With the fast-growing accumulation of electronic waste and rising demand for rare metals, it is compelling to develop technologies that can promotionally recover targeted metals, like gold, from waste, a process referred to as urban mining. Thus, there is increasing interest in the design of materials to achieve rapid, selective gold capture while maintaining high adsorption capacity, especially in complex aqueous-based matrices. Here, a highly porous metal-organic framework (MOF)–polymer composite, BUT-33–poly( para -phenylenediamine) (PpPD), is assessed for gold extraction from several matrices including river water, seawater, and leaching solutions from CPUs. BUT-33–PpPD exhibits a record-breaking extraction rate, with high Au ³⁺ removal efficiency (>99%) within seconds (less than 45 s), a competitive capacity (1600 mg/g), high selectivity, long-term stability, and recycling ability. Furthermore, the high porosity and redox adsorption mechanism were shown to be underlying reasons for the material’s excellent performance. Given the accumulation of recovered metallic gold nanoparticles inside, the material was also efficiently applied as a catalyst.

Blakeslea trispora has great potential uses in industrial production because of the excellent capability of producing a large quantity of carotenoids. However, the mechanisms of light-induced carotenoid biosynthesis even the structural and regulatory genes in pathways remain unclear. In this paper, we reported the first transcriptome study in B. trispora in which we have carried out global survey of expression changes of genes participated in blue light response. We verified that the yield of β-carotene increased 3-fold when transferred from darkness to blue light for 24 h and the enhancement of transcription levels of carRA and carB presented a positive correlation with the increase in carotenoid production. RNA-seq analysis revealed that 1124 genes were upregulated and 740 genes were downregulated respectively after blue light exposure. Annotation through GO, KEGG, Swissprot, and COG databases showed 11119 unigenes compared well with known gene sequences, 5514 unigenes were classified into Gene Ontology, and 4675 unigenes were involved in distinct pathways. Among the blue light-responsive genes, 4 genes (carG1, carG3, carRA and carB) identified to function in carotenoid metabolic pathways were dominantly upregulated. We also discovered that 142 TF genes belonging to 45 different superfamilies showed significant differential expression (p≤ 0.05), 62 of which were obviously repressed by blue light. The detailed profile of transcription data will not only allow us to conduct further functional genomics study in B. trispora, but also enhance our understanding of potential metabolic pathway and regulatory network involved in light-regulated carotenoid synthesis.

Poly(ionic liquid)s (PILs) are promising candidates for constructing highly efficient and stable heterogeneous Fenton catalysts due to their tunable chemical structure, abundant active sites, and universal compatibility with different substances. Herein, an iron-based PIL/polydopamine (PDA) composite (PDVIm-Fe/PDA) is successfully synthesized for organic contaminant degradation. The high iron content, formation of ˙OH and SO₄˙⁻ radicals and mesoporous structure of the composite allow for ∼99% malachite green (MG) degradation efficiency with the degradation rate constant of 1.95 min⁻¹ and the as-defined catalytic degradation rate of 0.79 g_(MG) g_{(PDVIm-Fe/PDA)} ⁻¹ min⁻¹, showing much higher activity than most of the reported heterogeneous catalysts. The composite can be used in a wide pH range and recycled seven times without an obvious catalytic performance decrease, and it can also be applied to the degradation of other organic pollutants. The excellent stability and versatility make PDVIm-Fe/PDA an efficient heterogeneous Fenton catalyst for practical applications in wastewater treatment.

High pressure in situ Fourier transfer infrared/near infrared technology (HP FTIR/NIR) along with theoretical calculation of density functional theory (DFT) method was employed. The solvation behaviors and the free radical homopolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA), methacrylate acid (MAA), trifluoromethyl methacrylate (MTFMA) and trifluoromethyl methacrylate acid (TFMAA) in scCO₂ were systematically investigated. Interestingly, the previously proposed mechanism of intermolecular-interaction dynamically-induced solvation effect (IDISE) of monomer in scCO₂ is expected to be well verified/corroborated in view that the predicted solubility order of the monomers in scCO₂ via DFT calculation is ideally consistent with that observed via HP FTIR/NIR. It is shown that MMA and MAA can be easily polymerized, while the free radical polymerizability of MTFMA is considerably poor and TFMAA cannot be polymerized via the free radical initiators. The α trifluoromethyl group (–CF₃) may effectively enhance the intermolecular hydrogen bonding and restrain the diffusion of the monomer in scCO₂. More importantly, the strong electron-withdrawing inductive effect of –CF₃ to C=C may distinctly decrease the atomic charge of the carbon atom in the methylene (=CH₂). These two factors are believed to be predominantly responsible for the significant decline of the free radical polymerizability of MTFMA and the other alkyl 2-trifluoromethacrylates in scCO₂.