JEOL (China)

ABSTRACTGlycerol, a critical biomass‐derived platform compound, holds significant potential for high‐value biomass conversion. The selective hydrogenolysis of glycerol to produce 1,2‐propanediol (1,2‐PDO) and 1,3‐propanediol (1,3‐PDO) is one of the most promising and representative pathways for its efficient transformation. This review provides a comprehensive summary of recent advancements in the selective catalytic hydrogenolysis of glycerol to 1,3‐PDO, discussing current industrial production methods and emerging alternative conversion routes. The challenges in the hydrogenolysis of glycerol to 1,3‐PDO are emphasized, with insights from thermodynamic and kinetic perspectives, as well as the fundamental principles of designing active sites. The focus is placed on the latest developments in bifunctional catalyst systems, including state‐of‐the‐art Pt‐WOx and Ir‐ReOx families along with non‐noble metal catalysts, highlighting the distinct roles of metal sites and Brønsted acid sites in enhancing glycerol conversion rates and 1,3‐PDO selectivity. The performance of these catalysts can be optimized through tuning catalyst structural design, metal–support interactions, and reaction mechanisms. Finally, the future trends in catalyst research for glycerol hydrogenation to 1,3‐PDO are analyzed, offering new perspectives for advancing research in this field.

Abstract Molybdenum (Mo) serves as the key site in the nitrogenase enzyme, catalyzing the conversion of N 2 into NH 3 under ambient conditions. However, the strong affinity of Mo sites for N 2 hinders H 2 adsorption due to the competitive nature of N 2 and H 2 on a single site, resulting in an unsatisfactory ammonia synthesis performance. Here, we propose an approach of intervening C 60 layer as a second site for H 2 adsorption on two‐dimensional Mo 2 CT x . The C 60 layer thickness is readily tunable by varying its loading content. An optimal C 60 layer significantly enhances the electronic interaction between the C 60 layer and the Mo 2 CT x layer, leading to a remarkable decrease in the work function and an increase in the electron density of Mo atoms. Therefore, the separate adsorption of N 2 and H 2 on distinct sites is substantially facilitated. The present work offers insights into the correlation between structure and performance in NH 3 synthesis catalysts.

To explore the therapeutic effect of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) nursing technology combined with TCM massage on elderly patients with functional constipation (FC). Ninety elderly patients with FC admitted to our hospital from January 2022 to February 2023 were selected and randomly divided into 3 groups. The control group was treated with conventional Western medicine, observation group 1 was treated with TCM massage on the basis of the control group, and observation group 2 was treated with medicine ironing combined with TCM massage on the basis of the control group. Compare 3 groups of TCM syndrome scores, clinical efficacy, complete spontaneous bowel movements (CSBM) per week, Bristol fecal trait scale, and safety. There was a statistically significant difference in clinical effective rates among the 3 groups (96.67%, 83.33%, 66.67%) (P < .05), and the observation group 2 was higher than the observation group 1 and higher than the control group. After treatment, the TCM syndrome scores of the 2 groups were lower than those of the observation group 1 and the control group; And observation showed that the TCM syndrome score of group 1 was lower than that of the control group (P < .05). After treatment, the increase in scores of CSBM and Bristol fecal traits in the 2 groups was higher than that in the observation group and control group, and the increase in scores of CSBM and Bristol fecal traits in the observation group was higher than that in the control group (P < .05). There was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of adverse reactions among the 3 groups (10.00%, 6.67%, 20.00%) (P > .05). The application of TCM nursing techniques such as TCM ironing and TCM massage in elderly patients with FC has a significant clinical effect, which can effectively improve clinical symptoms, defecation frequency, and fecal characteristics, and has high safety.

This article presents a distributed optimization framework in order to solve the plant-wide energy-saving problem of an ethylene plant. First, the ethylene production process is abstracted into a distributed network, and then, a new distributed consensus algorithm is proposed, which is called adaptive step-size-based distributed proximal consensus algorithm (ASS-DPCA). This algorithm can dynamically adjust the step size and automatically abandon the irrational evolutionary route while eliminating the dependence of optimization algorithms on model gradient information. Moreover, the designed algorithm is able to converge to an optimal solution for any convex cost functions and approach to a convex constraint set of agents over an undirected connected graph. Finally, the results of numerical simulation and industrial experiments show that the algorithm can reduce the total energy consumption of an ethylene plant with less computing time and assured consensus.

Abstract Utilizing sustainable electrocatalysis to upcycle glycerol (GLY; the by‐product of biodiesel) to lactic acid (LA; the key monomers for biodegradable polymer) is an efficient way to reduce the cost of biodiesel, which is also consistent with the waste‐to‐wealth principle. However, current research still suffers from issues of low LA selectivity (&lt;80%), especially at high current density. Herein, we designed a cooperative catalyst by modifying BiOx nanolayers on gold nanoparticles (BiOx/Au), achieving high LA selectivity (82%) at high current density (226 mA cm−2 at 1.05 V vs. RHE), outperforming most of the reported works in the literature. We reveal that BiOx could promote the adsorption of the middle hydroxyl of GLY, which facilitates the formation of DHA and thus enables high LA selectivity. Moreover, the electron‐deficient Au in BiOx/Au is responsible for the enhanced current density, which is more beneficial to generate reactive oxygen species (OH*). To further reveal the application potential of this electrocatalytic strategy, we realized that the conversion of crude GLY extracted from cooking oil to LA coupled with H2 production using a membrane‐free flow electrolyzer, demonstrating a sustainable fashion to convert biodiesel waste into high value‐added product and H2 fuel.

