Latest ArticlesMicroscale zero valent iron (mFe0) is one of the most potential water pollution remediation materials, but the effective utilization ability of electrons released by mFe0 in the reduction of hexavalent chromium (Cr(Ⅵ)) is not satisfactory. Here, we find the microscale iron-copper (mFe/Cu) bimetals coated with copper on the surface of mFe0 can significantly improve the effective utilization of electrons released by mFe0. Electrochemical analysis displays that copper plating on the surface of mFe/Cu can promote the release the electrons from mFe0 and reduce the impedance of mFe0. Spin-polarized density functional theory (DFT) calculation reveals that Cu on the surface of mFe/Cu bimetals promotes the release of electrons from mFe0 and reduces the adsorption energy of Fe to Cr. As the electron transporter, moreover, Cu can always attract Cr to the hollow position near itself of the Fe surface, which could promote the effective utilization of electrons released by Fe. Effective utilization ability of electrons in mFe/Cu system is 12.5 times higher than that in mFe0 system. Our findings provide another basis for the efficient reduction of Cr(Ⅵ) by mFe/Cu bimetals, which could promote the application and popularization of mFe/Cu bimetals.
A novel route of enzalutamide was developed in five steps. Starting from 4-amino-2-(trifluoromethyl)benzonitrile (7) and Boc-2-aminoisobutyric acid (16), condensation, deprotection, Ullmann coupling, cyclization and amination provided enzalutamide in 41.0% total yield. This route avoids the using of toxic chemical, unstable intermediate and high-risk reaction. It is a potential efficient and economical procedure for industrialization.
In the context of the circular economy, the huge amounts of biomass waste should be converted into value-added materials and energy to diminish pollution, atmospheric CO2 levels and costly waste disposal. Biological imaging usually uses expensive and toxic chemicals e.g., organic dyes, semiconductor quantum dots, calling for safer, greener, cheaper fluorescent probes for biological imaging in vitro and in vivo. In these regards, carbon quantum dots (CQDs)-based fluorescent probes using biomass waste as a precursor may have much higher potential. Here we transformed the biomass waste of peach leaves into value-added fluorescent CQDs through a low-cost and green one-step hydrothermal process. The obtained CQDs show excitation-dependent photoluminescence properties with a fluorescence lifetime of 5.96 ns and a quantum yield of 7.71% without any passivation. In addition, the CQDs have a fine size of 1.9 nm with good hydrophilicity and high fluorescent stability over pH 4.0–11.0 range. Fluorescence imaging of in vitro cell cultures and in vivo with zebrafish show that CQDs possess ultra-low toxicity and remarkable performance for biological imaging. Even when CQDs present at a concentration as high as 500 µg/mL, the organism can still maintain more than 90% activity both in vitro and in vivo, and present bright fluorescence. The cheaper, greener, ultra-low toxicity CQDs developed in this work is a potential candidate for biological imaging in vitro and in vivo.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-derived nanosized vesicles widely recognized for their critical roles in various pathophysiological processes. Molecular analysis of EVs is currently being considered an emerging tool for diseases diagnosis. However, the small size and heterogeneity of EVs has staggered the EVs research for diseases diagnosis. DNA nanotechnology enables self-assembly of versatile DNA nanostructures and has shown enormous potential in assisting EVs biosensing. In this review, we briefly introduce the recent advances in DNA nanotechnology approaches for EVs detection. The approaches were categorized based on the dimension of DNA nanostructures. We provide critical evaluation of these approaches, and summarize the pros and cons of specific methods. Further, we discuss the challenges and future perspectives in this field.
Water splitting by photoelectrochemical (PEC) processes to convert solar energy into hydrogen energy using semiconductors is regarded as one of the most ideal methods to solve the current energy crisis and has attracted widespread attention. Herein, Co-based metal-organic framework (Co(bpdc)(H2O)4 (Co-MOF) nanosheets as passivation layers were in-situ constructed on the surface of BiVO4 films through an uncomplicated hydrothermal method (Co-MOF/BiVO4). Under AM 1.5G illumination, synthesized Co-MOF/BiVO4 electrode exhibited a 4-fold higher photocurrent than bare BiVO4, measuring 6.0 mA/cm2 at 1.23 V vs. RHE in 1 mol/L potassium borate electrolyte (pH 9.5) solution. Moreover, the Co-MOF/BiVO4 film demonstrated a 96% charge separation efficiency, a result caused by an inhibited recombination rate of photogenerated electrons and holes by the addition of Co-MOF nanosheets. This work provides an idea for depositing inexpensive 2D Co-MOF nanosheets on the photoanode as an excellent passivation layer for solar fuel production.
Microneedles are considered to be an effective, convenient, non-invasive, biosafety and compliant medical technology for vaccinations, biomarker testing, medical aesthetics and other related fields. Nonetheless, further clinical and commercial translation of regular microneedles is hampered by challenges in manufacturability, cost variability, insufficient comfort, contamination and so on. Recent innovations in functional biomaterials and chemical engineering technologies have been applied to develop extensible and swellable hydrogel-forming microneedles, achieving precise and controlled drug delivery and localized sampling from the target tissues. In this review, we systematically summarize the latest development of the extensible and swellable hydrogel-forming microneedles, including deep point-of-care testing, drug deployment, wound healing and mucoadhesion improvement. In addition, further analysis of the challenges and prospects for clinical application of current strategies is well presented. It is believed that the combined efforts of engineering, material, pharmaceutical and clinical research will contribute to the future success of this clinical and commercial translation.
