Impact of Pyridyl Moieties on the Inhibitory Properties of Prominent Acyclic Metal Chelators Against Metallo-ß-Lactamase-Producing Enterobacteriaceae: Investigating the Molecular Basis of Acyclic Metal Chelators' Activity.

Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CREs)-mediated infections remain a huge public health concern. CREs produce enzymes such as metallo-ß-lactamases (MBLs), which inactivate ß-lactam antibiotics. Hence, developing efficient molecules capable of inhibiting these enzymes remains a way forward to overcoming this phenomenon. In this study, we demonstrate that pyridyl moieties favor the inhibitory activity of cyclic metal-chelating agents through in vitro screening, molecular modeling, and docking assays. Di-(2-picolyl) amine and tris-(2-picolyl) amine exhibited great efficacy against different types of MBLs and strong binding affinity for NDM-1, whereas 2-picolyl amine did not show activity at a concentration of 64 mg/L in combination with meropenem; it further showed the lowest binding affinity from computational molecular analysis, commensurating with the in vitro screening assays. The findings revealed that the pyridyl group plays a vital role in the inhibitory activity of the tested molecules against CREs and should be exploited as potential MBL inhibitors.

A self-assembled superhydrophobic electrospun carbon-silica nanofiber sponge for selective removal and recovery of oils and organic solvents.

An oil spill needs timely cleanup before it spreads and poses serious environmental threat to the polluted area. This always requires the cleanup techniques to be efficient and cost-effective. In this work, a lightweight and compressible sponge made of carbon-silica nanofibers is derived from electrospinning nanotechnology that is low-cost, versatile, and readily scalable. The fabricated sponge has high porosity (>99 %) and displays ultra-hydrophobicity and superoleophilicity, thus making it a suitable material as an oil adsorbent. Owing to its high porosity and low density, the sponge is capable of adsorbing oil up to 140 times its own weight with its sorption rate showing solution viscosity dependence. Furthermore, sponge regeneration and oil recovery are feasible by using either cyclic distillation or mechanical squeezing.

Highly efficient and flexible electrospun carbon-silica nanofibrous membrane for ultrafast gravity-driven oil-water separation.

A novel free-standing and flexible electrospun carbon-silica composite nanofibrous membrane is newly introduced. The characterization results suggest that the electrospun composite nanofibers are constructed by carbon chains interpenetrated through a linear network of 3-dimensional SiO2. Thermogravimetric analysis indicates that the presence of insulating silica further improve the thermal resistance of the membrane. Additionally, the mechanical strength test shows that the membrane's toughness and flexibility can be enhanced if the concentration of SiO2 is maintained below 2.7 wt %. Thermal and chemical stability test show that the membrane's wettability properties can be sustained at an elevated temperature up to 300 °C and no discernible change in wettability was observed under highly acidic and basic conditions. After surface-coating with silicone oil for 30 mins, the composite membrane exhibits ultra-hydrophobic and superoleophilic properties with water and oil contact angles being 144.2 ± 1.2° and 0°, respectively. The enhanced flexibility and selective wetting property enables the membrane to serve as an effective substrate for separating free oil from water. Lab-scale oil-water separation test indicates that the membrane possesses excellent oil-water separation efficiency. In addition, its inherent property of high porosity allows oil-water separation to be performed in a gravity-driven process with high-flux. We anticipate that this study will open up a new avenue for fabrication of free-standing carbonaceous composite membrane with tunable flexibility for energy efficient and high-throughput production of clean water.

Multifunctional graphene oxide-TiO2-Ag nanocomposites for high performance water disinfection and decontamination under solar irradiation.

Multifunctional nanocomposites (GO-TiO2-Ag) integrating 2D GO sheets, 1D TiO2 nanorods and 0D Ag nanoparticles were synthesized via a facile two-phase method and characterized by various analytical techniques including TEM, EDS and XRD. The GO-TiO2-Ag nanocomposites demonstrate remarkably enhanced photocatalytic activities in degrading AO 7 and phenol under solar irradiation compared with GO-TiO2 and GO-Ag. They also exhibit excellent intrinsic antibacterial activity toward Escherichia coli, as well as significantly enhanced photo-biocidal capability over GO-TiO2 and GO-Ag. Through systematically investigating the influence of Ag content in the nanocomposites for their photocatalytic activities, it indicates that the optimal Ag content in the GO-TiO2-Ag nanocomposites varies for dye degradation and for phenol/bacterial degradation with different mechanisms. The superior photocatalytic activities under solar irradiation and the easy recovery make the GO-TiO2-Ag nanocomposites a good promising candidate for water purification.

