Introducing O vacancies into the lattice of a semiconductor photocatalyst can alter its intrinsic electronic properties and band gap, thus enhancing the visible light absorption, promoting the separation/transfer of photogenerated charge carriers, and resultantly elevating the photocatalytic activity of oxide semiconductors. Moreover, O vacancies can help adsorb and activate CO 2 on photocatalyst surfaces, which, however, are prone to being filled by O atoms during the photoreduction reaction. In this work, Cu was introduced to increase the O vacancy concentration in CeO 2−x and promote the photocatalytic activity of CeO 2−x . The sample Cu/CeO 2−x -0.1 showed the highest photocatalytic activity with a CO yield of 8.25 μmol g −1 under 5 h irradiation, which is ∼26 times that on CeO 2−x . According to the analysis of Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) spectra, it has been evidenced that Cu introduction benefits the chemical stabilization of O vacancies in CeO 2−x during photocatalytic CO 2 reduction, which is responsible for the improved and sustained photocatalytic activity.

P-doped g-C3N4 has been successfully synthesized using hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene, a low cost and environmentally benign compound, as phosphorus source, and guanidiniumhydrochloride as g-C3N4 precursor, via a thermally induced copolymerization route.

The construction of intramolecular donor-acceptor conjugated copolymers have been devised for years to enhance the mobility of charge carriers in organic photovoltaic field, however surprisingly, similar strategies have not been reported in polymeric photocatalytic systems for promoting the separation of charge carriers. Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ) is an emerging polymeric visible-light photocatalyst with high stability but still low photocatalytic efficiency. Here we prepared a series of g-C 3 N 4 -based intramolecular donor-acceptor copolymers, i.e., aromatics-incorporated g-C 3 N 4 , via nucleophilic substitution/addition reactions.The copolymer showed remarkably enhanced and stable visible-light photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance. The intramolecular charge transfer transition is firstly proposed to explain the photocatalytic activity of g-C 3 N 4 -baed photocatalysts under long wavelength-light irradiation.

Graphite-C3N4/Bi2WO6 composites with enhanced response to visible light and remarkably enhanced selective CO2 photoreduction to CO were synthesized and demonstrated to be promising photocatalysts for CO2 photoconversion.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens is a global public health problem. Metallo-β-lactamases (MβLs) such as New Delhi MβL-1 (NDM-1) are principle contributors to the emergence of resistance because of their ability to hydrolyze almost all known β-lactam antibiotics including penicillins, cephalosporins, and carbapenems. A clinical inhibitor of MBLs has not yet been found. In this study we developed eighteen new diaryl-substituted azolylthioacetamides and found all of them to be inhibitors of the MβL L1 from Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (Ki < 2 μM), thirteen to be mixed inhibitors of NDM-1 (Ki < 7 μM), and four to be broad-spectrum inhibitors of all four tested MβLs CcrA from Bacteroides fragilis, NDM-1 and ImiS from Aeromonas veronii, and L1 (Ki < 52 μM), which are representative of the B1a, B1b, B2, and B3 subclasses, respectively. Docking studies revealed that the azolylthioacetamides, which have the broadest inhibitory activity, coordinate to the Zn(II) ion(s) preferentially via the triazole moiety, while other moieties interact mostly with the conserved active site residues Lys224 (CcrA, NDM-1, and ImiS) or Ser221 (L1).