Latest ArticlesMulti-metal porous crystalline materials (MPCM), integrating the functions of both multi-metal centres and porous crystalline materials (e.g., metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs)), are an extended class of porous materials that have attracted much attention for a broad range of applications. Owing to the advantages of these materials, they generally display high porosity, multi-metal active sites, well-tuned functions, and pre-designable structures, etc., serving as desired platforms for the study of structure-property relationships. In view of the clean and sustainable target, a series of MPCM have been explored as electrocatalysts for electrocatalytic reactions like hydrogen evolution reaction, oxygen evolution reaction and electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction. Concerning the progress achieved for MPCM in electrocatalytic field during past years, this review will provide a brief introduction on the recent breakthrough of MPCM based electrocatalysts including their synthesis methods, structure design, component/morphology tuning, electrocatalytic property and structure-property relationship, etc. Besides, it will also conclude the current challenges and present perspectives for the MPCM based electrocatalysts, which might promote the development of porous crystalline materials in electrocatalysis and hope to provide new insights for scientists in related fields.
Electromagnetic wave-absorbing materials (EWAMs) are susceptible to failure in complex chemical environments. It is urgent to develop composites with high-efficiency electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption and strong corrosion resistance. In the work, polyaniline (PANI) is in-situ polymerized on the surface of oxidized carbon nanohorns (ox-CNHs) to create a core-shell composite of ox-CNHs@PANI. By adjusting the thickness of the PANI shell and effectively regulating the electromagnetic parameters of the composite material, excellent impedance matching and efficient EMW absorption are achieved. At a thickness of 2.22 mm, the composite exhibits a reflection loss peak (RLmin) and a maximum effective absorption broadband (EAB) of −66.7 dB and 5.68 GHz, respectively. Additionally, the dense PANI shell effectively prevents contact between the corrosive medium and ox-CNHs, which significantly reduces the possibility of corrosion. Due to the formation of the ox-CNHs/PANI interface, the ox-CNHs@PANI composite exhibits strong corrosion resistance under acidic, alkaline, and neutral conditions. The ox-CNHs@PANI composite exhibits excellent EMW absorption and strong corrosion resistance, offering a new approach to developing advanced bifunctional materials.
Carbon emissions from wastewater treatment contribute to global warming and have received widespread attention. It is necessary to seek low-carbon wastewater treatment technologies. Microbial fuel cells (MFC) and osmotic microbial fuel cells (OsMFC) are low-carbon technologies that enable both wastewater treatment and energy recovery. In this study, MFC and OsMFC were used to treat sulfamethoxazole (SMX) wastewater, and direct carbon emissions during operation was calculated. The highest SMX removal rate can reach about 40%. Simultaneously, the CH4 emission factor was significantly reduced to <6 g CO2/kg of chemical oxygen demand. The accumulation of SMX-degrading bacteria competed with methanogens for carbon source utilization, leading to a significant decrease in the relative abundance of methanogens. It is hoped that this study can provide a sustainable approach to antibiotic wastewater treatment and promote the development of low-carbon wastewater treatment technologies.
A pair of asymmetric rigid carbazole-benzonitrile-based emitters were synthesized by strategically alternating donor and acceptor groups along the molecular edges. The spin-flip process is accelerated by both the formation of localized and delocalized charge transfer states due to linearly positioned donors and strong spin-orbital coupling between different excitation feature of the lowest singlet and triplet excited states. This molecular architecture results in a remarkable short delayed lifespan of around 100 ns. The application of the two emitters in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) achieves the highest external quantum efficiencies of 13.0% for the green emitter and 9.1% for the sky-blue emitter. Impressively, these devices maintain their high efficiency even at high luminance levels. The sustained efficiency is ascribed to the effective suppression of exciton quenching by substantially shortening delayed lifespan. These findings underscore the practical utility of the molecular design strategy that incorporates alternate donor and acceptor groups at the molecular periphery for shortening delayed fluorescence lifetime, and hold great promise for the development of high-performance OLEDs.
