An enzyme, horseradish peroxidase (HRP), was adsorbed in the manner of the single immersion method on the silica mesoporous materials FSM-16, MCM-41, and SBA-15 with various pore diameters from 27 to 92 Å, and their enzymatic activities in an organic solvent and the thermal stabilities were studied. FSM-16 and MCM-41 showed a larger amount of adsorption of HRP than SBA-15 or silica gel when the pore sizes were larger than the 50 Å. The increased enzyme adsorption capacity may be due to the surface characteristics of FSM-16 and MCM-41, which would be consistent with the observed larger adsorption capacity of cationic pigment compared with anionic pigment for these materials. The immobilized HRP on FSM-16 and MCM-41 with pore diameter 50 Å showed the highest enzymatic activity in an organic toluene and thermal stability in aqueous solution at the temperature of 70 °C. The immobilized enzymes on the other mesoporous materials including large or small pore sized FSM-16 showed lower enzymatic activity in an organic solvent and thermal stability. Both surface character and size matching between pore sizes and the molecular diameters of HRP were important in achieving high enzymatic activity in organic solvent and high thermal stability.

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Size-controlled synthesis of luminescent quantum dots of MoS2 (≤2 layers) with narrow size distribution, ranging from 2.5 to 6 nm, from their bulk material using a unique electrochemical etching of bulk MoS2 is demonstrated. Excitation-dependent photoluminescence emission is observed in the MoS2 QDs. "As-synthesized" MoS2 QDs also exhibit excellent electrocatalytic activity towards hydrogen evolution reactions.

A novel, highly active catalyst Ni@MOF-5 showed unexpected activity at low temperature for CO2 methanation. The characterization results indicated that Ni was uniformly and highly dispersed over MOF-5. This catalyst showed high stability and almost no deactivation in long term stability tests up to 100 h.