Boron doped diamond (BDD) thin film was found to exhibit higher photocurrent conversion efficiencies and photostability compared to commonly used transparent conducting oxides (ITO and FTO) owing to the matching energy levels and strong C-C bonding at the organic/diamond interface.

Organometallic wires are interesting alternatives to conventional molecular wires based on a pure organic system because of the presence of d orbitals in the transition metal complex. However, synthetic problems, such as decreased stability of the compounds when labile metal complexes are present, often impede their isolation in a pure state and preclude a rapid development of such hybrid molecular wires. In this work, we show that preassembled self-assembled monolayers (SAM) based on pyridine-terminated 1-((4-acetylthiophenyl)ethynyl)-4-((4-pyridyl)ethynyl)benzene can act as a template for the architectural build up of a second layer of transition metal complexes to form an array of organometallic molecular wires on gold. Ru(II)(terpy)(bipy)(2+) (terpy = 2,2':6',2''-terpyridine and bipy = 2,2'-bipyridine) or cyclometalated Pt(II)(pbipy) (pbipy = 6-phenyl-2,2'-bipyridine) were axially coordinated onto the organic SAM via its terminal pyridinium moieties. Current-voltage studies show that the electronic coupling between the transition metal and organic wire produces a molecular wire that exhibits higher conductance than the original organic chain. The presence of the transition metal complexes in the hybrid molecular wire introduces distinctive negative differential resistance (NDR) effects.

Thermophilic Bacillus coagulans WCP10-4 is found to be able to convert cellobiose to optically pure L-lactic acid. Its β-glucosidase activity is detected in whole cells (7.3 U/g dry cells) but not in culture medium, indicating the intracellular location of the enzyme. Its β-glucosidase activity is observed only when cultured using cellobiose as the sole carbon source, indicating that the expression of this enzyme is tightly regulated in cells. The enzyme is most active at 50 °C and pH 7.0. The supplement of external β-glucosidase during fermentation of cellobiose (106 g/l) by B. coagulans WCP10-4 increased the fermentation time from 21 to 23 h and decreased the lactic acid yield from 96.1 to 92.9 % compared to the control without β-glucosidase supplementation. B. coagulans WCP10-4 converted 200 g/l of cellobiose to 196.3 g/l of L-lactic acid at a yield of 97.8 % and a productivity of 7.01 g/l/h. This result shows that B. coagulans WCP10-4 is a highly efficient strain for converting cellobiose to L-lactic acid without the need of supplementing external β-glucosidases.