Plasmonic Cu-supported amorphous RuP for efficient photothermal CO hydrogenation to CO.

The hydrogenation of carbon dioxide into profitable chemicals is a viable path toward achieving the objective of carbon neutrality. However, the typical approach for hydrogenation of CO heavily relies on thermally driven catalysis at high temperatures, which is not aligned with the goals of carbon neutrality. Thus, there is a critical need to explore new catalytic methods for the high-efficiency conversion of CO.

Tuning the selectivity of the CO hydrogenation reaction using boron-doped cobalt-based catalysts.

Direct CO hydrogenation to value-added chemicals is a promising path toward realizing the "carbon-neutral" goal. However, controlling the selectivity of CO hydrogenation toward desired products (, CO and CH) using non-precious metal-based catalysts is important but challenging. It is imperative to explore catalysts with high activity and stability.

A supramolecular nanoplatform for imaging-guided phototherapies hypoxia tumour microenvironment remodeling.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has emerged as an invasive and promising antitumour treatment, however, the hypoxia in deep tumour tissues and the poor water-solubility of photosensitizers as bottlenecks greatly hinder PDT efficiency. Herein, a tumour microenvironment (TME) activated supramolecular nanoplatform consisting of the pillar[5]arene-based amphiphilic polymer POPD, the phototherapeutic agent Cy7-CN, respiratory medication atovaquone (ATO) and chemotherapeutic drug pyridinyl camptothecin (CPT-Py) was constructed for imaging-guided hypoxia-ameliorated phototherapies. Owing to host-guest interaction, the photochemical and photophysical properties of cyanine were improved exceedingly due to the suppression of π-π stacking.

Feasible bottom-up development of conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) for boosting the deep removal of sulfur dioxide.

A pain-point for material development is that computer-screened structures are usually difficult to realize in experiments. Herein, considering that linkages are crucial for building functional nanoporous polymers with diverse functionalities, we develop an efficient approach for constructing target-specific conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) based on screening feasible polymerization pathways. Taking the deep removal of SO from a SO/CO mixture as the specific target, we precisely screen the linkages and fabricate different CMPs by manipulating the porosity and hydrophobicity.

Construction of pyrroles, furans and thiophenes intramolecular cascade desulfonylative/dehydrogenative cyclization of vinylidenecyclopropanes induced by NXS (X = I or Br).

Pyrroles, furans, and thiophenes are important structural motifs in biologically active substances, pharmaceuticals and functional materials. In this paper, we disclose an efficient synthetic strategy for the rapid construction of multisubstituted pyrroles, furans, and thiophenes NXS mediated desulfonylative/dehydrogenative cyclization of vinylidenecyclopropanes (VDCPs). The advantages of this method include wide substrate range, high efficiency and synthetic usefulness of the heterocyclic products under metal-free and mild conditions.

Carbon dioxide-boosted growth of high-density and vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays on a stainless steel mesh.

Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs), a unique group of highly aligned CNTs normal to a substrate, have been extensively studied during the past decades. However, it is a long-standing challenge to improve the height of VACNTs due to the incidental deactivation of catalysts during growth. Herein, we demonstrate a facile strategy toward synthesizing high-density and well-aligned CNT arrays from formed Fe-based catalysts on a stainless steel (SS) mesh.

Surface differences of oxide nanocrystals determined by geometry and exogenously coordinated water molecules.

Determining the different surfaces of oxide nanocrystals is key in developing structure-property relations. In many cases, only surface geometry is considered while ignoring the influence of surroundings, such as ubiquitous water on the surface. Here we apply O solid-state NMR spectroscopy to explore the facet differences of morphology-controlled ceria nanocrystals considering both geometry and water adsorption.

Visible-light-induced indole synthesis intramolecular C-N bond formation: desulfonylative C(sp)-H functionalization.

Despite significant advances made on the synthesis of indole derivatives through photochemical strategies during the past several years, the requirement of equivalent amounts of oxidants, bases or other additional additives has limited their practical applications in the synthesis of natural products and pharmaceuticals as environment-friendly processes. Herein, we report LED visible-light-induced redox neutral desulfonylative C(sp)-H functionalization for the synthesis of -substituted indoles with a broad scope through γ-fragmentation under mild conditions in the absence of any additional additive. The reaction mechanism paradigm has been investigated on the basis of deuterium labeling experiments, kinetic analysis, Hammett plotting analysis and DFT calculations.

Conversion of bio-carbohydrates to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural in three-component deep eutectic solvent.

5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is a valuable platform chemical derived from biomass and lots of research focuses on the synthesis of HMF from fructose and glucose. Herein, conversion of bio-carbohydrates to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) was studied in the three-component deep eutectic solvent (DES) system, which was composed of choline chloride (ChCl), boric acid and substrates such as fructose, glucose and sucrose. Bio-carbohydrates handled under typical reaction conditions gave satisfactory conversion (44% for fructose and 31% for glucose) and yield of HMF (35% for fructose and 21% for glucose) in 1 h.

A photosensitive metal-organic framework having a flower-like structure for effective visible light-driven photodegradation of rhodamine B.

Porphyrin-based metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have great photocatalytic potential due to their good photosensitivity. Their photocatalytic performance is not only determined by molecular structure but also by morphology. Flower-like MOFs are considered to be good materials for catalysis due to their larger specific surface area, more exposed active sites, and good stability.

The Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction for non-electron-deficient olefins enabled by photoredox catalysis.

