Concurrent Amorphization and Nanocatalyst Formation in Cu-Substituted Perovskite Oxide Surface: Effects on Oxygen Reduction Reaction at Elevated Temperatures.

The activity and durability of chemical/electrochemical catalysts are significantly influenced by their surface environments, highlighting the importance of thoroughly examining the catalyst surface. Here, Cu-substituted LaSrCoFeO is selected, a state-of-the-art material for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), to explore the real-time evolution of surface morphology and chemistry under a reducing atmosphere at elevated temperatures. Remarkably, in a pioneering observation, it is discovered that the perovskite surface starts to amorphize at an unusually low temperature of approximately 100 °C and multicomponent metal nanocatalysts additionally form on the amorphous surface as the temperature raises to 400 °C.

Cholesterol-Functionalized Linear/Brush Block Copolymers for Metal-Incorporated Nanostructures with Modulated Core Density and Enhanced Self-Assembly Efficiency.

Metal-mediated self-assembly of chelating double-hydrophilic block copolymer has become a facile preparation strategy of great importance for the metal-chelated hybrid nanostructures. Herein, we present a delicate control over the morphology regulation of metal-chelated nanostructures by a terminal modification of polymer building blocks with mesogenic cholesterol. Such a molecular design motif at an end of chelating linear/brush-type block copolymer imparts not only additional hydrophobicity for enhanced cohesive force to facilitate the metal-mediated self-assembly, but also significant morphological alteration of a metal-chelated core that otherwise generally forms a spherical interior with cholesterol-free block copolymers.

Eu(III)-Chelated Polymeric Hybrid Nanoplatform for Luminescence Resonance Energy Transfer (LRET)-Based Real-Time Monitoring of Organic Cargo Release.

The real-time monitoring of specific guest release from nanoscale assemblies has been of great interest for the potential application in nanomedicine. Herein, we present a facile one-pot strategy to achieve a metal-chelated nanoscale platform that enables a highly efficient luminescence resonance energy transfer (LRET) for the monitoring of hydrophobic cargo release. To this end, Eu(III) as a lanthanide luminophore was employed to induce the metal-mediated self-assembly of chelating block copolymers in the presence of fluorescent Nile Blue (NB) as an organic cargo, which can then produce a nanoscale assembly containing a hybrid polyionic complex (HPIC) of Eu(III) and NB as LRET pairs.