Vacuum triodes have been scaled down to the microscale on a chip by microfabrication technologies to be vacuum transistors. Most of the reported devices are based on field electron emission, which suffer from the problems of unstable electron emission, poor uniformity, and high requirement for operating vacuum. Here, to overcome these problems, a vacuum transistor based on Field-Assisted thermionic emission from individual carbon nanotubes is proposed and fabricated using microfabrication technologies. The carbon nanotube vacuum transistor exhibits an ON/OFF current ratio as high as 104 and a subthreshold slope of 4 V·dec−1. The gate controllability is found to be strongly dependent on the distance between the collector electrodes and electron emitter, and a device with the distance of 1.5 μm shows a better gate controllability than that with the distance of 0.5 μm. Benefiting from Field-Assisted thermionic emission mechanism, electric field required in our devices is about one order of magnitude smaller than that in the devices based on field electron emission, and the surface of the emitters shows much less gas molecule absorption than cold field emitters. These are expected to be helpful for improving the stability and uniformity of the devices.
In this study, vanadium trioxide (V2O3) was adopted to activate PMS via a Fenton-like reaction to degrade metronidazole (MNZ). The V2O3-PMS system can almost completely degrade MNZ at 30 min with 42.4% TOC removal. Comparative tests reveal that V2O3 stands out among a variety of heterogeneous catalysts, including metallic oxides and carbon materials. Sulfate radicals (SO4•−) and hydroxyl radicals (•OH) derived from PMS decomposition are major reactive oxygen species, based on quenching tests, electron spin resonance (ESR) analysis, the steady-state concentrations of radicals ([SO4•−]ss = 5.1 × 10-13 M and [•OH]ss = 4.0 × 10-14 M), and kinetics model. The process of stepwise electron transfer from vanadium species to PMS to produce reactive radicals was proved by small-molecule simulation experiments and pickling experiments of vanadium oxides. Possible pathways of MNZ degradation were proposed based on the results of LC-MS and Fukui function, including two stages of the hydroxylation and bond cleavage of nitro and the subsequent ring-opening. This study reveals the high reusability and practicability of the V2O3-PMS system over a relatively wide pH range, which puts forward a new vision on V2O3 induced Fenton-like reactions and a new reference method for the removal of medical organic contaminants in water.
Design of high-efficiency visible light photocatalysts is critical in the degradation of antibiotic pollutants in water, a key step towards environmental remediation. In the present study, Mo-doped BiOBr nanocomposites are prepared hydrothermally at different feed ratios, and display remarkable visible light photocatalytic activity towards the degradation of sulfanilamide, a common antibacterial drug. Among the series, the sample with 2% Mo dopants exhibits the best photocatalytic activity, with a performance 2.3 times better that of undoped BiOBr. This is attributed to Mo doping that narrows the band gap of BiOBr and enhances absorption in the visible region. Additional contributions arise from the unique materials morphology, where the highly exposed (102) crystal planes enrich the photocatalytic active sites, and facilitate the adsorption of sulfanilamide molecules and their eventual attack by free radicals. The reaction mechanism and pathways are then unraveled based on theoretical calculations of the Fukui index and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry measurements of the reaction intermediates and products. Results from this study indicate that deliberate structural engineering based on heteroatom doping and morphological control may serve as an effective strategy in the design of highly active photocatalysts towards antibiotic degradation.
Development of low-cost, high-performance photocatalysts for the effective degradation of antibiotics in wastewater is critical for environmental remediation. In this work, titanium dioxide/zirconium dioxide/graphitic carbon nitride (TiO2/ZrO2/g-C3N4) ternary composites are fabricated via a facile hydrothermal procedure, and photocatalytically active towards the degradation of berberine hydrochloride under visible light illumination. The performance is found to increase with the Ti:Zr atomic ratio in the nanocomposites, and obviously enhanced in comparison to that of the binary TiO2/g-C3N4 counterpart, due to the formation of type I/II heterojunctions that help separate the photogenerated electron-hole pairs and produce superoxide and hydroxy radicals. The mechanistic pathways are unraveled by a deliberate integration of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry measurements with theoretical calculations of the condensed Fukui index. Furthermore, the ecotoxicity of the reaction intermediates is examined by utilizing the Toxicity Estimation Software Tool (TEST) and quantitative structure activity relationship calculations (QSAR).
