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A simple assay to probe disease-associated enzyme activity using glycosaminoglycan-assisted synthesized gold nanoparticles is reported.

The direct reduction of SO2 to elemental sulfur in flue gas by the coupling of cold plasma and catalyst, being a new approach for SO2 reduction, was studied. In this process, CO2 can be disassembled to form CO, which acts as the reductant under the cold plasma. With the coupling of the cold plasma and the catalyst, sulfur dioxide was selectively reduced by CO to elemental sulfur with a byproduct of metal sulfate, e.g., FeSO4. In the present work, Fe2O3/γ-Al2O3 was employed as the catalyst. The extent of desulfurization was more than 80%, and the selectivity of elemental sulfur is about 55%. The effects of water vapor, temperature, and the components of simulated flue gas were investigated. At the same time, the coupling of thermogravimetry and infrared method and a chemical analysis method were employed to evaluate the used catalyst. In this paper, we will focus on the discussion of the catalyst. The discussions of the detail of plasma will be introduced in another paper.

A homogeneous non-aqueous solution reactions method has been developed to prepare gold-coated cobalt (Co@Au) nanoparticles. After the sample was washed with 8% HCl, XRD (X-Ray Diffraction), TEM (transmission electron microscopy), and magnetic measurements SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) are utilized to characterize the nanocomposites. XRD shows the pattern of sample, which is responding to gold and cobalt, no cobalt oxide was found. TEM results show that the average size of Co@Au nanoparticles is about 10 nm and we can find core-shell structure of the sample. SQUID results show that the particles are ferromagnetic materials at 300K. So the gold- coated cobalt nanoparticles (Co@Au) can be successfully prepared by the homogeneous nonaqueous approach. This kind of core-shell materials is stable in acid condition, which would give many opportunities for bio- application.