A strategy for overcoming the limitation of the Morita-Baylis-Hillman (MBH) reaction, which is only applicable to electron-deficient olefins, has been achieved visible-light induced photoredox catalysis in this report. A series of non-electron-deficient olefins underwent the MBH reaction smoothly a novel photoredox-quinuclidine dual catalysis. The formed key β-quinuclidinium radical intermediates, derived from the addition of olefins with quinuclidinium radical cations, are used to enable the MBH reaction of non-electron-deficient olefins.

wSDTNBI: a novel network-based inference method for virtual screening.

In recent years, the rapid development of network-based methods for the prediction of drug-target interactions (DTIs) provides an opportunity for the emergence of a new type of virtual screening (VS), namely, network-based VS. Herein, we reported a novel network-based inference method named wSDTNBI. Compared with previous network-based methods that use unweighted DTI networks, wSDTNBI uses weighted DTI networks whose edge weights are correlated with binding affinities.

Boosting cancer therapy efficiency photoinduced radical production.

Current cancer therapy has been restricted by the hypoxic microenvironment of tumors, especially for strongly oxygen-dependent photodynamic therapy. To defeat tumor hypoxia, an oxygen-irrelevant radical nanogenerator, , is developed by the co-assembly of iodized polymer and NIR photosensitizer , and further evaluated as a remote controllable free radical generation platform for enhancing antitumor efficiency. The radical nanogenerator can be excited by NIR light to produce ROS through transfer of energy to oxygen and induce the formation of toxic iodine radicals electron transfer to .

An ultra-stable bio-inspired bacteriochlorin analogue for hypoxia-tolerant photodynamic therapy.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) greatly suffers from the weak NIR-absorption, oxygen dependence and poor stability of photosensitizers (PSs). Herein, inspired by natural bacteriochlorin, we develop a bacteriochlorin analogue, tetrafluorophenyl bacteriochlorin (), by one-step reduction of tetrafluorophenyl porphyrin (). can realize deep tissue penetration, benefitting from the strong NIR absorption.

formation of a biomimetic lipid membrane triggered by an aggregation-enhanced photoligation chemistry.

Nature or synthetic systems that can self-assemble into biomimetic membranes and form compartments in aqueous solution have received extensive attention. However, these systems often have the problems of requiring complex processes or lacking of control in simulating lipid synthesis and membrane formation of cells. This paper demonstrates a conceptually new strategy that uses a photoligation chemistry to convert nonmembrane molecules to yield liposomes.

Modulation of the lifespan of by the controlled release of nitric oxide.

The frontier of nitric oxide biology has gradually shifted from mechanism elucidation to biomanipulation, cell-proliferation promotion, cell-apoptosis induction, and lifespan modulation. This warrants biocompatible nitric oxide (NO) donating materials, whose NO release is not only controlled by a bioorthogonal trigger, but also self-calibrated allowing real-time monitoring and hence an onset/offset of the NO release. Additionally, the dose of NO release should be facilely adjusted in a large dynamic range; flux and the dose are critical to the biological outcome of NO treatment.

Highly flexible and free-standing carbon nanotube/hollow carbon nanocage hybrid films for high-performance supercapacitors.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been considered as promising electrode materials for energy storage devices, especially flexible electronics owing to their excellent electrical, physicochemical and mechanical properties. However, the severe aggregation between CNTs significantly reduces the electrochemically active surface areas and thus degrades the electrochemical properties. In this study, we demonstrate a facile layer-by-layer strategy toward preparing a CNT/hollow carbon nanocage (HCNC) hybrid film.

Syntheses of tetrahydroquinoline-based chiral carbene precursors and the related chiral NHC-Au(i) complex.

Four tetrahydroquinoline-based chiral carbene precursors were synthesized using unsymmetrical ,'-diarylformamidines and chiral 2-allyloxiranes as starting materials. A representative NHC-gold complex has been prepared and fully characterized, the crystal structure of which reveals an intramolecular Au⋯H-C(sp) interaction between Au(i) and the hydrogen atom of the isopropyl moiety in the -aryl group.

The role of oxygen defects in metal oxides for CO reduction.

The abuse of fossil fuels release large amount of CO, causing intense global warming. Using photoreduction and electroreduction to convert CO into highly valuable fuels such as CO and CH can effectively solve this problem. However, due to the limited activity and selectivity, pristine catalyst materials cannot meet the requirements of practical applications, which means that some modifications to these catalysts are necessary.

A carbon nanotube approach for efficient thermally insulating material with high mechanical stability and fire-retardancy.

For applications in energy-saving buildings, aerospace industry, and wearable electronic devices, thermally insulating materials (TIMs) are required to possess not only low thermal conductivity but also light weight, mechanical robustness, and environmental stability. However, conventional TIMs can rarely meet these requirements. To overcome this shortcoming, we propose a new strategy for preparing TIMs.

A simple two-photon turn-on fluorescent probe for the selective detection of cysteine based on a dual PeT/ICT mechanism.

Herein, a simple two-photon turn-on fluorescent probe, -(6-acyl-2-naphthayl)-maleimide (1), based on a dual PeT/ICT quenching mechanism is reported for the highly sensitive and selective detection of cysteine (Cys) over other biothiols. The probe was applied in the two-photon imaging of Cys in cultured HeLa cells, excited by a near-infrared laser at 690 nm.

Multifunctional Inverse Opal-Like TiO Electron Transport Layer for Efficient Hybrid Perovskite Solar Cells.

is designed to replace the traditional compact layer and mesoporous scaffold layer in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Improved light harvesting efficiency and charge transporting performance in IOT-ETL based PSCs yield high power conversion efficiency of 13.11%.