Abstract This study explored diethanolammonium chloride ([DEA]Cl) as a potential ionic liquid from low‐cost and commercial ones for gas separation. There are three kinds of functional sites in [DEA]Cl: acidic NH2+, hydrogen‐bond OH, and nucleophilic Cl−. The separation of NH3/N2/H2, SO2/CO2/N2, and H2S/CO2/CH4 was considered, because the three mixtures are extensively involved in many industrial processes. The experimental results demonstrated that [DEA]Cl exhibited excellent ability to separate the mixture of NH3/N2/H2. The [DEA]Cl also exhibited the proper capacity to separate SO2/CO2/N2, but the capacity of [DEA]Cl for the separation of H2S/CO2/CH4 was inferior. The theoretical calculations revealed that NH2+ and OH worked synergistically to contribute to the ability of [DEA]Cl for excellent separation of NH3 from NH3/N2/H2, with Cl− contributing to the proper separation of SO2 from SO2/CO2/N2. This study provides experimental and theoretical basis for the industrial application of [DEA]Cl in the area of gas separation.

Abstract A sustainable defect‐engineering strategy for the dealumination of Y zeolite is described. This strategy includes the green synthesis of a well‐crystallized Y zeolite with point defects arising from the incorporation of Fe atoms by using Fe‐containing perlite and the subsequent preparation of ultra‐stable Y (USY) zeolite by efficient steaming dealumination. The systematic characterizations verify that Fe atoms originally existing in the perlite are incorporated into the as‐synthesized Y zeolite and function as point defects, leading to the distortion of framework Al. The step‐by‐step investigation of dealumination process shows that vacancies are formed by the extraction of framework Fe in ammonium exchange, and the framework dealumination is promoted under the combined effect of the distorted framework Al and the formed vacancies during steaming treatment. The resulting USY zeolite owns excellent features in (hydro)thermal stability, pore structure and acid property, and exhibits outstanding catalytic performance in the cracking of n‐octane and 1,3,5‐triisopropylbenzene.

Near-Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has become an important analytical tool to perform rapid characterization of petroleum products due to its effectiveness and efficiency. However, NIR analysis is a typical small sample problem and unitary regression model under specific assumption often suffers from poor generalization ability during online implementation. Besides, the interpretability of complex machine learning models is relative incompetent to reveal the variable contribution of wavelength variables, which is significant to guarantee the model reliability in practical application. Thus, this paper proposes a novel ensemble learning algorithm to improve the poor model generalization ability caused by insufficient sample size and complex unexpected online application situations. Furthermore, the constructed model is interpreted by combining model agnostic explanation method with spectral structure knowledge and a novel reliability index is proposed to ensure model reliability in practice. The prediction performance of proposed algorithm is verified using two industrial NIR dataset. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of proposed ensemble learning algorithm. The model interpretability as well as model reliability are guaranteed by proposed interpretation method.

D-Allose is a potential alternative to sucrose in the food industries and a useful additive for the healthcare products in the future. At present, the methods for large-scale production of D-allose are still under investigation, most of which are based on in vitro enzyme-catalyzed Izumoring epimerization. In contrast, fermentative synthesis of D-allose has never been reported, probably due to the absence of available natural microorganisms. In this work, we co-expressed D-galactose: H+ symporter (GalP), D-glucose isomerase (DGI), D-allulose 3-epimerase (DAE), and ribose-5-phosphate isomerase (RPI) in Escherichia coli, thereby constructing an in vivo Izumoring pathway for yielding D-allose from D-glucose. The carbon fluxes and carbon catabolite repression (CCR) were rationally regulated by knockout of FruA, PtsG, Glk, Mak, PfkA, and PfkB involved in the pathways capable of phosphorylating D-fructose, D-glucose, and fructose-6-phosphate. Moreover, the native D-allose transporter was damaged by inactivation of AlsB, thus driving the reversible Izumoring reactions towards the target product. Fermentation was performed in the M9 medium supplemented with glycerol as a carbon source and D-glucose as a substrate. The results show that the engineered E. coli cell factory was able to produce approximately 127.35 mg/L of D-allose after 84 h. Our achievements in the fermentative production of D-allose in this work may further promote the green manufacturing of rare sugars.

A new design method for ultrabroadband radar cross section (RCS) reduction by exploiting characteristic complementary polarization conversion metasurfaces (PCMs) is proposed and validated. The proposed method lifts the conventional bandwidth limitation enforced by the performance of a single PCM and expands the RCS reduction bandwidth. A systematic strategy for ultrabroadband RCS reduction design is developed and an effective reflection coefficient amplitude of the composite surface ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\Gamma _{ {eff}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ) is derived as a new RCS reduction indicator. Based on this indicator, complete polarization conversion (CPC) frequency points of PCM are identified as important characteristics, and PCM pairs with interleaved CPC points, termed as initial PCM (I-PCM) and complementary PCM (C-PCM), are designed to compensate each other for ultrabroadband RCS reduction. A scaling-and-tuning two-step method for designing the C-PCM of a specific I-PCM is developed and validated. To further improve RCS reduction performance, taking the <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\Gamma _{ {eff}}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> as an indicator, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to select the optimal I-PCMs, C-PCMs, and their area ratios. Finally, an ultrabroadband RCS reduction surface is designed, fabricated, measured, and validated. It realizes 10-dB monostatic RCS reduction ranging from 7.6 to 26.2 GHz (110.7% relative bandwidth) which exceeds the polarization conversion bandwidth of each individual PCM. Besides, good polarization insensitivity and bistatic RCS reduction performance are also obtained. The proposed method provides a new route for designing broadband RCS reduction surface based on PCMs with unsatisfactory characteristics and greatly alleviates the performance requirement for PCMs.