Search

Abstract Brown carbon (BrC) exhibits a highly complex chemical composition with diverse light‐absorbing properties, which complicates our understanding of its climate impacts. This study examined the impact of molecular characteristics (including molecular mass, unsaturation, oxidation state, and polarity) and heteroatoms on the light‐absorbing properties (absorptivity and wavelength dependence) of BrC from a molecular perspective, based on the ultraviolet‐visible spectra of over 40,000 light‐absorbing substances in aerosol from different sources and ambience. Our findings reveal that the light‐absorptivity of BrC molecules increases with decreasing polarity and O/C ratio, while it rises with higher molecular mass and unsaturation. We developed predictive models for molecular absorptivity based on its double bond equivalent and O/C ratio. In addition, we observed an inverse correlation between absorptivity and wavelength dependence at the molecular level, as determined through mathematical analysis. This molecular‐level understanding provides valuable insights into BrC absorbing mechanisms, facilitating more accurate characterization in atmospheric models.

Abstract Cooking oil fumes (COFs) represent a major indoor environmental pollutant and exhibit potent mutagenic or carcinogenic health effects caused by containing various heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) and long-chain aldehydes. Despite some evaluation of the cumulative exposure of COFs to cancer cells under high concentration were evaluated, their biological adverse effects with low-dose exposure to healthy cells had been inadequately investigated. Herein, we firstly scrutinized the three selected typically toxic compounds of heterocyclic amine 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP), 3,8-dimethylammidazo[4,5-f]quinoxalin-2-amine (MeIQx) and trans, trans-2,4-decadienal (TDA)) emitted from COFs. In vitro studies revealed that the PhIP, MeIQx and TDA aerosol particles were negligible toxicity to cancer cells (A549 and HepG-2) but strong cytotoxicity to normal healthy cells (HelF and L02) under 0.5–4 μg/mL low dose exposure based on the reactive oxygen species (ROS) mechanism. In vivo studies demonstrated that PhIP caused significant lung and liver damage after exposure to PhIP for 30 days with mice. These results indicated the direct proof of healthy cell damage even at low-dose exposure to HAAs and aldehydes.

In the present work, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from vehicle exhaust and cooking fumes were investigated via simulation experiments, which covered engine emissions produced during gasoline direct injection (GDI) using two kinds of fuels and cooking emissions produced by preparing three domestic dishes. The distinct characteristics of VOCs emitted during the two processes were identified. Alkanes (73% mass fraction on average) and aromatics (15% on average) dominated the vehicle VOCs, while oxygenated VOCs (49%) and alkanes (29%) dominated the cooking VOCs. Isopentane (22%) was the most abundant species among the vehicle VOCs. N-hexanal (20%) dominated the cooking VOCs. The n-hexanal-to-n-pentanal ratio (3.68 ± 0.64) was utilized to identify cooking VOCs in ambient air. The ozone formation potential produced by cooking VOCs was from 1.39 to 1.93 times higher than that produced by vehicle VOCs, which indicates the significant potential contribution of cooking VOCs to atmospheric ozone. With the equivalent photochemical age increasing from 0 h to 72 h, the secondary organic aerosol formation by vehicle VOCs was from 3% to 38% higher than that of cooking VOCs. Controlling cooking emissions can reduce SOA pollution in a short time due to its higher SOA formation rate than that of vehicle VOCs within the first 30 h. However, after 30 h of oxidation, the amount of SOAs formed by vehicle exhaust emissions exceeded the amount of SOAs produced by cooking activities, implying that reducing vehicle emissions will benefit particle pollution for a longer time. Our results highlight the importance of VOCs produced by cooking fumes, which has not been given much attention before. Further, our study suggested that more research on semi-volatile organic compounds produced by cooking emissions should be conducted in the future.

The millimeter-wave (mmWave) and massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication technologies provide vital means to resolve many technical challenges of the fifth-generation (5G) or beyond 5G (B5G) network. Analyzing the measured datasets extracted from the channel measurements can provide insight into the characteristics of radio channels in different scenarios. Therefore, mmWave massive MIMO channel measurements, simulation, and modeling are carried out in the high-speed railway waiting hall environments at 28 GHz. The multipath components (MPCs) parameters are estimated for line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios based on the space-alternating generalized expectation-maximization (SAGE) algorithm. Delay spread (DS), azimuth angle of arrival (AAoA), and elevation angle of arrival (EAoA) are analyzed. And they are processed by using the K-mean algorithm. In addition, propagation characteristics are simulated based on the improved ray tracing method of shooting and bouncing ray tracing/image (SBR/IM). The correctness of the improved ray tracing method is verified by comparing the measured results with the simulated results. The large-scale path loss (PL) is characterized based on close-in (CI) free-space reference distance model and the floating-intercept (FI) path loss model. Furthermore, statistical distributions for root-mean-square delay spread (RMS DS) are investigated. The Gaussian distribution best fits the measured data of RMS delay spread. Finally, multipath clustering is identified using the multipath component distance (MCD). The analysis of these results from mmWave massive MIMO channel measurements and simulation may be instructive for the deployment of the 5G or B5G wireless communications systems at 28 GHz.