Room temperature reduction of graphene oxide by formic acid catalyzed by platinum nanoparticles.

Graphene oxide (GO) was reduced by stirring the solution contaning GO sheets with platinum (Pt) nanoparticles and formic acid at room temperature for 72 h. The resulting reduced graphene oxide-Pt (RGO-Pt) nanocomposites were characterized, and it was found that the Pt nanoparticles of size 4-6 nm were anchored onto the RGO sheets. The reduction of GO was facilitated by formic acid catalysed by the Pt nanoparticles. The reduction level of the GO sheets was related to the pH of the mixed solution, and higher pH would induce higher reduction level of the GO sheets. The RGO-Pt nanocomposites synthesized at pH 4 and pH 7 exhibit large electrochemically active surface area of 49.45 m2/g and 56.78 m2/g, and high I(f)/I(b) ratio of 2.36 and 2.87 indicating high electrocatalytic activities. This paper presents a new energy efficient way to reduce GO and produce RGO-Pt for fuel cell and other applications.

Effects of inorganic anions on cadmium sorption behaviours on titanate nanotube surfaces.

This manuscript describes the characterization of as-synthesized titanate nanotube (TNT) and its sorption behaviours on cadmium with the interactions of inorganic anions. The X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy found that the nanotube is in sodium titanate crystal phase (Na2Ti3O7) and the pores of TNT are bimodally distributed with nominal pore sizes of 3 and 15 nm. In the binary systems between TNT and anions, the binding affinity is fluoride > phosphate > sulphate with sulphate being the least preferred. The order is similar to that of their first acidity constants, pKa1. In the presence of cadmium ions, slight decreases in fluoride and sulphate uptakes were observed. Phosphate uptake was, however, synergistically improved when cadmium was introduced. In the same ternary systems, it was found that these anions decreased the cadmium uptakes by TNT with the effect of sulphate being the most prominent.

Enhancing stability and photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanoparticles by surface modification of graphene oxide.

This work reports a simple method for the preparation of high-quality GO-ZnO nanocomposite materials. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that the ZnO nanoparticles are uniformly distributed on the GO sheets and the diameter of the ZnO nanoparticles falls in 5-8 nm. Further experimental results imply that involving GO sheets into the system could remarkably prevent the aggregation of ZnO nanoparticles compared to pure ZnO. The photocatalytic activity and stability of the prepared GO-ZnO composite for the degradation of Acid Orange 7 (AO 7) under UV light irradiation is significantly enhanced in comparison to the as-synthesized pristine ZnO nanoparticles. Considering the high photocatalytic acitivity and relative stability, this high-quality GO-ZnO nanocomposite is beneficial for the applications in environmental engineering and other fields.

Selective sorption of divalent cations using a high capacity sorbent.

This manuscript describes the application of a novel sorbent, sodium titanate nanotube (STN) on partitioning of various divalent cations. Seven divalent cations, from alkaline earth, transition and post-transition groups, were used to determine the capacity and selectivity of STN. At pH 3 ± 0.02 and 0.1M ionic strength, STN displayed high capacity for Pb and Cd (1.27 and 0.39 mmol/g, correspondingly). The affinity of divalent cations was in the order Pb ≫ Cd>Cu>Zn>Ca>Sr>Ni. For six of the tested cations, their sorption capacity can be linearly correlated to its hydrolysis constant and electronegativity. STN has unusually low affinity for Ni and correlations of sorption capacity of Ni falls outside the 95% confidence intervals. Furthermore, it exhibited sorption behavior similar to alkaline earth cations, significant uptakes occurred only when pH>point of zero charge. In competitive sorption tests, STN preferentially sorb Cd over other metals (Zn, Ni, Ca and Sr) which coexist in industrial wastewater. As such STN is a potential novel sorbent useful for partitioning Cd from other metals in industrial wastewater.

Sequestration of cadmium ions using titanate nanotube.

