Improving gelling properties of myofibrillar proteins incorporating with cellulose micro/nanofibres

The effects of cellulose microfibres (CMFs, Average size: 100 ± 5 μm) and cellulose nanofibres (CNFs, Average size: 60 ± 3 nm) on the properties of myofibrillar protein (MP) gels from duck breast meat were studied. The results demonstrated that CMFs and CNFs were mostly connected to MP by non-covalent bonds, the diffusion and cross-linking of MP molecules was promoted, and a denser and more complete gel network was formed. With the increases of CMFs and CNFs concentration (0–10%), the hardness was increased by 13.15% and 19.78% for CMFs10% and CNFs10% gels, respectively, and the elasticity was increased by 40% and 80%, respectively. At the same concentration (0–10%), the increase in gel hardness, viscoelasticity and immobilised water content was greater in the CNFs-MP group than in the CMFs-MP group. The CNFs-MP group had a tighter gel network, and CNFs had a better potential to improve the gelation performance of MP.     

Petal-like NiCoP sheets on 3D nitrogen-doped carbon nanofiber network as a robust bifunctional electrocatalyst for water splitting

Searching high-active, stable and abundant bifunctional catalysts to replace noble metals for hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions (HER and OER) is desired. Herein, petal-like NiCoP sheets were synthesized on carbon paper covered with a 3D nitrogen-doped carbon nanofiber network (NiCoP/CNNCP) by a simple hydrothermal process followed by phosphorization. The HER overpotential in 0.5 M H₂SO₄ and OER overpotential in 1 M KOH of the NiCoP/CNNCP electrode only required 55 mV and 260 mV to drive a current density of 10 mA cm^?2, respectively, which was comparable or even better than most nickel-and cobalt-based phosphide catalysts. The overall water-splitting electrolyzer with an asymmetric electrolyte system assembled using NiCoP/CNNCP as bifunctional electrodes required an extremely low cell voltage of 1.04 V to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm^?2, which was much lower than almost all alkaline electrolysis systems.     

Nano fibrillated cellulose-based foam by Pickering emulsion: Preparation,characterizations, and application as dye adsorbent

An ecofriendly and biodegradable porous structure was prepared from drying aqueous foams based on nano fibrillated cellulose (NFC), extracted from softwood pulp by subcritical water/CO₂ treatment (SC-NFC). The primary aim of this work was to use the modified SC-NFC as stabilizer for a water-based Pickering emulsion which upon drying, yielded porous cellulosic materials, a good dye adsorbent. In order to exploit the carboxymethylated SC-NFC (CMSC-NFC, with a degree of substitution of 0.35 and a charge density of 649 μeqv/g) as a stabilizer for water-based Pickering emulsion in subsequent step, an optimized quantity of octyl amine (30 mg/g of SC-NFC) was added to make them partially hydrophobic. A series of dry foam structures were prepared by varying the concentrations of treated CMSC-NFCs and 4 wt% was found to be the optimum concentration to yield foam with high porosity (99%) and low density (0.038 g/cc) along with high compression strength (0.24 MPa), superior to the conventionally extracted NFC. The foams were applied to capture as high as 98% of methylene blue dyes, making them a potential green candidate for treating industrial effluent. In addition, the dye adsorption kinetics and isotherms were found to be well suited with second order kinetics and Langmuir isotherm models.     

Modification of the wood-plastic composite for enhancement of formaldehyde clearance and the 3D printing application

As the formaldehyde is one of the main indoor pollutants, the purpose of this study is to effectively remove indoor formaldehyde pollution by using environmentally friendly 3D printing ornaments. The wood 3D printing filaments cellulose/polylactic acid composite (Cellu/P) was selected as the starting material, and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) was used for chemical modification to obtain a series of cellulose composite materials with amino groups. The modified composite materials (APTES@Cellu/P) were characterized by Fourier transform infrared, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and mechanical tests, and a formaldehyde removal experiment was performed. The feasibility of 3D printing was evaluated, and the process of 3D printing-functionalized customized ornaments was proposed, and then a school emblem was used for modeling, printing, and surface modification. Compared with the commercially traditional activated carbon, 3D printing-customized ornaments of APTES@Cellu/P material has a better formaldehyde removal effect, and can even avoid the secondary pollution that is common to the activated carbon.     

An Injectable Hydrogel for Simultaneous Photothermal Therapy and Photodynamic Therapy with Ultrahigh Efficiency Based on Carbon Dots and Modified Cellulose Nanocrystals

The convenience of injectable hydrogels that can provide high loading of diverse phototherapy agents and further long-time retention at the tumor site has attracted tremendous interest in simultaneous photothermal and photodynamic cancer therapies. However, to incorporate the phototherapy agents into hydrogels, complex modifications are generally unavoidable. Moreover, these phototherapy agents usually suffer from low efficiency and work at different irradiation wavelengths outside the near infrared windows. Hence, a method for the fabrication of an injectable hydrogel for simultaneous photothermal therapy and photodynamic therapy, through the Schiff-base reaction between amido modified carbon dots (NCDs) and aldehyde modified cellulose nanocrystals is proposed. The NCDs act as both phototherapy agents and crosslinkers to form hydrogels. Significantly, the NCDs demonstrate an extremely high photothermal conversion efficiency of 77.6% which is among the highest levels for photothermal agents and a high singlet quantum yield of 0.37 under a single 660 nm light-emitting diode irradiation. The hydrogels are examined through in vitro and in vivo animal experiments which show nontoxic and effectively tumor inhibition. Thus, the strategy of direct reaction of phototherapy agents and the matrix not only provides new strategies for injectable hydrogel fabrication but paves a new road for advanced tumor treatment.     