Designing single-atom nanozymes with densely exposed metal atom active sites and enhancing catalytic activity to detect pollutants remain a serious challenge. Herein, we reported a single-atom nanozyme with layered stacked Fe/Cu dual active sites (Fe/Cu-NC SAzyme) synthesized via hydrothermal and high-temperature pyrolysis using folic acid as a template. Compared with Fe-NC and Cu-NC SAzyme, Fe/Cu-NC SAzyme has higher peroxidase-like activity, which indicates that the doping of synthesized Fe/Cu bimetals can improve the catalytic activity and that the atomic loading of Fe and Cu in Fe/Cu-NC is 5.5 wt% and 2.27 wt%, respectively. When S2− is added to the Fe/Cu-NC catalytic system, a high-sensitivity and high-selectivity S2− colorimetric sensing platform can be established, with a wide linear range (0.09–6 µmol/L) and a low detection limit (30 nmol/L), which can be used to detect S2− in environmental water samples. What's more, the Fe/Cu-NC SAzyme can activate peroxymonosulfate (PMS) to degrade 99.9% of rhodamine B (RhB) within 10 min with a degradation kinetics of 0.5943 min−1. This work details attractive applications in Fe/Cu-NC SAzyme colorimetric sensing and dye degradation.
Efficient cathode-catalysts with multi-functional properties are essential for Li-CO2 battery, while the construction of them with simultaneously enhanced CO2 reduction and evolution kinetics is still challenging. Here, a kind of hybrid nanosheets based on Ru nanoparticles, Fe-TAPP and grapheme oxide (GO) has been designed through a one-pot self-assembly strategy. The Ru, Fe-porphyrin and GO based hybrid nanosheets (denoted as Ru/Fe-TAPP@GO) with integrated multi-components offer characteristics of ultrathin thickness (~4 nm), high electro-redox property, uniformly dispersed morphology, and high electrical conductivity, etc. These features endow Ru/Fe-TAPP@GO with ultra-low overpotential (0.82 V) and fully reversible discharge/charge property with a high specific-capacity of 39,000 mAh/g within 2.0–4.5 V at 100 mA/g, which are much superior to Ru@GO and Fe-TAPP@GO. The achieved performance was presented as one of the best cathode-catalysts reported to date. The synergistically enhanced activity originated from the integrated hybrid nanosheets may provide a new pathway for designing efficient cathode-catalysts for Li-CO2 batteries.
The domain purity, material crystallinity and distribution at the interface between the active layer and the transport layer have an important impact on the performance of organic solar cells (OSCs) and organic photodetectors (OPDs), while this focal issue has received less attention in previous studies. From this perspective, a new method to simultaneously enhance the performance of OSC and OPD is proposed, namely, using a sequential deposition method to first construct a compact stacking structure of dual-donor (D18-Cl:PTO2) eutectic in the donor layer, and then induce the ordered deposition of the acceptor (Y6). Compared with the conventional bulk heterojunction (BHJ), the active layer realized by this method not only improves the crystallinity and stacking order of the constituent material on the surface of the transport layer, but also regulates a good vertical distribution, which is conducive to improving the charge transport and extraction efficiency, reducing the leakage current, and enhancing the stability of the device. As a result, the OSC device based on the D18-Cl:PTO2/Y6 structure achieves a power conversion efficiency of up to 17.65% and good light-degradation stability, which is much better than that of BHJ-based OSC (PCE of 16.37%). For the OPD, the dark current at reverse bias is reduced by more than an order of magnitude, and the maximum responsivity is improved to 0.52 A/W through the optimization of the donor phase at the interface. Moreover, the strategy does not require additional post-processing compared to the BHJ preparation, which reduces the device construction cost and process complexity, providing an effective way for developing high-performance organic optoelectronic devices.
Conductive hydrogels have shown great prospects as wearable flexible sensors. Nevertheless, it is still a challenge to construct hydrogel-based sensor with great mechanical strength and high strain sensitivity. Herein, an ion-conducting hydrogel was fabricated by introducing gelatin-dialdehyde β-cyclodextrin (Gel-DACD) into polyvinyl alcohol-borax (PVA-borax) hydrogel network. Natural Gel-DACD network acted as mechanical deformation force through non-covalent cross-linking to endow the polyvinyl alcohol-borax/gelatin-dialdehyde β-cyclodextrin hydrogel (PGBCDH) with excellent mechanical stress (1.35 MPa), stretchability (400%), toughness (1.84 MJ/m3) and great fatigue resistance (200% strain for 100 cycles). Surprisingly, PGBCDH displayed good conductivity of 0.31 S/m after adding DACD to hydrogel network. As sensor, it showed rapid response (168 ms), high strain sensitivity (gage factor (GF) = 8.57 in the strain range of 200%-250%) and reliable sensing stability (100% strain for 200 cycles). Importantly, PGBCDH-based sensor can accurately monitor complex body movements (knee, elbow, wrist and finger joints) and large-scale subtle movements (speech, swallow, breath and facial expressions). Thus, PGBCDH shows great potential for human monitoring with high precision.
No. 86 Xueyuan South Road, Haidian District, Beijing
010-62199257
qkjq@cast.org.cn
Copyright © 2025 China Association for Science and Technology. All rights reserved. For all open access content, the relevant licensing terms apply.
Sponsored by the Office of the Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization of CAST, and supported by Science and Technology Review Publishing House
