FeO/Ag core/shell nanoparticles functionalized with the free amino (NH) functional groups (FeO/Ag-NH) were conjugated with fluorescent electron coupled dye (ECD)-antiCD34 antibody using the 1-ethyl-3-(3'-dimethyl-aminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC) catalyst (ECD - Electron Coupled Dye or R Phycoerythrin-Texas Red is a fluorescent organic dye attached to the antibody). The characteristic fluorescence of ECD in the antibody was investigated and was used as a good indicator for estimating the percentage of the antibodies that were successfully conjugated with the nanoparticles. The conjugation efficiency was found to increase depending on the V:V ratio, where V and V are the volumes of the nanoparticle solution (concentration of 50 ppm) and the as-purchased antibody solution, respectively. The conjugation efficiency rapidly increased from approximately 18% to approximately 70% when V:V was increased from 2:1 to 100:1, and it gradually reached the saturated state at an efficiency of 95%, as the V:V was equal to 300:1. The bioactivity of the abovementioned conjugation product (denoted by FeO/Ag-antiCD34) was evaluated in an experiment for the collection of stem cells from bone marrow samples.

In this work, silver and copper particles of different nanoparticle precursor concentrations were decorated on the surface of thin film composite polyamide (TFC‐PA) reverse osmosis (RO) membranes by in situ method. The modified membranes were characterized by different techniques including Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE‐SEM), X‐ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), and attenuated total reflection – Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (ATR‐FTIR), water contact angle (WCA), and antibacterial capacity. After that, the membrane performance was compared through normalized flux and the possibility of the removal of bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein; the anti‐fouling and anti‐biofouling properties were also compared through the maintained flux ratios (%) after 5‐hour filtration. The used organic foulants were BSA protein and humic acid (HA) solutions. The results showed that, compared to the flux of the base, the flux of AgNPs‐decorated membrane can improve the separation ability up to 24% while that of CuNPs‐decorated membrane was 14%. The anti‐fouling property of decorated membranes was significantly increased compared to that of the base (from 64% for the base to over 77% for decorated membranes). Especially, the anti‐biofouling property of nanoparticles decorated membranes was also increased because of the higher maintained flux ratios (from 50% for the base to over 75% for decorated membranes). It indicates that this method can be applied to produce reverse osmosis (RO) membranes for reclamation wastewater with a high content of organic matter.

Marine diatoms play a very crucial role in carbon export, and current food-web and become an important factor in global silica cycle. This then has made the mechanism of their biosilicification interesting to be a research subject. The classical theory states that the silica metabolism has been originated from the absorption of silicate ions, which might not give a suitable explanation for the solid silica silicification. In this study, mono-disperse Si/SiO2 fluorescent submicron-spheres were synthesized in aqueous solution, and applied in monitoring the extracellular solid silica accumulation of Chaetoceros sp. diatom. The Si/SiO2 submicron particles emitted light-blue color with the spectrum centered at 440 nm under the excitation of 365 nm UV light, similar to the typical excitation/emission pair of the DAPI fluorophore (excitation/emission: 358 nm/461 nm).  The fluorescence-microscopic investigation showed that the Si/SiO2 particles delocalized on the diatoms’ surface and increased a silicic-acid-level surrounding the microalgae. As a consequence, the growth rate of the diatoms increased as the concentration of the SiO2 particles was at 120 mg/L, and reached 1.5 times higher than the growth rate calculated from the F2 media. The study not only introduces a new aspect to the extracellular metabolism of microalgae biosilicification corresponding to the global silica cycle, but also presents a new-type of culturing media using SiO2 nanoparticles for diatom cultivation, which increases the growth rate of artificial diatom-culturing for further applications.

Photocatalysts have been effectively applied for water treatment. Narrow bandgap energy semiconductors show good photocatalytic performance at visible light. However, high recombination rate of the photogenerated electrons and holes leads to their low photocatalytic activity. Moreover, the conduction and valence band potentials of these materials are not suitable for the redox reactions with water and oxygen to generate HO• and •O2⁻ radicals, respectively. Therefore, the development of new photocatalyst systems to overcome these disadvantages is necessary. This study investigated the photocatalytic activity of FeWO4/rGO/g-C3N4 Z-scheme photocatalytic system via the degradation of Rhodamine B in water. The photocatalyst was synthesized by simple hydrothermal method and characterized by X-ray diffraction method (XRD), fluorescence spectroscopy (PL) and diffuse reflectance spectra (UV-vis). The results showed that after 150 minutes illumination, the Rhodamine B decomposition efficiency on FeWO4/g-C3N4 and FeWO4/rGO/g-C3N4 were 93.07 and 99.21%, respectively. These values were significantly higher than that of g-C3N4 under the same catalytic concentration of 0.1g/L. In the FeWO4/rGO/g-C3N4 heterostructure, rGO acted as electron mediator and transporter between two semiconductors, resulting in a lower recombination rate of photogenerated charges. As the results, the photocatalytic performance was enhanced.