Nanotechnology is rapidly sweeping through all the vital fields of science and technology such as electronics, aerospace, defense, medicine, and catalysis. This involves the design, synthesis, characterization, and applications of...
Imitating the natural photosynthesis to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels represents a viable strategy for solar-to-chemical energy conversion, where utilizing low-energy photons, especially near-infrared photons, has been the ultimate yet challenging aim to further improving conversion efficiency. Plasmonic metals have proven their ability in absorbing low-energy photons, however, it remains an obstacle in effectively coupling this energy into reactant molecules. Here we report the broadband plasmon-induced CO2 reduction reaction with water, which achieves a CH4 production rate of 0.55 mmol g−1 h−1 with 100% selectivity to hydrocarbon products under 400 mW cm−2 full-spectrum light illumination and an apparent quantum efficiency of 0.38% at 800 nm illumination. We find that the enhanced local electric field plays an irreplaceable role in efficient multiphoton absorption and selective energy transfer for such an excellent light-driven catalytic performance. This work paves the way to the technique for low-energy photon utilization.
This study aims to assess the risk factors of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and to determine the association of traditional and biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) with risk for CVD in Chinese rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. A cross-sectional cohort of 2013 RA patients from 21 hospitals around China was established. Medical history of CVD was documented. The patients' social background, clinical manifestations, comorbidities, and medications were also collected. Of the 2013 patients, 256 had CVD with an incidence of 12.7%. Compared with non-CVD controls, RA patients with CVD had a significantly advanced age, long-standing median disease duration, more often male and more deformity joints. Patients with CVD also had higher rates of smoking, rheumatoid nodules, interstitial lung disease, and anemia. The prevalence of comorbidities, including hypothyroidism, diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension, and hyperlipidemia, was also significant higher in the CVD group. In contrast, patients treated with methotrexate, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), and TNF blockers had lower incidence of CVD. The multivariate analysis showed that the use of HCQ was a protective factor of CVD, while hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and interstitial lung disease were independent risk factors of CVD. Our study shows that the independent risk factors of CVD include hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and interstitial lung disease. HCQ reduces the risk of CVD in patients with RA.
the development of semiconductor-based photocatalysts that can efficiently split water for durable photocatalytic H 2 production is at the forefront. To date, among numerous photocatalysts that have been demonstrated for H 2 production under exposure to UV and visible light, [4][5][6]56] conjugated graphitic carbon nitride has stood out as one of the most investigated photocatalysts in the past decade owing to the advantages of its suitable energy position for water splitting, visible light harvesting, easy functionalization, and facile preparation from low-cost precursors. [7,55] Nevertheless, pristine g-CN suffers from an exceptionally high charge carrier recombination rate primarily due to the relatively short-lived excited states, such as nascent excitons and shallow trapping states, [8] which results in a low photocatalytic performance. Kinetics studies by ultrafast time-resolved spectroscopy reveal three allowable trapping processes for photoinduced charge carriers in g-CN, including short-lived excitons, shallow trapping states, and deep trapping states. [9,10] Among them, the short-lived excitons and the charges in the shallow trap states play a crucial role in photoactivity enhancement. Hence, increasing the decay lifetime of the excitons and shallow trapping in g-CN are expected to enhance the photocatalytic performance yet less investigated.To date, many strategies have been applied to modulate the photoinduced charge-carrier trapping process in g-CN viaThe relatively short-lived excited states, such as the nascent electron-hole pairs (excitons) and the shallow trapping states, in semiconductor-based photocatalysts produce an exceptionally high charge carrier recombination rate, dominating a low solar-to-fuel performance. Here, a π-conjugated in-plane heterostructure between graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) and carbon rings (C rings ) (labeling g-CN/C rings ) is effectively synthesized from the thermolysis of melamine-citric acid aggregates via a microwave-assisted heating process. The g-CN/C rings in-plane heterostructure shows remarkably suppressed excited-state decay and increased charge carrier population in photocatalysis. Kinetics analysis from the femtosecond time-resolved transient absorption spectroscopy illustrates that the g-CN/C rings π-conjugated heterostructure produces slower exciton annihilation (τ 1 = 7.9 ps) and longer shallow electron trapping (τ 2 = 407.1 ps) than pristine g-CN (τ 1 = 3.6 ps, τ 2 = 264.1 ps) owing to C rings incorporation, both of which enable more photoinduced electrons to participate in the photocatalytic reactions, thereby realizing photoactivity enhancement. As a result, the photocatalytic activity exhibits an eightfold enhancement in visible-light-driven H 2 generation. This work provides a viable route of constructing π-conjugated in-plane heterostructures to suppress the excited-state decay and improve the photocatalytic performance.
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