Structural, magnetic and magnetocaloric properties in distorted RE 2NiTiO6 double perovskite compounds

The magnetocaloric effect based Magnetic refrigeration (MR) was considered a novel energy-efficient and environmentally benign cooling method. However, the lack of suitable magnetic solids has slowed the development of its practical applications. We herein fabricated the RE _2 NiTiO _6 ( RE = Gd, Tb and Ho) double perovskite (DP) compounds and systematically determined their structural, magnetic and magnetocaloric properties by experimental determination and density functional theory calculations, in which the Gd _2 NiTiO _6 was realized to exhibit promising cryogenic magnetocaloric performances. The results indicated that all the RE _2 NiTiO _6 DP compounds crystallized in a distorted monoclinic structure with P 2 _1 / n space group and underwent a second order type magnetic phase transition around 4.3, 4.5 and 3.9 K, for Gd _2 NiTiO _6 , Tb _2 NiTiO _6 and Ho _2 NiTiO _6 , respectively. The magnetocaloric performances were checked by the parameters of maximum magnetic entropy change and relative cooling power, which are 31.28 J·kg ^−1 ·K ^−1 and 242.11 J·kg ^−1 for Gd _2 NiTiO _6 , 13.08 J·kg ^−1 ·K ^−1 and 213.41 J·kg ^−1 for Tb _2 NiTiO _6 , 11.98 J·kg ^−1 ·K ^−1 and 221.73 J·kg ^−1 for Ho _2 NiTiO _6 under the magnetic field change of 0–50 kOe, respectively. Evidently, the Gd _2 NiTiO _6 compound exhibit promising magnetocaloric performances and therefore is of potential for practical cryogenic MR applications

The Protective Effects of Water-Soluble Alginic Acid on the N-Terminal of Thymopentin

Thymopentin (TP5) has exhibited strong antitumor and immunomodulatory effects in vivo. However, the polypeptide is rapidly degraded by protease and aminopeptidase within a minute at the N-terminal of TP5, resulting in severe limitations for further practical applications. In this study, the protective effects of water-soluble alginic acid (WSAA) on the N-terminal of TP5 were investigated by establishing an H22 tumor-bearing mice model and determining thymus, spleen, and liver indices, immune cells activities, TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-2, and IL-4 levels, and cell cycle distributions. The results demonstrated that WSAA+TP5 groups exhibited the obvious advantages of the individual treatments and showed superior antitumor effects on H22 tumor-bearing mice by effectively protecting the immune organs, activating CD4+ T cells and CD19+ B cells, and promoting immune-related cytokines secretions, finally resulting in the high apoptotic rates of H22 cells through arresting them in S phase. These data suggest that WSAA could effectively protect the N-terminal of TP5, thereby improving its antitumor and immunoregulatory activities, which indicates that WSAA has the potential to be applied in patients bearing cancer or immune deficiency diseases as a novel immunologic adjuvant