Synthesis,Characterization, Speciation,and Biological Studies on Metal Chelates of Carbohydrates with Molecular Docking Investigation

The role of starch aerogel (St-AG) and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as biolgical active compounds, when they subjected for complexation with metal ions, is assessed in this work. The complexation is carried out with palladium(II) and copper(II) ions, in solid state. Different tools of analysis are carried out to characterize and elucidate the structures of these complexes, namely: elemental analysis, IR, thermal analysis, magnetic measurement and molar conductance techniques. All synthesized complexes are formed with 1:2 (metal:ligand) stoichiometry except the case of aerogel starch 1:1 (Pd:starch). All isolated complexes show a satisfactory cytotoxic effect results against colon cancer cell lines HCT11. Additionally, these complexes are screened for their antibacterial activities against two types of Gram positive and negative bacteria. Molecular docking investigation confirmed the cytotoxicity and antibacterial results. Proton–ligands association constants and their complex formation constants with some bivalent metal ions, using potentiometric method show that the complexes formed in solution have a stoichiometry of 1:1 [metal:ligand]. The effects of metal ion, ionic radius, electronegativity and nature of ligand on the formation constants are discussed. The formation constants of the complexes with 3D transition metals followed the order Mn²⁺ < Co²⁺ < Ni²⁺ < Cu²⁺ > Zn²⁺.     

改进的CAGAN在虚拟试衣中的应用

针对CAGAN（Conditional Analogy GAN）换衣后效果模糊，在目标衣服与原始衣服长短不一致时效果一般，相对目标衣服保留过少的细节等问题做了相关研究并对CAGAN进行了改进，提出了新的虚拟试衣方式。经过改进的CAGAN生成一个粗糙的结果，由该结果得到目标衣服穿在模特身上改变形状后的mask，接下来利用mask对目标衣服进行变形，综合变形的衣服和第一步的结果便得到最终的试衣图像。实验结果表明，该方法解决了前面存在的问题，而且取得了非常好的效果。     

High-Performance All-Solid-State Supercapacitor Electrode Materials Using Freestanding Electrospun Carbon Nanofiber Mats of Polyacrylonitrile and Novolac Blends

Herein, this paper reports a facile method to prepare electrospun carbon nanofiber mats (ECNFMs) with high specific surface area and interconnected structure using polyacrylonitrile (PAN) as a precursor and novolac resin (NOC) as a polymer sacrificial pore-making agent. Without additional treatment, the prepared ECNFMs have a highly porous structure because NOC decomposes in a wider temperature range than most polymer activators. The NOC content in the PAN nanofibers shows important effects on porosity. The BET specific surface area of ECNFMs reaches a maximum of 1468 m² g⁻¹ when the precursor nanofibers contained 30 wt% NOC (ECNFM-3) after carbonization at 1000 °C. The supercapacitor device from ECNFM-3 electrode and all-solid-state electrolyte shows excellent cycling durability and high specific capacitance: ≈99.72% capacitance retention after 10 000 charge/discharge cycles and ≈320 mF cm⁻² at 0.25 mA cm⁻². Furthermore, it shows a large energy density of ≈11.1 $\mu$Wh cm⁻² under the power density of 500 mW m⁻². Activation of carbon nanofibers simply by the addition of NOC into precursor nanofibers can offer a handy way to prepare ECNFMs for high-performance all-solid-state supercapacitors and other potential applications.     

Fabrication of bacterial cellulose with high efficient loading of Ag and TiO2 nanoparticles for removing organic dyes

As a new advanced oxidation technology, photocatalytic technology has broad application prospects in the field of wastewater treatment. However, in the actual use process, there will be difficulties in catalyst recovery and reuse. This article successfully prepared bacterial cellulose (BC) loaded silver and titanium dioxide nanoparticles (Ag-plated TiO₂/BC composite pellicle) by in situ embedding method. BC not only works as the carrier to load TiO₂ and Ag NPs but also adsorbs dyes to promote the reaction. As a reusable photocatalytic film, it is convenient to use and recycle in terms of testing and characterization compared with powders. The results show that Ag and TiO₂ nanoparticles were closely embedded in BC. We evaluated the photocatalytic degradation performance of the catalyst on methylene blue (MB), active red X-3B, and Rhodamine B. When the reaction time was 2 h, the dye removal rates were 71%, 68%, and 82.6%. At the same time, through the inhibition zone experiment, it was found that the material has a certain inhibitory effect on both Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. Therefore, the supported catalyst prepared by this method has the advantages of high catalytic activity, relatively stable property, easy recovery, and tailorability, making it potentially applicable in sewage post-treatment links.