Bacterial pneumonia is one of the most common infectious diseases, a great threat to the health of children and the elderly. In the clinic, due to the extensive use of antibiotics, multi-drug-resistant bacteria have increased in large numbers, seriously affects the treatment of patients with bacterial pneumonia. With the development of nanomedicine, it shows great potential in the treatment of bacterial pneumonia. In this review, it initially comprehensively describes the pathological process of bacterial pneumonia and the current status of its clinical treatment. Then it summarizes the strategies of nanomedicine for the treatment of bacterial pneumonia, including inorganic nanomaterials, polymer nanoparticles, natural source nanomaterials and artificial antimicrobial peptides, with a focus on novel nanomaterials for the treatment of bacterial pneumonia (biomimetic nanomaterials, nanovaccines and genetically engineered nanomaterials). Finally, the prospect of nanomedicine for bacterial pneumonia therapy is discussed in the hope of providing new ideas for the clinical treatment of bacterial pneumonia.
Organic semiconductor materials have demonstrated extensive potential in the field of gas sensors due to the advantages including designable chemical structure, tunable physical and chemical properties. Through density functional theory (DFT) calculations, researchers can investigate gas sensing mechanisms, optimize, and predict the electronic structures and response characteristics of these materials, and thereby identify candidate materials with promising gas sensing applications for targeted design. This review concentrates on three primary applications of DFT technology in the realm of organic semiconductor-based gas sensors: (1) Investigating the sensing mechanisms by analyzing the interactions between gas molecules and sensing materials through DFT, (2) simulating the dynamic responses of gas molecules, which involves the behavior on the sensing interface using DFT combined with other computational methods to explore adsorption and diffusion processes, and (3) exploring and designing sensitive materials by employing DFT for screening and predicting chemical structures, thereby developing new sensing materials with exceptional performance. Furthermore, this review examines current research outcomes and anticipates the extensive application prospects of DFT technology in the domain of organic semiconductor-based gas sensors. These efforts are expected to provide valuable insights for further in-depth exploration of DFT applications in sensor technology, thereby fostering significant advancements and innovations in the field.
Broadband photothermal and photoacoustic agents in the near-infrared (NIR) biowindow are of significance for cancer phototheranostics. In this work, PtCu nanosheets with an average lateral size of less than 10 nm are synthesized as NIR photothermal and photoacoustic agents in vivo, which show strong light absorption from NIR-Ⅰ to NIR-Ⅱ biowindows with the photothermal conversion efficiencies of 20.4% under 808 nm laser and 32.7% under 1064 nm laser. PtCu nanosheets functionalized with folic acid-modified thiol-poly(ethylene glycol) (SH-PEG-FA) present good biocompatibility and 4T1 tumor-targeted effect, which give high-contrast photoacoustic imaging and efficient photothermal ablation of 4T1 tumor in both NIR-Ⅰ and NIR-Ⅱ biowindows. Our work significantly broadens applications of noble metal-based nanomaterials in the fields of cancer phototheranostics by rationally designing their structures and modulating their physicochemical properties.
Single-molecule junctions are building blocks for constructing molecular devices. However, intermolecular interactions like winding bring additional interference among the surrounding molecules, which inhibits the intrinsic coherent transport through single-molecule junctions. Here, we employed a nanocavity (dimethoxypillar[5]arene, DMP[5]), which is analogous to electric cables, to confine the conformation of flexible chains (1,8-diaminooctane, DAO) via host-guest interaction. Single-molecule conductance measurements indicate that the conductance of DAO encapsulated with DMP[5] is as high as that of pure DAO, as reproduced by theoretical simulations. Intriguingly, the molecular lengths of the DAO encapsulated with DMP[5] increase from 1.13 nm to 1.46 nm compared with the pure DAO, indicating that DMP[5] keeps DAO upright-standing via the confinement effect. This work provides a new strategy to decouple the intermolecular interaction by employing an insulating sheath, enabling the high-density integration of single-molecule devices.
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