Rational Design of S-Scheme Heterojunction toward Efficient Photocatalytic Cellulose Reforming for H and Formic Acid in Pure Water.

Photocatalytic cellulose reforming usually requires harsh conditions due to its sluggish kinetics. Here, a hollow structural S-scheme heterojunction of ZnSe and oxygen vacancy enriched TiO , namely, h-ZnSe/Pt@TiO , is designed and fabricated, with which the photocatalytic reforming of cellulose for H and formic acid is realized in pure water. H and formic acid productivity of 1858 and 372 µmol g h and a steady H evolution for 300 h are achieved with α-cellulose.

Hollow mesoporous cubic silica self-assembling into photonic crystals with rhombohedral lattices and vivid structural colors for anti-counterfeiting.

Colloidal photonic crystals (PCs) feature face-centered cubic (FCC) lattices since spherical particles are usually used as building blocks; however, constructing structural colors originating from PCs with non-FCC lattices is still a big challenge due to the difficulty in preparing non-spherical particles with tunable morphologies, sizes, uniformity, and surface properties and assembling them into ordered structures. Here, uniform, positively charged, and hollow mesoporous cubic silica particles (hmc-SiO) with tunable sizes and shell thicknesses prepared by a template approach are used to self-assemble into PCs with rhombohedral lattice. The reflection wavelengths and structural colors of the PCs can be controlled by altering the sizes or the shell thicknesses of the hmc-SiO.

Tuning the current rectification behavior of Rh-based molecular junctions by varying their supramolecular structures.

Molecular junctions with similar backbones, tunable chemical structures and controllable length are critical for the systematic study of the structure-functionality relationships of their charge transport behavior. Taking advantage of the feasibility and tunability of stepwise fabrication, we built series of asymmetric supramolecular SAMs on gold using Rh(OCCR) (Rh, R = CH, H, and F) as the building blocks and conjugated ,'-bidentate ligands (pyrazine (L), 4,4'-bipyridine (L) and 1,2-bis(4-pyridyl)ethene (L)) as the bridges. By varying the Rh units and bridging ligands, series of supramolecules with similar backbone and tunable chemical structures were assembled on gold.

Biomimetic fabrication of superhydrophobic loofah sponge: robust for highly efficient oil-water separation in harsh environments.

Oil/water separation has become an increasingly important field due to frequent industrial oily wastewater emission and crude oil spill accidents. Herein, we fabricate a robust superhydrophobic loofah sponge a versatile, environmentally friendly, and low-cost dip coating strategy, which involves the modification of commercial loofah sponge with waterborne polyurea and fused SiO nanoparticles without the modification of any toxic low-surface-energy compound. The as-prepared loofah sponge showed excellent superhydrophobic/superoleophilic properties and exhibited robustness for effective oil-water separation in extremely harsh environments (such as 1 M HCl, 1 M NaOH, saturated NaCl solution and hot water higher than 95 °C) due to the remarkably high chemical stability.