in the production of polypropylene, the world's second-most widely produced synthetic plastic. The global demand for polypropylene has been rising continuously and its annual growth rate is expected to be 4-5% before 2020, resulting in increasing need for polymer-grade (>99.5%) propylene. [3] Nevertheless, the production of highly pure propylene represents a challenging and complicated process, which involves the separation of propylene from a propane/propylene mixture. Propane/ propylene mixtures are typically obtained by steam cracking of naphtha or during fluid catalytic cracking of gas oils in refineries, with a propylene purity of 50-60% for the former and 80-87% for the latter. Conventional separation of propane and propylene relies on cryogenic distillation, which is carried out at about 243 K and 0.3 MPa in a column containing over 100 trays. [4] Undoubtedly, this heat-driven process is highly energy-intensive.To lower the energy and operational cost and to suppress the carbon emissions associated with the propylene purification process through cryogenic distillation, several alternative technologies have been proposed and among them adsorptive separation, such as pressure/temperature swing adsorption, Adsorptive separation of olefin/paraffin mixtures by porous solids can greatly reduce the energy consumption associated with the currently employed cryogenic distillation technique. Here, the complete separation of propane and propylene by a designer microporous metal-organic framework material is reported. The compound, Y 6 (OH) 8 (abtc) 3 (H 2 O) 6 (DMA) 2 (Y-abtc, abtc = 3,3′,5,5′-azobenzene-tetracarboxylates; DMA = dimethylammonium), is rationally designed through topology-guided replacement of inorganic building units. Y-abtc is both thermally and hydrothermally robust, and possesses optimal pore window size for propane/propylene separation. It adsorbs propylene with fast kinetics under ambient temperature and pressure, but fully excludes propane, as a result of selective size exclusion. Multicomponent column breakthrough experiments confirm that polymer-grade propylene (99.5%) can be obtained by this process, demonstrating its true potential as an alternative sorbent for efficient separation of propane/propylene mixtures.

Under nutrient and energy-limiting conditions, plants up-regulate sophisticated catabolic pathways such as autophagy to remobilize nutrients and restore energy homeostasis. Autophagic flux is tightly regulated under these circumstances through the AuTophaGy-related1 (ATG1) kinase complex, which relays upstream nutrient and energy signals to the downstream components that drive autophagy. Here, we investigated the role(s) of the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ATG1 kinase during autophagy through an analysis of a quadruple mutant deficient in all four ATG1 isoforms. These isoforms appear to act redundantly, including the plant-specific, truncated ATG1t variant, and like other well-characterized atg mutants, homozygous atg1abct quadruple mutants display early leaf senescence and hypersensitivity to nitrogen and fixed-carbon starvations. Although ATG1 kinase is essential for up-regulating autophagy under nitrogen deprivation and short-term carbon starvation, it did not stimulate autophagy under prolonged carbon starvation. Instead, an ATG1-independent response arose requiring phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate kinase (PI3K) and SUCROSE NONFERMENTING1-RELATED PROTEIN KINASE1 (SnRK1), possibly through phosphorylation of the ATG6 subunit within the PI3K complex by the catalytic KIN10 subunit of SnRK1. Together, our data connect ATG1 kinase to autophagy and reveal that plants engage multiple pathways to activate autophagy during nutrient stress, which include the ATG1 route as well as an alternative route requiring SnRK1 and ATG6 signaling.

Soluble conjugated alternating porphyrin-dithienothiophene copolymersssingle-bond linked (I) and triple-bond linked (IIa and IIb)swere synthesized by palladium(0)-catalyzed Stille and Sonagashira coupling reactions, respectively. The thermal, electrochemical, optical, charge transport, and photovoltaic properties of these copolymers were examined; the effect of the triple bond was studied. I exhibits onset decomposition temperature (T d ) of 410°C and glass-transition temperature (T g ) of 180°C, higher than those of IIb (T d , 330°C; T g , 130°C). The absorption spectrum of I in thin film exhibits a sharp Soret band at 450 nm and two weak Q-bands at 563-619 nm, while IIb exhibits a sharp Soret band at 491 nm and a strong Q-band at 760 nm. The emission maxima of I and IIb in solution are located at 642 and 722 nm respectively. IIb is electrochemically active in both the oxidation and reduction regions, while I shows only oxidation peak. The field-effect hole mobilities as high as 2.1 × 10 -4 cm 2 V -1 s -1 were obtained for these copolymers. Polymer solar cells (PSCs) were fabricated based on the blend of the polymers and methanofullerene [6,6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 0.3% was achieved under AM 1.5, 100 mW/cm 2 for the PSC using IIb:PCBM (1:3, w/w) as active layer. The PCE of the PSC based on IIb:PCBM (1:3, w/w) is double that based on I:PCBM (1:2, w/w), consistent with that IIb exhibits stronger Q-band absorption and higher mobility at room temperature.