The chemical-looping gasification (CLG) of coal is a clean and effective technology for syngas generation. Sharing principles with chemical-looping combustion (CLC), CLG also uses oxygen carriers to transfer lattice oxygen to the fuel. Investigations into CLG with different O/C ratios are carried out in a fluidized bed reactor with steam used as the gasification− fluidization medium. The effect of the active component content of the oxygen carrier on the gas selectivity is performed, and reaction mechanisms between the Fe 2 O 3 oxygen carrier and coal with steam as the gasification agent are discussed. Moreover, we also assessed the reactivity of the CaO-decorated iron-based oxygen carrier particles in multicycle reactions. The carbon conversion efficiency is increased from 55.74 to 81% with increasing O/C ratio, whereas the content of H 2 first decreases and then increases. The addition of CaO can increase the carbon conversion efficiency and the gasification rate substantially and reduce the generation rate of H 2 S from 1.89 × 10 −3 to 0.156 × 10 −3 min −1 . Furthermore, X-ray diffraction (XRD) images indicate that the CaO-decorated iron-based oxygen carrier particles were completely regenerated after six redox cycles. Finally, the peak fitting of gasification reaction rate curves is used to explore the reaction mechanism between coal char and the CaOdecorated iron-based oxygen carrier, indicating that the reactions in the CLG include three stages: the complex reactions involved an oxygen carrier, coal char, and steam; the gasification of coal char; and the reduction of Fe 3 O 4 to FeO. The two-segment modified random pore model (MRPM) fits the experiment data well.

Aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) and poor photostability in aqueous media are two common problems for organic fluorescence dyes which cause a dramatic loss of fluorescence imaging quality and photodynamic therapy (PDT) failure. Herein, a local hydrophobic cage is built up inside near-infrared (NIR) cyanine-anchored fluorescent silica nanoparticles (FSNPs) in which a hydrophobic silane coupling agent (n-octyltriethoxysilane, OTES) is doped into FSNPs for the first time to significantly inhibit the ACQ effect and inward diffusion of water molecules. Therefore, the obtained optimal FSNP-C with OTES-modification can provide hydrophobic repulsive forces to effectively inhibit the π–π stacking interaction of cyanine dyes and simultaneously reduce the formation of strong oxidizing species (•OH and H2O2) in reaction with H2O, resulting in the best photostability (fluorescent intensity remained at 90.1% of the initial value after 300 s of laser scanning) and a high PDT efficiency on two- and three-dimensional (spheroids) HeLa cell culture models. Moreover, through molecular engineering (including increasing covalent anchoring sites and steric hindrance groups of cyanine dyes), FSNP-C exhibits the highest fluorescent intensity both in water solution (12.3-fold improvement compared to free dye) and living cells due to the limitation of molecular motion. Thus, this study provides an effectively strategy by combining a local hydrophobic cage and molecular engineering for NIR FSNPs in long-term bright fluorescence imaging and a stable PDT process.

Chemical looping combustion (CLC) is an attractive technology for CO2 capture with high energy efficiency. In this article, an Fe2O3/Al2O3 (Fe:Al = 3:1) oxygen carrier was first prepared by the solution combustion approach for the CLC process. The prepared oxygen carrier was characterized by different means. XRD identification has substantiated the necessity of calcinations to synthesize Fe2O3/Al2O3 oxygen carrier. SEM and TEM images showed the regular spherical and cubical shape and abundant porous structure in Fe2O3/Al2O3 oxygen carrier, respectively. Structural characteristics displayed that the pore shape of Fe2O3/Al2O3 particles was heterogeneous. The average pore size and surface area were 64.76 nm and 4.01 m2/g, respectively. Further, H2 temperature programmed reduction (TPR) of Fe2O3/Al2O3 oxygen carrier indicated that the reduction reaction had only one distinct DTG peak with the weight loss rate reaching 4.75 wt %/min. Finally, five cycles of red–ox reaction by alternating with CH4 and air demonstrated that Fe2O3/Al2O3 oxygen carrier had excellent reactivity and sintering resistance and consequently was capable of the CLC process.

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