Scenario identification plays an important role in assisting unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) cognitive communications. Based on the scenario-dependent channel characteristics, a support vector machine (SVM)-based air-to-ground (A2G) scenario identification model is proposed. In the proposed model, the height of the UAV is also used as a feature to improve the identification accuracy. On the basis, an improved scenario identification method is developed including dataset acquisition, identification model training, and height-integrated model feedback. The shooting and bouncing ray/image (SBR/IM) method is used to obtain the datasets of channel characteristics, i.e., root-mean-square delay spread (RMS-DS), K factor, and angle spread (AS) under five typical scenarios: over-sea, suburban, urban, dense urban and high-rise urban. SBR/IM is a symmetry-based ray tracing (RT) simulation method. After the identification model is trained, a height-integrated feedback scheme is used to increase the identification performance. The simulation results show that the identification accuracy of improved method is about 14% higher than the method without height feature, which reaches nearly 100% under the over-sea and suburban and over 80% in urban, dense urban, and high-rise urban.

Rational design LDHs (layered double hydroxides) with 3D hierarchical hollow structures have generated widespread interest for catalytic oxidation due to the high complexity in shell architecture and composition. Herein, we reported a handy two-step method to construct a 3D hierarchical NiCo2O4/NiO nanocage. This synthetic strategy contains a partial in situ transformation of ZIF-67 (zeolitic imidazolate framework-67) into Co-NiLDH yolk-shelled structures following ethanol etching, and a structure-preserved transformation from Co-NiLDH@ZIF-67 to a biphase nanocage following calcination. CoNi-yh-T (varied reaction time and calcination temperature) nanocages were investigated systematically by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), H2- temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), NH3-temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) and studied for toluene oxidation. The CoNi-6h-350 sample showed much higher activity with 90% toluene conversion (T90) at 229 °C at a high space velocity (SV = 60,000 mL g−1 h−1) than other catalysts (T90 >240 °C). Abundant surface high valence Co ions caused by the novel hierarchical nanostructures, together with adsorbed oxygen species and abundant medium-strength surface acid sites, played a key role for catalytic activities.

CuO-CeO2 nanocatalysts with varying CuO contents (1, 5, 9, 14 and 17 wt %) were prepared by one-step flame spray pyrolysis (FSP) and applied to CO oxidation. The influences of CuO content on the as-prepared catalysts were systematically characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 adsorption-desorption at −196 °C, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and hydrogen-temperature programmed reduction (H2-TPR). A superior CO oxidation activity was observed for the 14 wt % CuO-CeO2 catalyst, with 90% CO conversion at 98 °C at space velocity (60,000 mL × g−1 × h−1), which was attributed to abundant surface defects (lattice distortion, Ce3+, and oxygen vacancies) and high reducibility supported by strong synergistic interaction. In addition, the catalyst also displayed excellent stability and resistance to water vapor. Significantly, in situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (in situ DRIFTS) showed that in the CO catalytic oxidation process, the strong synergistic interaction led readily to dehydroxylation and CO adsorption on Cu+ at low temperature. Furthermore, in the feed of water vapor, although there was an adverse effect on the access of CO adsorption, there was also a positive effect on the formation of fewer carbon intermediates. All these results showed the potential of highly active and water vapor-resistive CuO-CeO2 catalysts prepared by FSP.

