The development of low-cost, efficient physisorbents is essential for gas adsorption and separation; however, the intrinsic tradeoff between capacity and selectivity, as well as the unavoidable shaping procedures of conventional powder sorbents, greatly limits their practical separation efficiency. Herein, an exceedingly stable iron-containing mordenite zeolite monolith with a pore system of precisely narrowed microchannels was self-assembled using a one-pot template- and binder-free process. Iron-containing mordenite monoliths that could be used directly for industrial application afforded record-high volumetric carbon dioxide uptakes (293 and 219 cubic centimeters of carbon dioxide per cubic centimeter of material at 273 and 298 K, respectively, at 1 bar pressure); excellent size-exclusive molecular sieving of carbon dioxide over argon, nitrogen, and methane; stable recyclability; and good moisture resistance capability. Column breakthrough experiments and process simulation further visualized the high separation efficiency.

The construction of three-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (3D COFs) has proven to be very challenging, as their synthetic driving force mainly comes from the formation of covalent bonds. To facilitate the synthesis, rigid building blocks are always the first choice for designing 3D COFs. In principle, it should be very appealing to construct 3D COFs from flexible building blocks, but there are some obstacles blocking the development of such systems, especially for the designed synthesis and structure determination. Herein, we reported a novel highly crystalline 3D COF (FCOF-5) with flexible C–O single bonds in the building block backbone. By merging 17 continuous rotation electron diffraction data sets, we successfully determined the crystal structure of FCOF-5 to be a 6-fold interpenetrated pts topology. Interestingly, FCOF-5 is flexible and can undergo reversible expansion/contraction upon vapor adsorption/desorption, indicating a breathing motion. Moreover, a smart soft polymer composite film with FCOF-5 was fabricated, which can show a reversible vapor-triggered shape transformation. Therefore, 3D COFs constructed from flexible building blocks can exhibit interesting breathing behavior, and finally, a totally new type of soft porous crystals made of pure organic framework was announced.

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In this study, the microscopic displacement mechanisms of alkaline flooding for enhanced heavy-oil recovery are investigated using a micromodel. It has been observed that alkaline flooding exhibits a better sweep efficiency than waterflooding, and the serious viscous fingering is significantly reduced. The main microscopic mechanisms of alkaline flooding for enhanced heavy-oil recovery are that the alkaline solution penetrates in crude oil and water drops are, subsequently, formed inside the oil phase, which can improve the mobility ratio and, thus, lead to the improvement of sweep efficiency. The higher the alkaline concentration, the more easily the alkaline solution penetrates in the oil phase. Therefore, a greater improvement in sweep efficiency can be obtained using a higher concentration of alkali. The primary mechanism of the formation of the water drop inside the oil phase during alkaline flooding is related to the interfacial interaction between alkali and heavy oil, which not only results in the drastic reduction of oil–water interfacial tension but also leads to the non-uniform enrichment of in situ surfactants activated by alkali.

Chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis is an extremely serious complication faced by cancer patients. The role of oral zinc sulfate in preventing and treating chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis remains a subject of debate. The aim of this systematic review is to assess the potential of oral zinc sulfate to alleviate this morbid condition. A systematic search was conducted electronically in PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) to capture all potential randomized controlled trials investigating efficacy and safety of oral zinc sulfate in prevention and treatment of chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis, and the retrieval time was limited from their inception to April 2018. We assigned two independent investigators to perform a search, screen citations, extract information, and evaluate the risk of bias in all included trials. Subsequently, the RevMan 5.3 software was utilized to perform all statistical analyses. We included five eligible studies involving 352 patients. Meta-analysis based on limited data revealed that oral zinc sulfate failed to decrease the incidence of chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis (RR [relative risk] = 0.52, 95% CI [confidence interval] = 0.17–1.64) as well as relieve chemotherapy-induced oral mucositits grade (RR = 0.62, 95% CI = 0.11–3.56; RR = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.29–1.71). Moreover, qualitative analyses also suggested that oral zinc sulfate was not associated with reduced oral pain intensity, delayed onset of chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis, decreased adverse events, or improved quality of life compared with control regimes. Oral zinc sulfate may not provide clinical benefits in preventing or reducing incidence, severity, or pain intensity of chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis in cancer patients. However, more studies with large-scale and rigorous methods are warranted for the purpose of further investigating efficacy and safety of oral zinc sulfate for this pathologic condition due to the presence of limitations.