In this manuscript, titanate (Na(2)Ti(3)O(7)) nanotubes synthesized from alkali hydrothermal route, with high BET surface area (206 m(2)/g), were used as an effective sorbent to remove cadmium ions from water. Sorption capacity (q(m,Langmuir) = 1.1 mmol/g at pH 7) was higher than other sorbents. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses performed on fresh and cadmium-sorbed samples reveal intensities of Na 1s peak decreased after sorption indicating ion-exchanging between cadmium and sodium ions occurred at interlayer of nanotubes. However kinetic study did not show a stoichiometrically equivalent amount of Na(+) being released suggesting Cd uptake was not due solely to ion-exchange mechanism. Batch tests also showed that cadmium uptake was not significantly affected by variation in ionic strength, signifying cadmium ions form an inner-sphere complexation with surface hydroxyl groups. Finally, surface complexation modeling was performed based on charge distribution multisite ion complexation (CDMUSIC) model. It was found that CDMUSIC was able to fit the experimental data best when inner-sphere complexation and ion-exchange were applied together.

Effect of calcination temperature on the textural properties and photocatalytic activities of highly ordered cubic mesoporous WO3/TiO2 films.

Highly organized cubic mesoporous WO3/TiO2 films were successfully prepared by evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) process, employing triblock copolymer as template. The characterization results by XRD, SEM, TEM, UV-Vis. spectrophotometry, and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms reveal that the mesoporous films are made up of well-defined 3-D cubic (lm3m space group) mesoporous structure and nanocrystalline anatase frameworks with high surface area, uniform pore sizes and excellent optical transparency. Photocatalytic properties of the mesoporous WO3/TiO2 films in decomposing gaseous 2-propanol to CO2 were analyzed as a function of calcinations temperature. The highest photocatalytic activity was obtained for the films calcined at 450 degrees C, which possess an appropriate crystallinity and relevant ordering of mesoporous structure. It was found that that long-range ordering of mesopores is one of the important factors in determining the photocatalytic degradation of gaseous organics.

Combination of one-dimensional TiO(2) nanowire photocatalytic oxidation with microfiltration for water treatment.

This paper proposed the fabrication of two different diameter one-dimensional TiO2 nanowires, 10 nm TNW10 and 20-100 nm TNW20, via hydrothermal process using different alkaline sources. TNW10 and TNW20 were used as photocatalysts for the degradation of humic acid (HA), the major natural organic matters (NOMs) in surface and ground water, followed by microfiltration. The evaluation of photocatalytic activities of them showed that TNW10 was superior to the commercial P25 TiO2 while TNW20 was as good as P25. The membrane filtration verified that the two types of nanowires could be completely reclaimed. The membrane fouling caused by TNW10 and TNW20 was much less than that of P25 due to more porous cake and less pore plugging. No apparent decrease on their photocatalytic activity was observed in repeated reuse experiments. These one-dimensional TiO2 nanowires would provide a new route for the combination of photocatalytic oxidation and membrane filtration for water treatment.

Self-etching reconstruction of hierarchically mesoporous F-TiO2 hollow microspherical photocatalyst for concurrent membrane water purifications.

We report a large-scale self-etching approach for the synthesis of monodispersed mesoporous F-TiO2 hollow microspheres. The self-etching derived from HF was elucidated by the morphology, chemical composition, and crystal size evolutions from solid to hollow microspheres with the increase in the concentration of H2SO4. The resulting TiO2 hollow microspheres exhibited ease for the concurrent membrane filtration and photocatalysis, providing high potential for engineering application in advanced water treatment, for not only increasing water production but also improving water quality.

One-step fabrication and high photocatalytic activity of porous TiO2 hollow aggregates by using a low-temperature hydrothermal method without templates.

Porous TiO2 hollow aggregates have been synthesized on a large scale by means of a simple hydrothermal method without using any templates. The as-prepared products were characterized by means of field emission scanning electron microscopy, XRD, TEM, nitrogen adsorption, UV/Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, and FTIR spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activity of the aggregates was demonstrated through the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B. Structural characterization indicates that the porous TiO2 aggregates are 500-800 nm in diameter and display mesoporous structure. The average pore sizes and BET surface areas of the aggregates are 12 nm and 168 m2 g-1, respectively. Optical adsorption investigations show that the aggregates possess an optical band-gap energy of 3.36 eV. The as-prepared products were substantially more effective photocatalysts than the commercially available photocatalyst P25. The dye degradation rate of the porous TiO2 hollow aggregates is more than twice that of P25. The high photoactivities of the aggregates can be attributed to the combined effects of several factors, namely, large surface areas, the existence of mesopores, and the high band-gap energy. In addition, the as-prepared products can be easily recycled.