understanding of cross-interactions between Aβ and Tau linked to AD.

An improved rotating microchannel (IRM) separator was further explored in the intensification for demulsification and separation process. Oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion system of 2-ethylhexyl phosphoric acid-2-ethylhexyl ester (P507)–water without emulsifier was employed toevaluate the performance of the new equipment. In this experiment, the influence on demulsification separation process was explored by changing the geometrical structure and channel height of the microchannel and combining the liquid–liquid two-phase flow pattern, and the correlation general graph between demulsification efficiency and dimensionless parameters was established. The total demulsification effect of the IRM and the separation capacity of the clear organic phase recovered from demulsification are significantly improved. In addition, the liquid–liquid two-phase flow pattern of the clear organic phase after demulsification and the remaining emulsion in the IRM are observed and recorded by high-speed photography. The separation ability of organic phase from the upper outlet can be significantly improved when the total demulsification rate of IRM is up to 90%. There are 3 types and 6 kinds of flow patterns observed. The results demonstrated that the suitable demulsification performance is obtained when the liquid–liquid two-phase inside the IRM is in a parallel pattern. Finally, the relation map between total demulsification efficiency and the universal flow is drawn, which provides a basis for the accurate control of the IRM device.

Catalytic epoxidation of alkenes is an important type of organic reaction in chemical industry, and the deep insight into catalyst deactivation will help to develop new epoxidation process. In this work, series of quaternary ammoniums bearing different cationic sizes, i.e. MTOA⁺ (methyltrioctylammonium, [(C₈H₁₇)₃CH₃N]⁺), HTMA⁺(hexadecyltrimethylammonium, [(C₁₆H₃₃)(CH₃)₃N]⁺) and DMDOA⁺ (dimethyldioctadecylammonium, [(C₁₈H₃₇)₂(CH₃)₂N]⁺) were incorporated with polyoxometalate (POM) anions to prepare phase transfer catalysts (PTCs), which were used in the styrene epoxidations. Among them, (MTOA)₃PW₄O₂₄ exhibits the best catalytic performance judged from the highest styrene conversion rate (52%) and styrene oxide selectivity (93%), during which the styrene epoxidation conditions were optimized. Meanwhile, the deactivation mechanism of this kind of PTCs was proposed firstly, i.e. in the case of low H₂O₂ content, the oxidant can only be used in the styrene epoxidation, in which the catalyst can transform into stable Keggin-type POM. But when the content of H₂O₂ is higher, the excess H₂O₂ can re-activate the Keggin-type POM into active (PW₄O₂₄)^3- anions, which can trigger the ring-opening polymerization of styrene oxide. Consequently, the catalyst is deactivated by adhered poly(styrene oxide) irreversibly, which was determined by NMR spectra. In this situation, the active moiety {PO₄[WO(O₂)₂]₄}^3- in phase-transfer catalytic system can break into some unidentified species with low W/P ratio with the presence of epoxides. This work will be beneficial for the design of new PTCs in alkene epoxidation in fine chemical industry.

A novel series of halogen free, hydroxyl group containing poly(ionic liquid)s (PILs) was first synthesized from glycerol dimethyl acrylate (GDA) and 1-vinyl imidazole (1-VIM) through free radical polymerization, follow by an alkylation step and an ion-exchange procedure to form the final imidazolium hydrogen carbonate heterogenous catalyst poly(HCO₃-OH-n). The chemical and physical properties were investigated by varying the monomer ratio between GDA and 1-VIM. Among them, poly (HCO₃-OH-2) exhibited the highest catalytic activity for CO₂ cycloaddition, with the yield of chloropropene carbonate 90% under mild conditions (80 ℃, 0.1 MPa, 12 h, 0.15 g catalyst for 32 mmol epichlorohydrin) in the absence of any cocatalyst, metal or solvent. A range of substrates with good to excellent yields under atmosphere was obtained. The poly(HCO₃-OH-n) catalyst is collectable and still remains acceptable catalytic activity after six runs. Finally, a preliminary kinetic is calculated on the basis of poly(HCO₃-OH-2) with the activation energy value of 79.5 kJ·mol^-1. This study highlights that the poly(HCO₃-OH-n) enable to reach efficient CO₂ conversion under mild conditions.

Electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) has attracted growing attention in energy storage and sustainable production of fuels and chemicals. N-doped carbon materials are preferred metal-free electrocatalysts, but it remains one challenge to finely engineer the active sites and porosity. Herein, we demonstrated that ionic porous polyamides were a kind of versatile precursors to prepare functional carbon materials in a one-step pyrolysis process. The polyamide precursors allowed the maintenance of abundant N species at high temperatures. The existence of ionic moieties and large specific surface area of the precursors promoted the formation of larger porosity carbon with a large specific surface area and sufficient active graphitic-N species by controlling the pyrolysis temperature. The catalyst was highly selective in the CO₂RR to produce CO with a maximum Faraday efficiency above 99%, attributable to the improved mass transfer in a large porosity system. This work shows that ionic polyamides are promising carbon precursors for the fabrication of metal-free electrocatalysts for CO₂RR.

