Double emulsion (W/O/W) gel stabilised by polyglycerol polyricinoleate and calcium caseinate as mangiferin carrier: insights on formulation and stability properties

Mangiferin (MGF) is a phenolic compound isolated from mango, but its poor solubility significantly limits its use. In this study, MGF was embedded into the inner aqueous phase of W₁/O/W₂ emulsions. Firstly, the dissolution method of MGF was determined. MGF remained stable in solution with pH 13 at 30 min, and its solubility reached 10 mg mL⁻¹. When the pH of MGF solutions was adjusted from pH 13 to pH 6, MGF did not immediately crystallise, providing sufficient time to construct the MGF-loaded W₁/O/W₂ emulsions. Subsequently, the MGF-loaded W₁/O/W₂ emulsions were constructed using polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR) and calcium caseinate (CAS). The formation and stability of the W₁/O/W₂ emulsions were investigated. The MGF-loaded W₁/O/W₂ emulsions stabilised with 1% PGPR and 1% – 3% CAS exhibited a low viscosity, limited loading capacity, and poor stability. Conversely, the MGF-loaded W₁/O/W₂ emulsions stabilised by 3%PGPR–3%CAS exhibited optimal loading capacity (encapsulation efficiency = 95.31% and loading efficiency = 0.91%) and stability, which was attributed to the fact that high viscosity and gel state retarded the migration of inner aqueous phase. These results indicated that the W₁/O/W₂ emulsions stabilised by PGPR and CAS may be a potential alternative for encapsulating mangiferin.     

Facile preparation and strong adhesive strength of honeycomb polyurethane films with small pore diameter

With the continuous development of bionics, such as, geckos and virginia creeper with both superhydrophobic and super-adhesive, the surface wetting and super-adhesive properties of various porous materials have attracted extensive attention of the scientific and medical communities. Here, the honeycomb polyurethane (PU) porous films with strong adhesion were successfully prepared by microphase separation method and the effects of growth parameters on their microstructure and adhesive strength to ice were investigated. It was found that a high relative humidity (e.g., 100%) and a low solution concentration (e.g., 2%) facilitated the formation of ordered honeycomb PU porous films, and as-prepared PU pores with average pore diameter as small as 5 μm are better ordered and more uniform than these in related documents. Although the contact angle of water droplets on the surface of PU porous films increased from the premodification value of 85–130° to more than 160° after surface modification with polydopamine (PDA), the corresponding rolling angle remained approximately constant (180°), indicating that the surface of PU porous films has strong adhesion similar to geckos and virginia creeper. Furthermore, at lower temperature, the PU porous films exhibited the high adhesive strength of 142.13 kPa on ice, which was strongly dependent on the porous microstructures and surface compositions. The improved adhesive behavior to ice of honeycomb PU porous films modified with PDA provides new strategies for surface modification of materials and potential applications in medical domain.     

Ensemble relation network with multi-level measure

Fine-grained few-shot learning is a difficult task in image classification. The reason is that the discriminative features of fine-grained images are often located in local areas of the image, while most of the existing few-shotlearning image classification methods only use top-level features and adopt a single measure. In that way, the localfeatures of the sample cannot be learned well. In response to this problem, ensemble relation network with multi-level measure (ERN-MM) is proposed in this paper. It adds the relation modules in the shallow feature space tocompare the similarity between the samples in the local features, and finally integrates the similarity scores from thefeature spaces to assign the label of the query samples. So the proposed method ERN-MM can use local details andglobal information of different grains. Experimental results on different fine-grained datasets show that the proposedmethod achieves good classification performance and also proves its rationality.     

Freeze-drying and mechanical redispersion of aqueous PEDOT:PSS

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) films are attracting famous applications in antistatic coating, energy storage and conversion, printed electronics, and biomedical fields due to their conductivity, optical transparency and flexibility. However, PEDOT:PSS has poor dispersion stability during long-term storage and transport. Moreover, the dried PEDOT:PSS films are insoluble in any solvent and cannot be redispersed again. In comparison to bake drying, here, a feasible strategy to achieve mechanically redispersed PEDOT:PSS with the help of freeze-drying process was reported. The redispersed PEDOT:PSS can recover not only the initial characters such as pH, chemical composition, viscosity, and particle size under similar solid contents, but also conductivity and surface morphology of treated films. In addition, the treated film exhibits self-healing properties similar to pristine film in terms of mechanical and electrical properties. This technology enables reuse and overcomes the technical problems of PEDOT:PSS dispersion, realizing real-time processing to meet variable applications.     

