Month: November 2018

The groups of Tao JIANG and Xiangxi WANG have solved the structure of the CRISPR-CAS complex of Thermococcus onnurineus by cryo electronmicroscopy. It is the hitherto simplest structure of such complex and might be developed into a new engineering tool. CAS news release, November 28, 2018

The team around YU Xuefeng at the CAS Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) has developed a low-cost metal-free photocatalyst based on black phosphorus for effective photocatalysis. Using a simple ball-milling technique, the team converted red phosphorus and urea to black phosphorus and black phosphorus/CN complexes in large-scale, among which the material cost of black phosphorus in the photocatalyst was estimated to be just 0.016 RMB pear gram. By forming P-N bonds, black phosphorus and CN interacted to form a stable binary which showed broad absorption as well as effective charge separation, and possessed abundant active sites, giving rise to excellent photocatalytic performance. Without using a co-catalyst, the metal-free catalyst emitted H2 consistently at a rate as high as 786 μmol·h-1·g-1 and RhB was decomposed in merely 25 mins during visible light irradiation. CAS news release, November 26, 2018

According to the National Bureau of Forestry and Grassland, China will have created an ecological environment as a whole by 2020 and realized the targets of “beautiful China” by 2035. The forest industry should have reached the state of developed countries by 2050. By 2020, the forest ratio will be 23 %, forest reserves 16.5 billion cubic meters, the village greening ratio 30%, grassland rate 56%, and new anti-desertification area 10 million hectares. Japan JST China news, November 26, 2018  

The team developed a graphene-based aluminum fuel cell with an energy density of 545Wh/kg and a capacity of 130kWh. The system consists of an array of six 10-cell batteries in series. Test results show that 50A current discharge power can reach 3000W, peak power is expected to be as high as 4800W. The battery system is expected to be applied to a power source or a backup power source such as an electric car. In order to demonstrate its use, the lighting of a building including power supply of the graphene-based far infrared energy heating was shown. CAS news release, November 26, 2018

The Tibet – Changchun grid connection is considered the most complicated in the world, due to severe differences in elevation. Transmission capacity is 400,000 kW, with a target on 1 million kW. Total investiment is about 16.2 billion RMB or about 2 billion €. Japan JST China news, November 26, 2018

The group of ZHANG Dawei divided the vitamin B12 biosynthesic pathway into six modules into which they engineered a total of 28 genes from R. capsulatus, Brucella melitensis, Sinorhizobium meliloti 320, ,S. typhimurium, and Rhodopseudomonas palustris. Each module was expressed in E. coli on individual plasmids or incorporated into the E. coli genome. After metabolic engineering to ameliorate cobalt chelation and remove module 4 bottlenecks, as well as optimization of fermentation conditions, vitamin B12 production was increased 250fold to 307 µg per g dry cell. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07412-6 CAS news release, November 26, 2018