Sorption-based atmospheric water harvesting has the potential to realize water production anytime, anywhere, but reaching a hundred-gram high water yield in semi-arid climates is still challenging, although state-of-the-art sorbents have been used. Here, we report a portable and modularized water harvester with scalable, low-cost, and lightweight LiCl-based hygroscopic composite (Li-SHC) sorbents. Li-SHC achieves water uptake capacity of 1.18, 1.79, and 2.93 g g−1 at 15%, 30%, and 60% RH, respectively. Importantly, considering the large mismatch between water capture and release rates, a rationally designed batch processing mode is proposed to pursue maximum water yield in a single diurnal cycle. Together with the advanced thermal design, the water harvester shows an exceptional water yield of 311.69 g day−1 and 1.09 g gsorbent−1 day−1 in the semi-arid climate with the extremely low RH of ~15%, demonstrating the adaptability and possibility of achieving large-scale and reliable water production in real scenarios.

An investigation of the fruiting bodies of edible mushroom Ganoderma lucidum produced 13 steroids, containing one new lanostane-type triterpene compound, named ganoderterpene A (1). Nuclear magnetic resonance and high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry data were used to deduce these structures. All the isolates were evaluated for their ability to suppress NO generation in BV-2 microglial cells treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and exhibited moderate to strong inhibition effects, with IC50 values in the range 7.15–36.88 μM. Among the tested compounds, compound 1 exhibited the most marked activity with an IC50 value of 7.15 μM, and the structure–activity relationships were studied. This study showed that compound 1 significantly suppressed the activation of MAPK and TLR-4/NF-κB signaling pathways, as evidenced by an immunofluorescence assay and a molecular docking experiment. Furthermore, compound 1 effectively improved the LPS-induced mitochondrial membrane potential and apoptosis. These findings suggest that ganoderterpene A could exert protective effects in microglial cells from apoptosis by restraining the inflammatory response. Hence, G. lucidum could be used as a novel preventative agent for neurodegenerative disorders.

Lacking clean water has become a matter of urgency and harvesting solar energy for water evaporation is an efficient solution. Loading photothermal materials into porous and hydrophilic matrix prominently facilitates the water evaporation efficiency. In this work, cryopolymerization was adopted first to fabricate macroporous and hydrophilic matrix–cryogel of polyacrylamide (PAM) while reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was hybridized during the fabrication with thermal reduction of graphene oxide (GO). Inspired by the transpiration of natural mushroom, the solar-heating device was integrated with the stipe of PAM cryogel, which expedited the transport of water from the water reservoir to the pileus and the elimination of heating energy loss, and the pileus composed of rGO/PAM hybrid cryogel, which enabled the high efficiency of solar light absorption and solar-heating conversion. Such a mushroom-like device achieved rapid water vapor generation and high overall efficiency of solar-heating evaporation under one-sun illumination. As well, this mushroom-like device exhibited the identical practicability of solar-heating evaporation for the different water sources such as the wastewater containing salt, surfactant, or oil, compared with pure water. Within 10 cycles, those mushroom-like rGO/PAM hybrid cryogels retained the analogous solar-heating evaporation performance. The mushroom bioinspiration and cryopolymerization would afford a novel and convenient route for highly efficient solar-heating water evaporation.

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The facile preparation and admirable performance of macro-porous poly(lauryl acrylate)-based oil-sorbents for organic solvents and oils are reported in this manuscript. Cryo-polymerizations of lauryl acrylate (LA) with ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as the cross-linker were carried out at temperatures below the freezing point of the polymerization mixture. The polymerization medium and pore-forming agent was 1,4-dioxane. The influences of the total monomer concentration, EGDMA content and cryo-polymerization temperature on the structure of the obtained P(LA-co-EGDMA) cryogels were investigated with the techniques of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, contact angle measurement and thermo-gravimetric analysis. Through the modulation of the crosslinking density and porosity of these cryogels, the P(LA-co-EGDMA) oil-sorbents demonstrated a high absorption capacity for organic solvents and oils, recyclability and high-temperature tolerance. The absorption capacity reached 20–21 and 16–17 g/g for toluene and gasoline oil, respectively. Those fabricated sorbents survived high temperatures up to 150 °C without any change in absorption capacity as well as porosity. Considering the convenient synthesis process and absorption performance, the present work offers a remarkable opportunity to bring polymer cryogels to practical application in waste oil clean-up.