Doping heteroatoms on carbon materials could bring some special advantages for using as catalyst support. In this work, a boron doped lamellar porous carbon (B-LPC) was prepared facilely and utilized as carbon-based support to construct Cu/B-LPC catalyst for dimethyl oxalate (DMO) hydrogenation. Doping boron could make the B-LPC own more defects on surface and bigger pore size than B-free LPC, which were beneficial to disperse and anchor Cu nanoparticles. Moreover, the interaction between Cu species and B-LPC could be strengthened by the doped B, which not only stabilized the Cu nanoparticles, but also tuned the valence of Cu species to maintain more Cu⁺. Therefore, the B-doped Cu/B-LPC catalyst exhibited stronger hydrogenation ability and obtained higher alcohols selectivity than Cu/LPC, as well as high stability without decrease of DMO conversion and ethylene glycol selectivity even after 300 h of reaction at 240 ℃.

Process analytical technology (PAT) is gaining more interest in the biomanufacturing industry because of its potential to improve operational control and compliance through real-time quality assurance. Currently, biopharmaceutical producers mainly monitor chromatographic processes with ultraviolet/visible (UV/Vis) absorbance. However, this measurement has a very limited correlation with purity and quantity. The current study aims to determine the concentration of monoclonal antibody (mAb) and host cell proteins (HCPs) using a build-in UV/Vis monitoring during Protein A affinity chromatography and to optimize the separation conditions for high purity of mAb and minimizing the HCPs content. The eluate was analyzed through in-line UV/Vis at 280 and 410 nm, representing mAb and HCPs concentration, respectively. Each 0.1 column volume (CV) fraction of UV/Vis chromatogram peak area were calculated, and different separation conditions were then compared. The optimum conditions of mAb separation were found as 12 CV loading, elution at pH 3.5, and starting the collection at 0.5 CV point, resulting in high mAb recovery of 95.92% and additional removal of 49.98% of HCP comparing with whole elution pool. This study concluded that UV/Vis-based in-line monitoring at 280 and 410 nm showed a high potential to optimize and real-time control Protein A affinity chromatography for mAb purification from HCPs.

The direct tandem oxidation synthesis of benzenediol from benzene could simplify or even avoid the separation and purification of reaction intermediates, which is promising but challenged because of the further required immediate consecutive activation of intermediate phenol. In this work, a synergistic benzene tandem-oxidation catalyst that V-Cu bimetallic oxides modified nanoporous silica (VCu-NS) was constructed via a facile assembly strategy which involves addictive negative anion citric acid mediating the intercalation of metal-citric acid chelate in mesopore of silica and subsequent thermal calcination inducing dual-metal active site formation. Such a tactic could make amorphous VO_x species well covered on the surface of mesopore, and ultrafine copper oxide particles surrounded and neighbored by highly dispersed VO_x with strong interplay in mesopore, which was comprehensively confirmed by various characterizations. Benefiting from the unique V-Cu neighboring effect, the desorption of formed phenol over the catalytic site might be restricted therefore easily further activated by the formed reactive oxidative species, 3VCu-NS shows synergetic tandem-oxidation catalytic activities for benzene towards benzenediol with a selectivity of 57%. The result allows optimal 3VCu-NS to be a promising catalyst for benzenediol synthesis from benzene.

The significant decrease of acid sites caused by alkali metal poisoning is the major factor in the deactivation of commercial V₂O₅-WO₃/TiO₂ NH₃-SCR catalysts. In this work, the solid superacid SO₄^2--TiO₂ modified by sulfate radicals, was selected as the catalyst support, which showed superior potassium resistance. The physicochemical properties and K-poisoning resistance of the V₂O₅-WO₃/SO₄^2--TiO₂ (VWSTi) catalyst were carried out by XRD, BET, H₂-TPR, NH₃-TPD, XPS, in situ DRIFTS and TG. The results pointed out that the introduction of SO₄^2- significantly increased the NH₃-SCR catalytic activity at high temperatures, with an exceptionally high NO_x conversion over 90% between 275 ℃ and 500 ℃. When 0.5% (mass) K₂O was doped on the catalysts, the catalytic performance of the traditional V₂O₅-WO₃/TiO₂ (VWTi) catalyst decreased significantly, while the VWSTi catalyst could still maintain a NO_x conversion over 90% in the range of 300–500 ℃. The characterizations suggested that the support of SO₄^2--TiO₂ greatly increased the number of acidic sites, thereby enhancing the adsorption capacity of the reactant NH₃. The results above demonstrated a potential approach to achieve superior potassium resistance for NH₃-SCR catalysts using solid superacid.

