Mesoporous Silica Supported Hydrophilic Ionic Liquid Gel Microspheres for Solvent-Free Deep Oxidative Desulfurization.

Solvent-free oxidative desulfurization can avoid environmental pollution caused by organic solvents as well as prevent loss of fuel during the oil-water separation process. In this work, first, hydrophilic ionic liquid gel microspheres with [BMIM]BF and PHEMA as the dispersion medium and gel network, respectively, were successfully prepared by using mesoporous silica microspheres as a supporting skeleton capable of stabilizing the gel through an anchoring effect, and then the catalyst [BMIM]PW and oxidant HO were incorporated into the gel microspheres to construct a liquid compartment microreactor for deep desulfurization. The prepared microreactor (SiO@[BMIM]PW/ILG-microspheres) has excellent extraction-catalytic capacity and exhibited ∼100% desulfurization ratio for a model oil of -heptane with 500 ppm of DBT at 60 °C for 3 h without solvents.

Using highly water-stable wool keratin/CsPbBr nanocrystals as a portable amine-responsive fluorescent test strip for onsite visual detection of food freshness.

Perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) have emerged as promising candidates for fluorescent probes owing to their outstanding photoelectric properties. However, the conventional CsPbBr (CPB) NCs are extremely unstable in water, which has seriously limited their sensing applications in water environment. Herein, we present a powerful ligand engineering strategy for fabricating highly water-stable CPB NCs by using a biopolymer of wool keratin (WK) as the passivator and the polyaryl polymethylene isocyanate (PAPI) as the cross-linking agent.

Regioselective Reaction of 2-Indolylmethanols with Enamides.

A highly regioselective reaction of 2-indolylmethanols with enamides has been developed at room temperature by using AlCl as a catalyst. A wide range of hybrids (40 examples) of indoles and enamides were obtained in moderate to good yields (up to 98% yield). This transformation represents the efficient way to introduce biologically important indoles and enamides skeleton into structurally complex hybrids.

Photocorrosion-Based BiOCl Photothermal Materials for Synergistic Solar-Driven Desalination and Photoelectrochemistry Energy Storage and Release.

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation is one of the most promising desalination technologies. However, few studies have effectively combined energy storage with evaporation processes. Here, a novel multifunctional interfacial evaporator, calcium alginate hydrogel/bismuth oxychloride/carbon black (HBiC), is designed, which integrates the characteristics of interfacial evaporation and direct photoelectric conversion.

Assembly of bimetallic (Au-Ag)FON composite films at liquid/solid interfaces and their tunable optical properties.

The regular structure provided by two-dimensional (2D) structural colloidal crystals is widely accepted to provide an ideal template that ensures that plasmonic bimetallic composite nanostructures are uniform. Herein, we report an effective method for fabricating bimetallic Au-Ag composite films loaded on the surfaces of 2D polystyrene@polyacrylic acid (PS@PAA) colloidal crystals. PS@PAA particles coated with uniform Ag particle layers (AgFON) were produced by a simple and effective sputtering-deposition technique, after which the galvanic replacement (GR) reaction was used to produce a bimetallic (Au-Ag)FON composite film at the liquid/solid interface in aqueous HAuCl.

A sensitive cholesterol electrochemical biosensor based on biomimetic cerasome and graphene quantum dots.

A simple and sensitive electrochemical cholesterol biosensor was fabricated based on ceramic-coated liposome (cerasome) and graphene quantum dots (GQDs) with good conductivity. The cerasome consists of a lipid-bilayer membrane and a ceramic surface as a soft biomimetic interface, and the mild layer-by-layer self-assembled method as the immobilization strategy on the surface of the modified electrode was used, which can provide good biocompatibility to maintain the biological activity of cholesterol oxidase (ChOx). The GQDs promoted electron transport between the enzyme and the electrode more effectively.

Pickering emulsion-embedded hierarchical solid-liquid hydrogel spheres for static and flow photocatalysis.