As a significant source of indoor and outdoor pollutants, cooking fumes have a great impact on air quality and human health. However, the limited identification and quantification techniques hinder the comprehensive understanding of the complex cooking fumes with wide volatility and polarity. Herein we applied thermal desorption comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (TD-GCxGC-MS) for synchronous analysis of gaseous and particulate organics emitted from cooking fumes. With a systematic 4-step qualitative procedure and precise quantitative and semi-quantitative method, 170 and 352 compounds from C2 (acetic acids) – C30 (squalene) occupying 95 % and 90 % of the total ion current for gaseous and particulate samples were identified and quantified. For most compounds, the correlation coefficient (R²) is >0.9, and the relative standard deviation (RSD, n=5) of three concentration levels (low, medium, high) is within 10 %. For the semi-quantification, the total uncertainty is ~27 %. Compared with gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) and proton transfer time-of-flight mass spectrometer (PTR-ToF-MS), TD-GCxGC-MS detects more compounds, especially the diagnostic tracers related to cooking oil and matierial, and additives added during cooking and secondary products transformed from carbonyls and acids. Hence, TD-GCxGC-MS provides plenty of perspectives to analyze the primary emission and secondary formation from cooking at a molecular level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To elucidate the molecular chemical compositions, volatility-polarity distributions, as well as influencing factors of Chinese cooking emissions, a comprehensive cooking emission experiment was conducted. Semi-volatile and intermediate volatility organic compounds (S/IVOCs) from cooking fumes were analyzed by a thermal desorption comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with quadrupole mass spectrometer (TD-GC×GC-qMS). Emissions from four typical Chinese dishes, i.e., fried chicken, Kung Pao chicken, pan-fried tofu, and stir-fried cabbage were investigated to illustrate the impact of cooking style and material. Fumes of chicken fried with corn, peanut, soybean, and sunflower oils were investigated to demonstrate the influence of cooking oil. A total of 201 chemicals were quantified. Dishes cooked by stir-frying or deep-frying cooking styles emit much more pollutants than relatively mild cooking methods. Aromatics and oxygenated compounds were extensively detected among meat-related cooking fumes, while a vegetable-related profile was observed in the emissions of stir-fried cabbage. The volatility-polarity distributions of the four dish emissions were quite similar, yet the distributions diverged when different types of oils were utilized. Ozone formation potential (OFP) was dominated by chemicals in the VOC range. 10.2% - 32.0% of the SOA estimation could be explained by S/IVOCs. Pixel-based partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and multiway principal component analysis (MPCA) were utilized for sample classification and key components identification. The results indicated that the oil factor explained more variance of chemical compositions than the cooking style factor. MPCA results emphasize the importance of the unsaturated fatty acid-alkadienal-volatile products mechanism (oil autooxidation) accelerated by the cooking and heating procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present work, we conducted experiments of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from urban lifestyle sources (cooking and vehicle) to characterize the mass spectral features of primary organic aerosol (POA) and SOA using an high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS). Our results showed that the cooking styles have greater impact on aged COA mass spectra than oxidation condition. However, the oxidation conditions affect the aged HOA spectra more significantly than vehicle operation conditions. In our study, we use mass spectra similarity analysis and positive matrix factorization (PMF) analysis to establish the POA and SOA mass spectra of these two typical lifestyle sources. These mass spectra are used as source constraints in a multilinear engine (ME-2) model to apportion the OA sources in the atmosphere. Comparing with the traditional ambient PMF results, the improved ME-2 model can better quantify the contribution of POA and SOA from life-style sources. Our work, for the first time, establishes the vehicle and cooking SOA source profiles, and can be further used in the OA source apportionment in the ambient atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both vehicle exhaust and cooking emission are closely related to the daily life of city dwellers, which are considered as major sources of urban secondary organic aerosol (SOA). Here, we defined the SOA derived from vehicle exhaust and cooking emission as "Urban Lifestyle SOA", and simulated their formation using a Gothenburg potential aerosol mass reactor (Go: PAM). After samples had been aged under 0.3-5.5 days of equivalent photochemical age, these two urban lifestyle SOA showed markedly distinct features in SOA mass growth potentials, oxidation pathways and mass spectra. The SOA/POA mass ratios of vehicle groups (107) were 44 times larger than those of cooking groups (2.38) at about 2 days of equivalent photochemical age. It reveals that organics from vehicle may undergo the alcohol/peroxide and carboxylic acid oxidation pathway to produce abundant less/more oxidized oxygenated OA (LO-OOA and MO-OOA), and only a few primary hydrocarbon-like organic aerosol (HOA) remains unaged. In contrast, organics from cooking may undergo the alcohol/peroxide oxidation pathway to produce moderate LO-OOA, and comparable primary cooking organic aerosol (COA) remains unaged. Our findings provide an insight into atmospheric contributions and chemical evolutions for urban lifestyle SOA, which would greatly influence the air quality and health risk assessments in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ligustrazine is a Chinese herb (Chuanxiong) approved for use as a medical drug in China. Recent evidence suggests that ligustrazine has promising antitumor properties. Our preliminary results showed that ligustrazine could inhibit the growth of human renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cell lines. However, the complicated molecular mechanism has not been fully revealed. Therefore, the purpose of this study to investigate the mechanism of ligustrazine resistance in human RCC cells. Cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and colony-formation ability of RCC cells A498 were detected by MTT assay, clonal formation rates, and transwell chamber assay in vitro. The expression of epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT)–related proteins were analyzed using western blot test. The effect of ligustrazine on the growth of A498 cells in nude mice was investigated in vivo. Our results showed that ligustrazine could significantly inhibit the proliferation, migration, and invasion of A498 both in vivo and vitro. Western blot analysis showed that the expressions of EMT-related, N-cadherin, snail, and slug proteins were significantly decreased in A498 in the ligustrazine treatment group. This study indicated that ligustrazine could significantly inhibit the malignant biological behaviors of RCC cell lines, possibly by inhibiting the EMT process.