Mesoporous titanium containing alumino-silicate materials with various titanium/silicon (Ti/Si) ratio (AlSi-Ti(n); n = Ti/Si mole ratio) have been successfully synthesized by a novel single-step sodium (Na)-free method, for the first time. The obtained characterization results of the prepared materials reveal that in-situ addition of Ti into AlSi shows ordered mesoporous structure along with uniformly dispersed Ti species in +4 and +3 oxidation states suitable for selective oxidation of allylic C—H bond. The prepared mesoporouse Ti-AlSi(n) samples exhibited excellent activity in the oxidation of cyclohexene with 100% conversion and 100% selectivity to ketone-alcohol (KA) oil (cyclohex-2-en-1-ol and 2-cyclohexen-1-one) at low temperature and reaction time (35 ℃ and 30 min reaction time). This study suggests that AlSi-Ti(0.05) material can be a promising catalyst for the selective oxidation of cyclohexene under mild reaction conditions.

With the increase in the complexity of industrial system, simply detecting and diagnosing a fault may be insufficient in some cases, and prognosing the fault ahead of time could have a certain necessity. Accurate prediction of key alarm variables in chemical process can indicate the possible change to reduce the probability of abnormal conditions. According to the characteristics of chemical process data, this work proposed a key alarm variables prediction model in chemical process based on dynamic-inner principal component analysis (DiPCA) and long short-term memory (LSTM). DiPCA is used to extract the most dynamic components for prediction. While LSTM is used to learn the relationship and predict the key alarm variables. This work used a simulation data set and a real hydrogenation process data set for applications and explained the model validity from the essential characteristics. Comparison of results with different models shows that our model has better prediction accuracy and performance, which can provide the basis for fault prognosis and health management.

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is an advanced bioelectrochemical technique that can utilize biomass materials in the process of simultaneously generating electricity and biodegrading or bio transforming toxic pollutants from wastewater. The overall performance of the system is largely dependent on the efficiency of the anode electrode to enhance electron transportation. Furthermore, the anode electrode has a significant impact on the overall cost of MFC setup. Hence, the need to explore research focused towards developing cost-effective material as anode in MFC. This material must also have favourable properties for electron transportation. Graphene oxide (GO) derivatives and its modification with nanomaterials have been identified as a viable anode material. Herein, we discussed an economically effective strategy for the synthesis of graphene derivatives from waste biomass materials and its subsequent fabrication into anode electrode for MFC applications. This review article offers a promising approach towards replacing commercial graphene materials with biomass-derived graphene derivatives in a view to achieve a sustainable and commercialized MFC.

Dry reforming of methane (DRM) is an attractive technology for utilizing the greenhouse gases (CO₂ and CH₄) to produce syngas. However, the catalyst pellets for DRM are heavily plagued by deactivation by coking, which prevents this technology from commercialization. In this work, a pore network model is developed to probe the catalyst deactivation by coking in a Ni/Al₂O₃ catalyst pellet for DRM. The reaction conditions can significantly change the coking rate and then affect the catalyst deactivation. The catalyst lifetime is higher under lower temperature, pressure, and CH₄/CO₂ molar ratio, but the maximum coke content in a catalyst pellet is independent of these reaction conditions. The catalyst pellet with larger pore diameter, narrower pore size distribution and higher pore connectivity is more robust against catalyst deactivation by coking, as the pores in this pellet are more difficult to be plugged or inaccessible. The maximum coke content is also higher for narrower pore size distribution and higher pore connectivity, as the number of inaccessible pores is lower. Besides, the catalyst pellet radius only slightly affects the coke content, although the diffusion limitation increases with the pellet radius. These results should serve to guide the rational design of robust DRM catalyst pellets against deactivation by coking.

Five new tetrasubstituted imidazoles were designed with outstanding yields (83%-92%) in the occurrence of ionic liquid-based-pyridinium as a catalyst. The constructions of all synthesized derivatives were established by spectral tools and their purities were verified using thin-layer chromatography (TLC), displaying single-spot. The performance of corrosion protection of the prepared imidazole derivatives was examined theoretically and practically for acid steel corrosion. The experimental study was conducted by electrochemical (electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and Tafel polarization (PPS)) tools. The findings from the used approaches concluded that the synthesized compounds were well-organized inhibitors with an efficiency of 90.7%-98.5% at 50 ℃ and 0.7 mmol·L^-1. The Tafel polarization results indicate the protective action of the additives was under mixed-monitoring. The additive adsorption on the electrode interface performed as a distinguished aspect for protection. The surface exploration on the blank and protected metal was completed by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). Computational studies by Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and quantum chemical calculation (DFT) were related to practical findings. The corrosion protection adsorption mechanism was reinforced by the preferable fitted Langmuir isotherm model. All findings from the applied-inspected approaches alternately confirm each other.