Stable and Active Au Catalyst Supported on CeMnO3 Perovskite for Selective Oxidation of Glycerol.

The selective oxidation of glycerol holds promise to transform glycerol into value-added chemicals. However, it remains a big challenge to achieve satisfactory selectivity toward the specific product at high conversion due to the multiple reaction pathways. Here, we prepare a hybrid catalyst via supporting Au nanoparticles on CeMnO3 perovskite with a modest surface area, achieving promoted conversion of glycerol (90.1%) and selectivity of glyceric acid (78.5%), which are much higher than those of CeMnOx solid-solution-supported Au catalysts with larger surface area and other Ce-based or Mn-based Au catalysts. The strong interaction between Au and CeMnO3 perovskite facilitates the electron transfer from the B-site metal (Mn) in the CeMnO3 perovskite to Au and stabilizes Au nanoparticles, which results in the enhanced catalytic activity and stability for glycerol oxidation. Valence band photoemission spectral analysis reveals that the uplifted d-band center of Au/CeMnO3 promotes the adsorption of the glyceraldehyde intermediate on the catalyst surface, which benefits further oxidation of glyceraldehyde into glyceric acid. The flexibility of the perovskite support provides a promising strategy for the rational design of high-performance glycerol oxidation catalysts.

Genome-wide association analysis of kernel nutritional quality in two natural maize populations.

As one of the three staple crops, nutritional traits in maize are important for human and animal nutrition. Grain quality-related traits are closely related to grain commercial value. Understanding the genetic basis of quality-related traits in maize would be helpful for breeding high-quality maize varieties. In this study, two association panels (AM122 and AM180) were subjected to genome-wide association analysis of grain quality-related traits, including protein content, oil content, starch content, and fiber content. In total, 98 SNPs (P < 1 × 10-4) were identified to be significantly associated with these four grain quality-related traits. By integrating two sets of public transcriptome data, 31 genes located in 200 kb regions flanking the associated SNP showed high expression during kernel development and were differentially expressed in two maize inbred lines, KA225 and KB035, with significantly different quality. These genes might regulate maize grain quality by participating in plant hormone processes, autophagy processes, and others. All these results could provide important reference information for breeding high­quality maize varieties. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11032-023-01360-w.

Lanthanum-Integrated Porous Adsorbent for Effective Phosphorus Removal.

In pursuit of accessing clean water, the phosphate removal is of great importance for preventing eutrophication toward sustainable ecology. However, effective adsorbents with high capacity, selectivity, and long-term stability for treating phosphate in water still remain desired, which requires further development. Herein, a type of porous La-based adsorbents, which are composed of highly dispersed La(OH)3 on amino-functionalized Caragana korshinskii (CK) nanowires, are designed and fabricated through simple amination and decoration of lemon bars. Specifically, the adsorption to phosphate can be quickly completed within 50 min, and an ultrahigh adsorption capacity of 173.3 mg of P g-1 is realized. Moreover, these composite adsorbents display excellent selectivity and anti-interference ability to phosphate in the presence of common anions (CO3 2-, NO3-, Cl-, and SO4 2-). After four regenerations, there is still a removal rate of 85%. This study underscores an integrated material model for designing advanced structures toward efficient wastewater treatment.

Gold Nanoparticles on Nanosheets Derived from Layered Rare-Earth Hydroxides for Catalytic Glycerol-to-Lactic Acid Conversion.

Layered rare-earth hydroxides (LREHs), as a series of special lamellar compounds having a similar structure to layered double hydroxides (LDHs), are becoming a new type of catalyst materials. In this study, we have prepared a series of uniform LREH (RE = Y, La, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, and Tm) nanosheets through a reverse-microemulsion method. After deposition-precipitation of HAuCl4 and calcination, supported Au catalysts (denoted as Au/LREO) were subsequently obtained. The catalytic properties of all the derived Au/LREO catalysts were evaluated by aerobic conversion of glycerol to lactic acid under mild conditions (90 °C, 1 atm). Among these catalysts, Au/LPrO displays the best performances, including the highest glycerol conversion, lactic acid, and C3 product selectivity. Both the catalytic activities and the characterizations of the structure of Au/LREO indicate that the kind of rare-earth ions plays a key role in determining the Au particle size and its valence state and reducibility, which are the important factors correlated with the catalytic activities in glycerol conversion. In fact, the three features of gold particles, the extra-small size (∼3 nm), high content of Au0 species, and high reducibility, are the essential prerequisites for achieving the superior catalytic performance of Au/LPrO.