Volatile methyl siloxanes (VMS) are ubiquitous in indoor environments due to their use in personal care products. This paper builds on previous work identifying sources of VMS by synthesizing time-resolved proton-transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer VMS concentration measurements from four multiweek indoor air campaigns to elucidate emission sources and removal processes. Temporal patterns of VMS emissions display both continuous and episodic behavior, with the relative importance varying among species. We find that the cyclic siloxane D5 is consistently the most abundant VMS species, mainly attributable to personal care product use. Two other cyclic siloxanes, D3 and D4, are emitted from oven and personal care product use, with continuous sources also apparent. Two linear siloxanes, L4 and L5, are also emitted from personal care product use, with apparent additional continuous sources. We report measurements for three other organosilicon compounds found in personal care products. The primary air removal pathway of the species examined in this paper is ventilation to the outdoors, which has implications for atmospheric chemistry. The net removal rate is slower for linear siloxanes, which persist for days indoors after episodic release events. This work highlights the diversity in sources of organosilicon species and their persistence indoors.
North Pacific deoxygenation events during the last deglaciation were sustained over millennia by high export productivity, but the triggering mechanisms and their links to deglacial warming remain uncertain1–3. Here we find that initial deoxygenation in the North Pacific immediately after the Cordilleran ice sheet (CIS) retreat4 was associated with increased volcanic ash in seafloor sediments. Timing of volcanic inputs relative to CIS retreat suggests that regional explosive volcanism was initiated by ice unloading5,6. We posit that iron fertilization by volcanic ash7–9 during CIS retreat fuelled ocean productivity in this otherwise iron-limited region, and tipped the marine system towards sustained deoxygenation. We also identify older deoxygenation events linked to CIS retreat over the past approximately 50,000 years (ref. 4). Our findings suggest that the apparent coupling between the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and solid-Earth systems occurs on relatively short timescales and can act as an important driver for ocean biogeochemical change.
Rapid atmospheric warming since the mid-twentieth century has increased temperature-dependent erosion and sediment-transport processes in cold environments, affecting food, energy and water security. In this Review, we summarize landscape changes in cold environments and provide a global inventory of increases in erosion and sediment yield driven by cryosphere degradation. Anthropogenic climate change, deglaciation, and thermokarst disturbances are causing increased sediment mobilization and transport processes in glacierized and periglacierized basins. With continuous cryosphere degradation, sediment transport will continue to increase until reaching a maximum (peak sediment). Thereafter, transport is likely to shift from a temperature-dependent regime toward a rainfall-dependent regime roughly between 2100–2200. The timing of the regime shift would be regulated by changes in meltwater, erosive rainfall and landscape erodibility, and complicated by geomorphic feedbacks and connectivity. Further progress in integrating multisource sediment observations, developing physics-based sediment-transport models, and enhancing interdisciplinary and international scientific collaboration is needed to predict sediment dynamics in a warming world.
Our understanding of past ocean-climate dynamics is informed by multiple paleocirculation proxies including δ13C, 231Pa/230Th, and radiogenic neodymium isotopes (εNd). Of these, the εNd signature of marine authigenic phases is of particular importance as it is considered a robust circulation proxy applicable across timescales, permitting circulation reconstructions during periods of rapid, climatically-induced biological or chemical change (e.g. productivity, pH). However, growing evidence of non-conservative behavior and a widespread sedimentary source (benthic flux via pore water) of Nd to the global ocean suggests that authigenic εNd records do not strictly record a water mass signature, highlighting the need to reconsider interpretations of the authigenic record. To examine the impact of a sedimentary influence on the authigenic record, here we compile paired authigenic and detrital neodymium records from every major ocean basin and from 80 Ma to present. We then focus on just the North Atlantic Ocean basin to examine if this relationship holds up regionally and how authigenic εNd changes relate to sediment composition changes from two scientific ocean drill cores spanning the past 25 ka. We present a new conceptual framework to guide our discussion that examines the coupling or decoupling of authigenic and detrital εNd in terms of the relative importance of each of the three major potential controls as defined in the existing literature (bottom water, pore water, sediments) on the authigenic record. Our compilation reveals a strong linear relationship between detrital εNd and authigenic εNd (correlation coefficient = 0.86, n = 871), demonstrating a widespread influence of lithogenically sourced neodymium on authigenic εNd. We find the same is true within the North Atlantic, with the authigenic records at both locations strongly influenced by the sediments and likely not recording bottom water neodymium values. Emerging evidence for a lithogenic or benthic flux influence on the budgets of a wide range of trace elements suggests that our interpretative framework will be broadly useful for understanding the behavior of trace elements and their isotopes at the sediment-water interface.
This paper proposes a Bayesian multilevel spatio-temporal model with a time-varying spatial autoregressive coefficient to estimate temporally heterogeneous network interdependence. To tackle the classic reflection problem, we use multiple factors to control for confounding caused by latent homophily and common exposures. We develop a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm to estimate parameters and adopt Bayesian shrinkage to determine the number of factors. Tests on simulated and empirical data show that the proposed model improves identification of network interdependence and is robust to misspecifcation. Our method is applicable to various types of networks and provides a simpler and more flexible alternative to coevolution models.