Organic Nanoparticles for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Solar energy is one of the most promising renewable energies. Photocatalytic solar hydrogen production provides a technologically simple and green way for hydrogen production, which is considered as the energy of the future. To be scalable, however, this approach requires more efficient photocatalysts. Photocatalysts at the nanoscale have extraordinary properties, resulting in orders of magnitude greater catalytic activities compared to bulk materials. The formation of heterojunction has also been demonstrated to be an effective strategy to enhance photocatalytic activities. This thesis will focus on the design and synthesis of efficient nano-photocatalysts for hydrogen production

Conjugated polymer donor-molecular acceptor nanohybrids for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.

A library of 237 organic binary/ternary nanohybrids consisting of conjugated polymers donors and either fullerene or non-fullerene molecular acceptors was prepared and screened for sacrificial photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity. PCDTBT/PC60BM nanohybrid showed a high hydrogen evolution rate of 105.2 mmol g-1 h-1 under visible light (λ > 420 nm)

Implementation of a recirculating TFF N-1 perfusion system at manufacturing scale: Conquering process hurdles and scaling challenges

In order to increase the output of a traditional large scale stainless steel fed-batch manufacturing facility without major engineering work, we investigated the implementation of N-1 perfusion technology to feed a more intensified fed-batch production process. Perfusion N-1 enables cells to grow to high densities in the seed train bioreactor. By shifting cell growth from production to seed train, we can increase seed train occupancy per batch and reduce production bioreactor occupancy per batch, which improves facility throughput by bringing the run duration ratio of N-1/N closer to unity. Instead of using the popular ATF technology, an in-house TFF system was developed to provide more flexibility during process development and optimization of all perfusion parameters. We will share a case study of how two different filtration technologies (open channel and hollow fiber) were developed and scaled from pilot scale to manufacturing scale while maintaining consistent cell growth performance at high cell densities, \u3e40x106 vc/mL. We will discuss the comparison of the two filter technologies, recirculation pump type selection, recirculation flow path design, filter area, skid/bioreactor design, and perfusion media volume challenges. Additional efforts were made in regards to SIP and sterility of these systems at pilot and manufacturing scale to safeguard the system from any potential contamination events. Sparger optimization work was also performed to solve mass transfer and cell damage challenges at pilot and manufacturing scales. Last but not least, a story of developing a scale-down model using peristaltic pump will be shared. Our work culminated in an engineering run at 17,000-L manufacturing scale using both technologies, which generated a high volumetric productivity of 750 mg/L/day and resulted in a 40% increase in facility output

Photocatalytic overall water splitting under visible light enabled by a particulate conjugated polymer loaded with iridium

Polymer photocatalysts have received growing attention in recent years for photocatalytic hydrogen production from water. Most studies report hydrogen production with sacrificial electron donors, which is unsuitable for large-scale hydrogen energy production. Here we show that the palladium/iridium oxide-loaded homopolymer of dibenzo[b,d]thiophene sulfone (P10) facilitates overall water splitting to produce stoichiometric amounts of H2 and O2 for an extended period (>60 hours) after the system stabilized. These results demonstrate that conjugated polymers can act as single component photocatalytic systems for overall water splitting when loaded with suitable co-catalysts, albeit currently with low activities. Transient spectroscopy shows that the IrO2 co-catalyst plays an important role in the generation of the charge separated state required for water splitting, with evidence for fast hole transfer to the co-catalyst

Evaluation of Recent Computational Approaches in Short-Term Traffic Forecasting

Part 3: Computational Intelligence and Algorithms; International audience; Computational technologies under the domain of intelligent systems are expected to help the rapidly increasing traffic congestion problem in recent traffic management. Traffic management requires efficient and accurate forecasting models to assist real time traffic control systems. Researchers have proposed various computational approaches, especially in short-term traffic flow forecasting, in order to establish reliable traffic patterns models and generate timely prediction results. Forecasting models should have high accuracy and low computational time to be applied in intelligent traffic management. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate recent computational modeling approaches utilized in short-term traffic flow forecasting. These approaches are evaluated by real-world data collected on the British freeway (M6) from 1st to 30th November in 2014. The results indicate that neural network model outperforms generalized additive model and autoregressive integrated moving average model on the accuracy of freeway traffic forecasting. Document type: Part of book or chapter of boo

Cellular immunotherapy as maintenance therapy prolongs the survival of the patients with small cell lung cancer in extensive stage

AbstractBackgroundSmall cell lung cancer (SCLC) is the most devastating type of human lung cancer. Patients usually present with disseminated disease to many organs (extensive stage). This study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of cellular immunotherapy (CIT) with autologous natural killer (NK), γδT, and cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells as maintenance therapy for extensive-stage SCLC (ES-SCLC) patients.MethodsA pilot prospective cohort study was conducted with ES-SCLC patients who had responded to initial chemotherapy. Patients received either CIT as maintenance therapy (CIT group), or no treatment (control group). Progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and adverse effects were compared.ResultsForty-nine patients were recruited in this study, with 19 patients in the CIT group and 30 patients in the control group. The patient characteristics of the 2 groups were comparable except for age, as patients in the CIT group were older than those in the control group (P < 0.05). PFS in the CIT group was superior to the control group (5 vs. 3.1 months, P = 0.020; HR, 0.489, 95% CI, 0.264–0.909, P = 0.024). OS of the CIT group was also longer than that of the control group (13.3 vs. 8.2 months, P = 0.044; HR, 0.528, 95% CI, 0.280–0.996, P = 0.048, respectively). No significant adverse reactions occurred in patients undergoing CIT.ConclusionsCIT maintenance therapy in ES-SCLC prolonged survival with only minimal side effects. Integrating CIT into the current treatment may be a novel strategy for ES-SCLC patients, although further multi-center randomized trials are needed