Enhanced electrochemical performance of LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 via titanium and boron co-doping

Titanium and boron are simultaneously introduced into LiNi_0.8Co_0.1Mn_0.1O₂ to improve the structural stability and electrochemical performance of the material. X-ray diffraction studies reveal that Ti⁴⁺ ion replaces Li⁺ ion and reduces the cation mixing; B³⁺ ion enters the tetrahedron of the transition metal layers and enlarges the distance of the [LiO₆] layers. The co-doped sample has spherical secondary particles with elongated and enlarged primary particles, in which Ti and B elements distribute uniformly. Electrochemical studies reveal the co-doped sample has improved rate performance (183.1 mAh·g^-1 at 1 C and 155.5 mAh·g^-1 at 10 C) and cycle stability (capacity retention of 94.7% after 100 cycles at 1 C). EIS and CV disclose that Ti and B co-doping reduces charge transfer impedance and suppresses phase change of LiNi_0.8Co_0.1Mn_0.1O_2.     

Constructing magnetically recoverable CdS/CaFe2O4 P–N heterojunctions for enhanced photoelectrochemical properties towards H2 evolution reaction

A novel CdS/CaFe₂O₄ (CS/CFO) heterogeneous p-n junction was created by thermal deposition of CaFe₂O₄ nanoparticles on CdS rods. The CS/CFO hetero-structured photocatalysts exhibited increasingly efficient visible light harvesting compared to the bare CdS. The CS/CFO composites also presented higher photocurrent and slower decay of photoluminescence, suggesting a better separation of the photo-generated electrons and holes. The photocatalytic H₂ evolution quantity on the optimized CS/CFO composite from water in the presence of ethanol was up to 2200 μmol after 3-h visible light illumination, which is more than twice that of the pristine CdS. The chemical interaction between CdS and CaFe₂O₄ was confirmed by the shifts in the XPS peaks, which made it possible for the charge carriers to transfer across the p-n junction interface. This research highlights the importance of forming an interfacial p-n heterojunction between two semiconductors for efficient charge separation and improved photocatalytic performance.     

Organic mesh template-based laminated object manufacturing to fabricate ceramics with regular micron scaled pore structures

A new aqueous slurry-based laminated object manufacturing process for porous ceramics is proposed: firstly, an organic mesh sheet is pre-paved as a pore-forming template before slurry layer scraping; secondly, the 2D pattern is built with laser outline cutting of the dried mesh–ceramic composite layer; finally, the pore structure is formed after degreasing and sintering. Alumina parts with porosities of 51.5 %, round hole diameters of 80 ± 5 μm were fabricated using 70 wt. % solid content slurry and 100 mesh nylon net. Using an organic mesh as the framework and template not only reduces the risk of damage of the green body but also ensures the regularity, uniformity and connectivity of the micron scaled pore network. The layer-by-layer drying method avoids the delamination phenomenon and improves the paving density. The new method can realize the flexible design of the pore structure by using various organic mesh templates.     

Research on Crop Irrigation Schedules Under Deficit Irrigation—A Meta-analysis

Water Resources Management - Increasing water consumption in agriculture due to global climate change has posed considerable challenges to food security, thus improving the efficiency of water...     

Rheological phase reaction synthesis and electrochemical performance of LiFe2/3Mn1/3PO4/C cathode for lithium-ion batteries

LiFe_2/3Mn_1/3PO₄/C composite was prepared by the rheological phase reaction using LiH₂PO₄, Li₂CO₃, FePO₄, Mn(Ac)₂·4H₂O and ascorbic acid as starting materials. The crystal structure and morphology of as-synthesized sample were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The analysis of XRD results showed that the obtained sample was single-phase with orthorhombic olivine-type structure (Pnma space group). SEM micrographs revealed that the sample was aggregates, with an irregular morphology. The initial discharge capacity was 166.9, 149.1, 139.6, 112.8, 82.93 mAh g^??1 at the rate of 0.1, 0.5, 1, 2, and 10 C, respectively. And when the rate was 0.1, 0.5, 1, 2, and 10 C, the capacity retention was 92.2%, 90%, 92.9%, 97.6%, 91.5% after 50, 100, 200, 200, 500 cycles, respectively.