Co-Assembly of Soft and Hard Nanoparticles into Macroscopic Colloidal Composites with Tailored Mechanical Property and Processability.

Colloidal composites, translating the great potential of nanoscale building bricks into macroscopic dimensions, have emerged as an appealing candidate for new materials with applications in optics, energy storage, and biomedicines. However, it remains a key challenge to bridge the size regimes from nanoscopic colloidal particles to macroscale composites possessing mechanical robustness. Herein, a bottom-up approach is demonstrated to manufacture colloidal composites with customized macroscopic forms by virtue of the co-assembly of nanosized soft polymeric micelles and hard inorganic nanoparticles.

Promotion of the Nucleation of Ultrafine Ni-Rich Layered Oxide Primary Particles by an Atomic Layer-Deposited Thin Film for Enhanced Mechanical Stability.

Understanding the atomistic mechanisms of non-equilibrium processes during solid-state synthesis, such as nucleation and grain structure formation of a layered oxide phase, is a critical challenge for developing promising cathode materials such as Ni-rich layered oxide for Li-ion batteries. In this study, we found that the aluminum oxide coating layer transforms into lithium aluminate as an intermediate, which has favorable low interfacial energies with the layered oxide to promote the nucleation of the latter. The fast and uniform nucleation and formation of the layered oxide phase at relatively low temperatures were evidenced using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance and in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction.

Piezoelectrically enhanced photocatalysis of KNaNbO (KNN) microstructures for efficient water purification.

As a kind of excellent multifunctional metal oxide semiconductor, KNaNbO (KNN) has been widely applied in a variety of fields such as photocatalysis and energy harvesting due to its excellent piezoelectric, dielectric and photovoltaic properties in recent decades. In this report, octahedron-shaped KNaNbO (KNN-6) microstructures assembled by cubic nanoparticles with {010} exposed facets were synthesized a one-pot hydrothermal reaction. Due to the accumulation of electrons on the exposed facets, which was conducive to the separation of photo-generated electron-hole pairs, the microstructures could achieve a highly efficient photocatalytic performance for wastewater degradation.

Nanohybrid of CoO Nanoparticles and Polyphosphazene-Decorated Ultra-Thin Boron Nitride Nanosheets for Simultaneous Enhancement in Fire Safety and Smoke Suppression of Thermoplastic Polyurethane.

Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) is widely used in daily life due to its characteristics of light weight, high impact strength, and compression resistance. However, TPU products are extremely flammable and will generate toxic fumes under fire attack, threatening human life and safety. In this article, a nanohybrid flame retardant was designed for the fire safety of TPU.

Exploration of Hierarchical Metal-Organic Framework as Ultralight, High-Strength Mechanical Metamaterials.

Due to the extraordinarily high surface to volume ratio and enormous structural and chemical diversities, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have drawn much attention in applications such as heterogeneous catalysis, gas storage separation, and drug delivery, and so on. However, the potential of MOF materials as mechanical metamaterials has not been investigated. In this work, we demonstrated that through the concerted effort of molecular construct and mesoscopic structural design, hierarchical MOFs can exhibit superb mechanical properties.

Facile Synthesis of BiVO@ZIF-8 Composite with Heterojunction Structure for Photocatalytic Wastewater Treatment.

Water pollution has always been a serious problem across the world; therefore, facile pollutant degradation via light irradiation has been an attractive issue in the field of environmental protection. In this study, a type of Zn-based metal-organic framework (ZIF-8)-wrapped BiVO nanorod (BiVO@ZIF-8) with high efficiency for photocatalytic wastewater treatment was synthesized through a two-step hydrothermal method. The heterojunction structure of BiVO@ZIF-8 was confirmed by morphology characterization.

A Reflection on the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Chinese Medicine.

Research on the molecular mechanisms controlling circadian rhythm in Western medicine is comparable to the study of a day-night rhythm in Chinese medicine (CM), as also focus on the same life phenomenon. By comparing the two, this paper elaborates on the differences between them in their respective issues of consciousness, ways of thinking, research methods and research results. Relatively speaking, Nobel Prize research has a stronger sense of the problems and concerns about the essence of "what", while CM focuses on "how a thing functions".

[Research progress on Huang Fu-mi's A-B classic of acupuncture and moxibustion].

In order to understand the research status of HUANG Fu-mi's A-B Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, 83 pieces of literature that have been publically published since 1978 were analyzed. A summary was performed according to 7 aspects including version origin, emendation, arrangement and summary, theory discussion, clinical research, value evaluation, the rest questions, etc. It is believed that deep research work has been done on explanations, emendation and translation regarding A-B Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion.