Construction of Zr-Metal-Organic Frameworks-Based Composite Materials toward Anhydrous Proton Conduction and Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction.

Metal-organic frameworks constructed from Zr usually possess excellent chemical and physical stability. Therefore, they have become attractive platforms in various fields. In this work, two families of hybrid materials based on ZrSQU have been designed and synthesized, named Im@ZrSQU and Cu@ZrSQU, respectively. Im@ZrSQU was prepared through the impregnation method and employed for proton conduction. Im@ZrSQU exhibited terrific proton conduction performance in an anhydrous environment, with the highest proton conduction value of 3.6 × 10-2 S cm-1 at 110 °C. In addition, Cu@ZrSQU was synthesized via the photoinduction method for the photoreduction of CO2, which successfully promoted the conversion of CO2 into CO and achieved the CO generation rate of up to 12.4 µmol g-1 h-1. The photocatalytic performance of Cu@ZrSQU is derived from the synergistic effect of Cu NPs and ZrSQU. Based on an in-depth study and discussion toward ZrSQU, we provide a versatile platform with applications in the field of proton conduction and photocatalysis, which will guide researchers in their further studies.

A porous Ti-based metal-organic framework for CO2 photoreduction and imidazole-dependent anhydrous proton conduction.

The anhydrous proton conductivity of Im@IEF-11 resulting from the integration of imidazole and porous IEF-11 has been investigated, and the highest proton conductive value can reach up to 7.64 × 10-2 S cm-1. Furthermore, IEF-11 is also developed to reduce CO2 due to its reasonable structure and suitable energy band, and its CO formation rate is 31.86 µmol g-1 h-1.

Ag Nanoparticle-Modified Polyoxometalate-Based Metal-Organic Framework for Enhanced CO2 Photoreduction.

The photoreduction deposition method is employed to fabricate a family of silver nanoparticle (Ag NP)-modified polyoxometalate-based metal-organic framework (NENU-5) photocatalysts, named Ag/NENU-5. The title photocatalysts, Ag/NENU-5, can be used for the photocatalytic reduction of CO2 and are observed to efficiently reduce CO2 into CO, in which the highest reduction rate is 22.28 µmol g-1 h-1, 3 times greater than that of NENU-5. Photocatalytic reduction performances of CO2 have been extremely improved after the incorporation of Ag NPs as the cocatalyst. The enhancement of the photocatalytic reduction of CO2 has been attributed to the synergistic effects of Ag NPs and NENU-5, inhibiting the charge recombination during the photocatalytic process and increasing the reaction active sites. Furthermore, the influence of Ag NPs on the photocatalytic activity has also been investigated. The experimental results clearly reveal that the size of Ag NPs could exert a main effect on the photocatalytic activity, and the reasonable size of Ag NPs is able to enhance the photocatalytic reduction activity toward CO2 significantly.

Clinical Trial Registration and Reporting: Drug Therapy and Prevention of Cardiac-Related Infections.

Objective: Clinical trials are the source of evidence. ClinicalTrials.gov is valuable for analyzing current conditions. Until now, the state of drug interventions for heart infections is unknown. The purpose of this study was to comprehensively assess the characteristics of trials on cardiac-related infections and the status of drug interventions. Methods: The website ClinicalTrials.gov was used to obtain all registered clinical trials on drug interventions for cardiac-related infections as of February 16, 2019. All registration studies were collected, regardless of their recruitment status, research results, and research type. Registration information, results, and weblink-publications of those trials were analyzed. Results: A total of 45 eligible trials were evaluated and 86.7% of them began from or after 2008 while 91.1% of them adopted interventional study design. Of all trials, 35.6% were completed and 15.6% terminated. Besides, 62.2% of interventional clinical trials recruited more than 100 subjects. Meanwhile, 86.7% of the eligible trials included adult subjects only. Of intervention trials, 65.8% were in the third or fourth phase; 78.1% adopted randomized parallel assignment, containing two groups; 53.6% were masking, and 61.0% described treatment. Moreover, 41.5% of the trials were conducted in North America while 29.3% in Europe. Sponsors for 40.0% of the studies were from the industry. Furthermore, 48.9% of the trials mentioned information on monitoring committees, 24.4% have been published online, and 13.3% have uploaded their results. Drugs for treatments mainly contained antibiotics, among which glycopeptides, ß-lactams, and lipopeptides were the most commonly studied ones in experimental group, with the former ones more common. Additionally, 16.2% of the trials evaluated new antimicrobials. Conclusions: Most clinical trials on cardiac-related infections registered at ClinicalTrials.gov were interventional randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for treatment. Most drugs focused in trials were old antibiotics, and few trials reported valid results. It is necessary to strengthen supervision over improvements in results, and to combine antibacterial activity with drug delivery regimens to achieve optimal clinical outcomes.