To enhance the photocatalytic activity of monoclinic BiVO4 for O2 evolution from water, Ce-doped BiVO4 was prepared using the one-pot facile solvothermal method and characterized via XRD, Raman, XPS, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The XPS spectra confirm that Ce component is Ce3+ ions instead of Ce4+ ions. From the structural characterization and the calculations of formation energies it has been stated that the doping of Ce3+ ions takes place at Bi3+ sites without changing the host structure. The as-prepared Ce-doped BiVO4 samples display significantly enhanced photocatalytic O2 evolution activities from water compared to pristine BiVO4. Density of states calculations indicate that Ce3+ ions act as hole traps, thereby delaying the recombination of photogenerated electrons and holes. The results demonstrate that the substitution of the remaining monoclinic crystal structure may offer an attractive alternative approach for the doping of BiVO4 to enhance the evolution activity of photocatalytic O2.

Mechanical properties such as hardness and modulus of sodium borosilicate (NBS) glasses in irradiation conditions were studied extensively in recent years. With irradiation of heavy ions, a trend that the hardness of NBS glasses decreased and then stabilized with increase of dose has been reported. Variations in network structures were suggested for the decrease of hardness after irradiation. However, details of these variations in a network of glass are not clear yet. In this paper, molecular dynamics was applied to simulate the network variations in a type of NBS glass and the changes in hardness after xenon irradiation. The simulation results indicated that hardness variation decreased with fluence in an exponential law, which was consistent with experimental results. The origin of hardness decrease after irradiation might be attributed to the break of B-O links that could be derived from the (1) decrease of average coordinate number of boron, (2) decrease of Si-O-B bonds, and (3) increase of non-bridging oxygen.

Two transition metal (Co and Ni) ion phosphonates as isostructural organic inorganic hybrids are prepared and investigated in terms of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from water and CO2 reduction under UV light irradiation. A photocatalytic mechanism of ligand-to-metal charge transfer (LMCT) is proposed.

In the search for photocatalysts that can directly utilize near-IR (NIR) light, we investigated three oxides Cu3(OH)4SO4 (antlerite), Cu4(OH)6SO4, and Cu2(OH)3Cl by photodecomposing 2,4-dichlorophenol over them under NIR irradiation and by comparing their electronic structures with that of the known NIR photocatalyst Cu2(OH)PO4. Both Cu3(OH)4SO4 and Cu4(OH)6SO4 are NIR photocatalysts, but Cu2(OH)3Cl is not. Thus, in addition to the presence of two different CuOm and Cu'On polyhedra linked with Cu-O-Cu' bridges, the presence of acceptor groups (e.g., SO4, PO4) linked to the metal oxygen polyhedra is necessary for NIR photocatalysts.

The data demonstrate that infertile men have a higher proportion of spermatozoa with diffuse histone H2B than do fertile men and suggest that sperm DNA damage might, at least in part, be due to abnormally high histone H2B levels.