Pickering emulsion-based photocatalysis is considered to be a promising system due to its large active surface area and water/oil spatial separation capability for enrichment of substrates and products. In this work, a novel hierarchical structure composed of calcium alginate gel sphere wrapped ionic liquid-in-water Pickering emulsion with TiO in the water phase, which are stabilized by graphene oxide, is prepared via a facile one-step emulsion gelation method. Such subtle combination of Pickering emulsion, hydrogel and TiO with a multi-stage solid-liquid assemblage structure shows enhanced degradation activity of 2-naphthol into small molecular alkanes under simulated solar irradiation.

Photo-Induced Charge Transfer on Pt/Bi₂WO Composite Photocatalysts.

Pt/Bi₂WO composite photocatalysts were prepared by a facile photoreduction method. Pt nanoparticles with an average size of 5-8 nm were successfully deposited on the surface of Bi₂WO microspheres and the photocatalytic activity of Bi₂WO was greatly improved by Pt nanoparticles. The photo-induced charge transfer properties of samples were studied by means of surface photovoltage (SPV) and transient photovoltage (TPV) techniques, giving an insight into the intrinsic reasons of the improvement in photocatalytic activity.

Enhanced Efficiency of Planar Heterojunction Perovskite Solar Cells by a Light Soaking Treatment on Tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane-Doped Poly(triarylamine) Solution.

This research used Lewis acid tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane (BCF) as a p-type dopant and a light soaking (LS) treatment to improve the conductivity of poly(triarylamine) (PTAA). Specifically, the conductivity of PTAA films was improved by two orders of magnitude using BCF as a p-type dopant, and the conductivity of BCF-doped PTAA films could be further improved by using the LS treatment on its solution. The working mechanism of the formation of frustrated Lewis pairs between BCF and PTAA was proposed to explain the BCF doping and LS treatment effects on the hole transport property of PTAA.

Improved Performance and Reproducibility of Perovskite Solar Cells by Well-Soluble Tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane as a p-Type Dopant.

In this work, well-soluble tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane (BCF) is introduced for the first time into 2,2',7,7'-tetrakis(N,N'-di-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9'-spirobifluorene (spiro-OMeTAD) as a p-dopant. The conductivity of spiro-OMeTAD films is dramatically enhanced. When the BCF-doped spiro-OMeTAD film is used as a hole-transport layer (HTL) in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), nearly double increase in power conversion efficiency (PCE) is obtained compared to that of the PSCs based on a pristine spiro-OMeTAD HTL.

Oriented assembled TiO2 hierarchical nanowire arrays with fast electron transport properties.

Developing high surface area nanostructured electrodes with rapid charge transport is essential for artificial photosynthesis, solar cells, photocatalysis, and energy storage devices. Substantial research efforts have been recently focused on building one-dimensional (1D) nanoblocks with fast charge transport into three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical architectures. However, except for the enlargement in surface area, there is little experimental evidence of fast electron transport in these 3D nanostructure-based solar cells.

Investigation of photocatalytic activities over Bi₂WO₆/ZnWO₄ composite under UV light and its photoinduced charge transfer properties.

Bi(2)WO(6)/ZnWO(4) composite photocatalysts have been successfully synthesized by a facile hydrothermal process. The catalysts were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microcopy (TEM), and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectrum (DRS). The results show that Bi(2)WO(6) nanoparticles grow on the primary ZnWO(4) nanorods.

Analysis of sulfonamides in environmental water samples based on magnetic mixed hemimicelles solid-phase extraction coupled with HPLC-UV detection.

The magnetic mixed hemimicelles solid-phase extraction (MMHSPE), based on the adsorption of cation surfactant octadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (OTMABr) onto magnetite nanoparticles (Fe(3)O(4) NPs) to form mixed hemimicelles, was proposed for the preconcentration of several sulfonamides (SAs) compounds including sulfamethoxazole (SMX), sulfamethoxydiazine (SMD), sulfadimethoxine (SDM) and sulfaquinoxaline (SQX) from environmental water samples. This method avoided the time-consuming column-passing process of loading large volume samples in traditional SPE through the rapid isolation of OTMABr-coated Fe(3)O(4) NPs with an adscititious magnet. Mixed hemimicelles formed on the surface of Fe(3)O(4) NPs by OTMABr showed great adsorptive tendency towards analytes.