The examination of hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained tissues on glass slides by conventional light microscopy is the foundation for histopathological diagnosis. However, this conventional method has some limitations in x-y axes due to its relatively narrow range of observation area and in z-axis due to its two-dimensionality. In this study, we applied a CUBIC pipeline, which is the most powerful tissue-clearing and three-dimensional (3D)-imaging technique, to clinical pathology. CUBIC was applicable to 3D imaging of both normal and abnormal patient-derived, human lung and lymph node tissues. Notably, the combination of deparaffinization and CUBIC enabled 3D imaging of specimens derived from paraffin-embedded tissue blocks, allowing quantitative evaluation of nuclear and structural atypia of an archival malignant lymphoma tissue. Furthermore, to examine whether CUBIC can be applied to practical use in pathological diagnosis, we performed a histopathological screening of a lymph node metastasis based on CUBIC, which successfully improved the sensitivity in detecting minor metastatic carcinoma nodules in lymph nodes. Collectively, our results indicate that CUBIC significantly contributes to retrospective and prospective clinicopathological diagnosis, which might lead to the establishment of a novel field of medical science based on 3D histopathology.

The influence of the redox behavior of Rh/AlPO4 on automotive three-way catalysis (TWC) was studied to correlate catalytic activity with thermal stability and metal–support interactions. Compared with a reference Rh/Al2O3 catalyst, Rh/AlPO4 exhibited a much higher stability against thermal aging under an oxidizing atmosphere; further deactivation was induced by a high-temperature reduction treatment. In situ X-ray absorption fine structure experiments revealed a higher reducibility of Rh oxide (RhO x ) to Rh, and the metal showed a higher tolerance to reoxidation when supported on AlPO4 compared with Al2O3. This unusual redox behavior is associated with an Rh–O–P interfacial linkage, which is preserved under oxidizing and reducing atmospheres. Another effect of the Rh–O–P interfacial linkage was observed for the metallic Rh with an electron-deficient character. This leads to the decreasing back-donation from Rh d-orbitals to the antibonding π* orbital of chemisorbed CO or NO, which is a possible reason for the deactivation by high-temperature reduction treatments. On the other hand, surface acid sites on AlPO4 promoted oxidative adsorption of C3H6 as aldehyde, which showed a higher reactivity toward O2, as well as NO, compared with carboxylate adsorbed on Al2O3. A precise control of the acid–base character of the metal phosphate supports is therefore a key to enhance the catalytic performance of supported Rh catalysts for TWC applications.

Aluminum phosphate (AlPO4) was found to be an efficient and robust support material to produce optimum metal−support interactions that can reduce significantly Rh loading of automobile catalysts, owing to thermally stable and highly dispersed Rh nanoparticles anchored strongly onto the phosphate surface.

Rhodium catalysts exhibited higher dispersion with tridymite-type AlPO 4 supports than with Al 2 O 3 during thermal aging at 900 °C under an oxidizing atmosphere. The local structural analysis via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray absorption fine structure, and infrared spectroscopy suggested that the sintering of AlPO 4supported Rh nanoparticles was significantly suppressed because of anchoring via a Rh−O−P linkage at the interface between the metal and support. Most of the AlPO 4 surface was terminated by phosphate P−OH groups, which were converted into a Rh−O−P linkage when Rh oxide (RhO x ) was loaded. This interaction enables the thin planar RhO x nanoparticles to establish close and stable contact with the AlPO 4 surface. It differs from Rh−O−Al bonding in the oxide-supported catalyst Rh/Al 2 O 3 , which causes undesired solid reactions that yield deactivated phases. The Rh−O−P interfacial linkage was preserved under oxidizing and reducing atmospheres, which contrasts with conventional metal oxide supports that only present the anchoring effect under an oxidizing atmosphere. These experimental results agree with a density functional theory optimized coherent interface RhO x / AlPO 4 model.