Mean platelet volume (MPV) is an indicator of platelet activation and has been proposed as a diagnostic marker for several kinds of cancers. We investigated the value of MPV as a diagnostic marker for prostate cancer (PCa) and examined whether MPV in combination with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) could increase the sensitivity or specificity of PSA for PCa diagnosis. For this study, 107 pathologically confirmed PCa and 177 non-PCa patients who underwent prostate biopsy were retrospectively studied. Clinical data and pre-biopsy hematological parameters were collected. The above parameters were compared between PCa and non-PCa patients. The correlation between MPV and clinical characteristics was analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to explore the diagnostic value of MPV for PCa. Among all parameters analyzed, the difference was only found in MPV, platelet distribution width (PDW), and PSA between PCa and non-PCa patients. MPV was significantly decreased and PDW increased in PCa than that of non-PCa among men. ROC analysis identified MPV ≤ 9.05 fl as a cut-off value for potential PCa with area under the ROC curve (AUC) = 0.783, 95% CI = 0.733–0.833, sensitivity = 0.746, and specificity = 0.708. AUC and the sensitivity of MPV were comparable with total PSA (TPSA) or free PSA (FPSA). However, the specificity of MPV was larger than that of TPSA (0.461) or FPSA (0.561). Furthermore, MPV combined with TPSA or FPSA further enhanced the specificity of TPSA (0.844) or FPSA (0.927), but PDW did not. These findings suggested that MPV could have a predictive value for the diagnosis of PCa. MPV in combination with TPSA or FPSA could enhance the specificity of PSA and may reduce the rate of unnecessary biopsy for patients with high levels of PSA.

Members of the layered rare-earth hydroxides (LRHs) family with the generalized formula (Y1−xLnx)2(OH)5NO3·nH2O (Ln = Tb, Eu; 0% ≤ x≤ 100%) (named as YTb-LRHs, YEu-LRHs) have been synthesized viaa hydrothermal route. Crystal structures and elemental compositions have been investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), elemental analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). These results show that Ln3+species are successfully incorporated into the LRH host lattice to form layered hydroxide solid solutions. The YTb-LRHs and YEu-LRHs samples exhibit well-defined photoluminescence. The color of the luminescence can be tuned by changing the concentration of Ln3+. Furthermore, the ternary YTbEu-LRH system was also synthesized, an example of the host layers containing variable types of the lanthanide cations. This provides the possibility to tune the chemical composition and the luminescent properties of the lanthanide species with the flexibility of intercalation hosts for potential applications in luminescent materials and field emission displays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports a novel method to assemble a small anion with exfoliated Mg–Al-layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheets into ordered ultrathin films (UTFs) by employing the layer-by-layer assembly technique. The premixing solution of tris(8-hydroxyquinolate-5-sulfonate)aluminum(III) (AQS3–) with three kinds of polyanionspoly(acrylic acid), ((C3H4O2)n, PAA), poly(styrene 4-sulfonate) ([CH2CH(C6H4)SO3]m, PSS), and poly[5-methoxy-2-(3-sulfopropoxy)-1,4-phenylene vinylene] (C12H13O5S)n, PPV)has been used as building blocks to assemble alternatively with LDH nanosheets. The UV–vis absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy of (AQS-polyanion/LDH)nUTFs presents stepwise growth upon increasing deposited cycles in comparison with the (AQS/LDH)nfilm under the same experimental process. (AQS-PPV/LDH)nUTF displays complex fluorescence originating from AQS and PPV. The (AQS/LDH)nand (AQS-polyanion/LDH)nUTFs exhibit higher blue-polarized photoemission character with a luminescence anisotropy (r) of ca. 0.12–0.20 and a longer fluorescence lifetime than that of the Na3AQS film with r= 0.04. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy demonstrated that the UTFs were orderly periodically layered structures with a thickness of ca. 3.0 nm per bilayer. Therefore, this work gives a feasible method for immobilizing small anions into the gallery of LDHs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A low-temperature sol-gel process associated with different surfactants in ethanol solvent was applied to prepare ultrafine MnO2 nanowires and nanorods. The surfactants used in the synthesis procedure are crucial for the structure of products. Highly dispersed MnO2 nanowires was formed by assistance of cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide while hierarchical particles assembled with nanowires were synthesized by usage of pluronic P123 triblock copolymer or Polyvinyl pyrrolidone. The free-standing sheet like structure aggregated with nanorods was obtained by using sodium dodecyl sulfate as a surfactant. All samples were characterized by SEM, TEM, XRD and the results indicated these MnO2 ultrafine nanostructures could be expediently produced by this facile method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]