Polyoxometalate-based ionic liquids: efficient reversible phase transformation-type catalysts for thiolation of alcohols to construct C-S bonds.

As important building blocks in natural products and organic synthesis, thioethers have a wide range of potential applications. Herein, polyoxometalate-based ionic liquids (POM-ILs-SOH) derived from -alkyl imidazole were synthesized and used for the first time for the thiolation of alcohols to construct C-S bonds in a series of benzyl thioethers. This type of POM-ILs-SOH catalyst exhibited high catalytic activity, providing up to 98% yield of thioether within 1 h at 70 °C.

Silica Cross-Linked Micelle-Based Theranostic System for the Imaging and Treatment of Acute and Chronic Kidney Injury.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common and serious disease with high mortality and morbidity, and the persistent inflammatory environment brought about by AKI promotes its deterioration into chronic kidney disease (CKD). An efficient and timely targeted drug delivery to the renal tubules is crucial for AKI treatment. Here, we prepared silica cross-linked micelles (SCLMs) with different sizes and studied their targeting ability to the injured kidney.

Myocardium-Targeted Micelle Nanomedicine That Salvages the Heart from Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury.

Cardioprotective medication is the common treatment to relieve myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. However, limited by the low bioavailability of therapeutic drugs, the therapeutic outcome is barely satisfactory. Because the I/R injury can enhance the permeability of the vasculature and allow the extravasation of nanoparticles into the surrounding tissue, herein we formulate the cardiotonic drug olprinone (Olp) in cross-linked micelles as the nanomedicine to achieve myocardium-targeted delivery after systematic administration.

Electrical and thermal transport properties of high crystalline PdTe nanoribbons under a strong magnetic field.

The low-temperature superconductivity and topological properties of two-dimensional PdTe have shown great potential in the fields of optics and electronics, and its electrical and thermal transport properties under a strong magnetic field are very important for basic research and practical applications. In this study, the electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity of high crystalline PdTe nanoribbons were comprehensively measured by applying the direct current heating method, eliminating the thermal and electrical contact resistances at different magnetic field intensities and temperatures. It is found that the PdTe nanoribbons exhibited a low electrical resistivity of ∼27 μΩ cm and a high thermal conductivity of ∼130 W m K at room temperature.

Electroplating Deposition of Bismuth Absorbers for X-ray Superconducting Transition Edge Sensors.

An absorber with a high absorbing efficiency is crucial for X-ray transition edge sensors (TESs) to realize high quantum efficiency and the best energy resolution. Semimetal Bismuth (Bi) has shown greater superiority than gold (Au) as the absorber due to the low specific heat capacity, which is two orders of magnitude smaller. The electroplating process of Bi films is investigated.

A simple paper-based ratiometric luminescent sensor for tetracyclines using copper nanocluster-europium hybrid nanoprobes.

Tetracyclines (TCs), as one of the broad-spectrum antibiotics, are widely used to treat bacterial infections. The residues of TCs in animal-origin foods and drinking water have raised safety concerns and affected the public health. Thus, there is a high demand to develop a simple and rapid method for the detection of TCs.

Influence of the Interface Composition to the Superconductivity of Ti/PdAu Films.

In this work, the interface composition of the superconducting Ti/PdAu bilayer is tuned by an annealing process in N from 100 to 500 °C to control the superconducting transition temperature (). This Ti-PdAu composition layer is characterized with a high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and energy-dispersive spectrometer (EDS) to show the infiltration process. The surface topography, electrical, and cryogenic properties are also shown.

Essential role of enhanced surface electron-phonon interactions on the electrical transport of suspended polycrystalline gold nanofilms.

The electrical resistivity of suspended polycrystalline gold nanofilms with different lengths has been measured over the temperature range of 2 K to 340 K, which dramatically increases compared with bulk gold and slightly increases with length. Classical size effect theories considering surface and grain boundary scatterings cannot explain the increased film resistivity, especially the temperature dependence of resistivity, over the whole temperature range. Considering the fact that the reduction of the coordination number of atoms at the surface and the interface leads to a decrease of the phonon spectrum frequency and consequently affects the surface phonon spectrum, the electron-phonon interaction as a relatively independent surface effect is taken into account.

Selective fabrication of quasi-parallel single-walled carbon nanotubes on silicon substrates.

We have fabricated single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) arrays, about 85% of which are semiconducting. Fe nanoparticles, which were used as a catalyst, were produced simply and cheaply from Wistar rat blood. The SWNT arrays generally grow parallel to the gas flow.

Fabrication of ultralong and electrically uniform single-walled carbon nanotubes on clean substrates.

We report the controlled growth of ultralong single-wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) arrays using an improved chemical vapor deposition strategy. Using ethanol or methane as the feed gas, monodispersed Fe-Mo as the catalyst, and a superaligned carbon nanotube (CNT) film as the catalyst supporting frame, ultralong CNTs over 18.5 cm long were grown on Si substrates.

Measuring the thermal conductivity of individual carbon nanotubes by the Raman shift method.

The thermal contact resistance is a difficult problem that has puzzled many researchers in measuring the intrinsic thermal conductivity of an individual carbon nanotube (CNT). To avoid this problem, a non-contact Raman spectra shift method is introduced, by which we have successfully measured the thermal conductivity (kappa) of an individual single-walled carbon nanotube and a multi-walled carbon nanotube. The measured kappa values are 2400 W m(-1) K(-1) and 1400 W m(-1) K(-1), respectively.