ZnO, aside from TiO2, has been considered as a promising material for purification and disinfection of water and air, and remediation of hazardous waste, owing to its high activity, environment-friendly feature and lower cost. However, their poor visible light utilization greatly limited their practical applications. Herein, we demonstrate the fabrication of different aspect ratios of the ZnO nanorods with surface defects by mechanical-assisted thermal decomposition method. The experiments revealed that ZnO nanorods with higher aspect ratio and surface defects show significantly higher photocatalytic performances.

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A new synergistic treatment that combines photothermal therapy (PTT) and inflammation‐mediated active targeting (IMAT) chemotherapy based on cytopharmaceuticals is developed. During PTT, the photothermal tumor ablation is accompanied by an inflammatory effect and upregulation of inflammatory factors at the tumor site, which may accelerate tumor regeneration. Moreover, PTT‐induced inflammation can also recruit neutrophils (NEs) to the tumor site. To convert the disadvantages of PTT‐induced inflammation into strengths, NEs are investigated as cytopharmaceuticals for IMAT chemotherapy to further inhibit the tumor recurrence after PTT due to the chemotaxis of NEs to the inflammatory sites. In this study, PEGylated gold nanorods (PEG‐GNRs) are explored as the photothermal agent and paclitaxel‐loaded cytopharmaceuticals of NEs as the IMAT chemotherapeutic agent. PTT is conducted at 72 h postinjection of PEG‐GNRs, followed by cytopharmaceuticals for IMAT chemotherapy. It is demonstrated that the cytopharmaceuticals effectively accumulate in the tumor sites after PTT, which leads to a significant enhancement of antitumor efficacy and a reduction in systemic toxicity. These studies suggest that PTT‐induced inflammation further enhances the chemotherapy of cytopharmaceuticals, and the combination of PTT and IMAT chemotherapy may be a promising synergistic strategy for targeted cancer therapy.

For heavy metal ions removal from water, new resources should be exploited to design more efficient environmentally-friendly adsorbents. To tackle this challenge, millimeterscale magnetic cellulose-based beads with micro-and nano-pore structure were fabricated via an optimal extrusion dropping technology from NaOH/urea aqueous solution. The composite beads incorported with carboxyl decorated magnetite nanoparticles and nitric acid modified activated carbon have the convenient operation based on sensitive magnetic response and the highly effective removal performance for Cu 2+ , Pb 2+ and Zn 2+ . Their structure and properties were investigated. Moreover, the adsorption equilibrium, kinetics and thermodynamics of the Cu 2+ , Pb 2+ and Zn 2+ by the prepared composite adsorbents were examined. The results revealed that these adsorption processes were spontaneous endothermic reactions, and determined by combination of physical and chemical adsorptive mechanisms.

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Platinum‐based therapeutic strategies have been widely used in ovarian cancer treatment. However, drug resistance has greatly limited therapeutic efficacy. Recently, tolerance to cisplatin has been attributed to other factors unrelated to DNA. p62 (also known as SQSTM1) functions as a multifunctional hub participating in tumorigenesis and may be a therapeutic target. Our previous study showed that p62 was overexpressed in drug‐resistant ovarian epithelial carcinoma and its inhibition increased the sensitivity to cisplatin. In this study, we demonstrate that the activity of the NF‐κB signaling pathway and K63‐linked ubiquitination of RIP1 was higher in cisplatin‐resistant ovarian (SKOV3/DDP) cells compared with parental cells. In addition, cisplatin resistance could be reversed by inhibiting the expression of p62 using siRNA. Furthermore, deletion of the ZZ domain of p62 that interacts with RIP1 in SKOV3 cells markedly decreased K63‐linked ubiquitination of RIP1 and inhibited the activation of the NF‐κB signaling pathway. Moreover, loss of the ZZ domain from p62 led to poor proliferative capacity and high levels of apoptosis in SKOV3 cells and made them more sensitive to cisplatin treatment. Collectively, we provide evidence that p62 is implicated in the activation of NF‐κB signaling that is partly dependent on RIP1. p62 promotes cell proliferation and inhibits apoptosis thus mediating drug resistance in ovarian cancer cells.

Using the first-principles calypso algorithm for crystal structure prediction, we have predicted two orthorhombic Cmcm and Amm2 structures of ZrB4, which are energetically much superior to the previously proposed WB4-, CrB4-, and MoB4-type structures and stable against decompression into a mixture of Zr and B at ambient pressure. The two orthorhombic structures consist of a hexagonal B ring and ZrB12 units connected by edges and one hexagonal B ring in Cmcm and Amm2 structure, respectively. The calculated large shear modulus (e.g., 229 GPa) and high hardness (42.8 GPa for Cmcm and 42.6 GPa for Amm2) reveal that they are potentially superhard materials. The high hardness is attributed to a stacking of B-Zr-B "sandwiches" layers linked by strong covalent B-B bonding.