Highly crystalline single-domain magnetite Fe₃O₄nanoparticles (NPs) are important, not only for fundamental understanding of magnetic behaviour, but also for their considerable potential applications in biomedicine and industry. Fe₃O₄NPs with sizes of 10–300 nm were systematically investigated to reveal the fundamental relationship between the crystal domain structure and the magnetic properties. The examined Fe₃O₄NPs were prepared under well-controlled crystal growth conditions using a large-scale liquid precipitation method. The crystallite size of cube-like NPs estimated from X-ray diffraction pattern increased linearly as the particle size (estimated by transmission electron microscopy) increased from 10 to 64.7 nm, which indicates that the NPs have a single-domain structure. This was further confirmed by the uniform lattice fringes. The critical size of approximately 76 nm was obtained by correlating particle size with both crystallite size and magnetic coercivity; this was reported for the first time in this study. The coercivity of cube-like Fe₃O₄NPs increased to a maximum of 190 Oe at the critical size, which suggests strong exchange interactions during spin alignment. Compared with cube-like NPs, sphere-like NPs have lower magnetic coercivity and remanence values, which is caused by the different orientations of their polycrystalline structure.

The combustion of solid fuels, including coal and biomass, is a main anthropogenic source of atmospheric particulate matter (PM). The hidden costs have been underestimated due to lack of consideration of the toxicity of PM. Here we report the unequal toxicity of inhalable PM emitted from energy use in the residential sector and coal-fired power plants (CFPPs). The incomplete burning of solid fuels in household stoves generates much higher concentrations of carbonaceous matter, resulting in more than one order of magnitude greater toxicity than that from CFPPs. When compared with CFPPs, the residential sector consumed only a tenth of solid fuels in mainland China in 2017, but it contributed about 200-fold higher of the population-weighted toxic potency-adjusted PM_2.5 exposure risk. We suggest that PM_2.5-related toxicity should be considered when making air pollution emission control strategies, and incomplete combustion sources should receive more policy attention to reduce exposure risks.

Effects of gas flow rate on the length of atmospheric pressure plasma jets have been investigated using a capillary dielectric barrier discharge configuration. For the discharge in only downstream region, three distinguishable modes of plasma jet length versus argon gas flow rate, namely, laminar, transition, and turbulent jet mode, have been identified. For the case of discharge in both downstream and upstream regions, the curve of length versus flow rate has significant “dent” in the laminar jet mode for pure helium, neon, and argon flow gas spraying into air ambient.