Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Control and Treatment of Heavy Metal Pollution

Iron, the most abundant element on Earth by mass (34.6%), primarily exists as iron minerals due to its inherent reactivity. The study of iron mineral phase transformations under changing environmental conditions remains an important research focus due to its geological, environmental, and industrial significance. Yet, the complexity of the system prevents the development of a universal principle to interpret phase transformation behaviors across diverse environmental conditions. An alternative approach is to employ data-driven methods to obtain approximate predictive results. Nevertheless, the data concerning iron-containing phase transformations remain fragmented due to a lack of standardized integration, hindering the advancement of related research. To address this gap, we have developed an automated pipeline that extracts and curates iron-containing phase transformation pathways, creating the first text-mined dataset of 11,241 pathways. Each record includes the precursor/product phases, reaction category, procedures, and associated parameters, as well as the extent of transformation and reaction equations, providing a comprehensive foundation for advancing data-driven research.

In UV-based advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), chemical probes and scavengers are widely used to identify radical species responsible for organic contaminant removal due to their simplicity and selectivity. A prevailing assumption is that these reagents selectively target radicals without interacting with triplet excited-state contaminants generated under UV irradiation. Here, we challenge this assumption by demonstrating that triplet-state contaminants can directly interact with commonly used probes and scavengers, revealing an overlooked transformation pathway that biases radical identification and mechanistic interpretation. Using naproxen as a model compound, we show that seven representative reagents (isopropanol, p-benzoquinone, furfuryl alcohol, tert-butanol, methanol, ethanol, and HCO3-) efficiently quench triplet-state naproxen, with bimolecular rate constants ranging from 1.0 × 106 to 7.1 × 108 M-1 s-1. The quenching process followed saturation kinetics and can be well described by the Hanes-Woolf model. Transient absorption spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations reveal feasible electron transfer and proton-coupled electron transfer pathways. Further, in a UV/H2O2 system, we found that isopropanol promotes naproxen degradation with triplet-state interactions, leading to significant underestimation of •OH contribution. These results highlight a critical interference pathway in AOPs and underscore the need for caution when using probes and scavengers for kinetic and mechanistic evaluations.

Membrane swelling is a critical challenge in organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN), especially when using two-dimensional lamellar membrane (2DLM) materials. This study presents a simple, sustainable fabrication of self-stabilized lamellar mica membranes, which exhibited a competitive dye rejection rate (98.13%) and high permeance in methanol (96.1 LMH per bar) with a continuous lack of swelling for 108 hours.