Latest ArticlesCurrent environmental and ecological risks associated with plastics are escalating. Cutting-edge research has focused on recycling waste plastics into monomers or energy resources. Fenton-like catalysis exhibits potential for technological development in this field. This study evaluates global warming potential (GWP), non-renewable energy use (NREU), and minimum selling price (MSP) during fuel recovery from waste plastics using Fenton-like processes. Adjusting operational strategies could enhance environmental sustainability and economic viability. Process parameters were optimized through controlled manipulation of catalyst pyrolysis temperature, catalyst concentration, hydrothermal temperature, and peroxymonosulfate (PMS) dosage. The optimization balanced environmental impact and economic returns in plastic recycling. Catalyst expenditure and PMS consumption emerged as primary barriers to sustainable and cost-efficient operations in homogeneous catalysis systems. When the superior-performance heterogeneous catalyst was used, Fenton-like process achieved 78% reduction in GWP, 99% decrease in NREU, and 63% MSP reduction for polypropylene (PP) recycling compared to homogeneous systems. With heterogeneous catalysis, polylactic acid (PLA) conversion demonstrates 29 times greater in terms of energy recovery efficiency for compared to PP processing. Sensitivity analysis revealed a variability of 8%-20% in outcomes due to oxidant loss. And the cost advantage for European operations compared to China was identified. The results underscored the importance of regional energy structures and process control for large-scale application. The system assessment framework has established quantifiable technical operation standards with the goal of environmental-economic benefits for implementing Fenton-like systems in plastic waste management. The results contribute directly to advancing circular economy principles and carbon reduction technologies.
Macrocyclic compounds play a fundamental role in supramolecular chemistry, demonstrating significant prospect in functional materials owing to their precise cavities and tunable molecular recognition and assembly capabilities. However, the only cavity of the mono-macrocyclic hosts limited the development of traditional mono-macrocycle-based supramolecular materials in assembly dimensionality, recognition selectivity, and synergistic performance. Therefore, multi-macrocyclic hosts attracted increasing attention due to their unique advantages originated from multi-cavity cooperativity, which include more abundant guest suitability, multiple-dimension assembly, precise collaborative effect, and so on. Based on these merits, introducing multi-macrocyclic hosts into supramolecular materials can efficiently improve and enrich the properties of these kinds of materials. This review summarizes recent innovative design and constructing strategies for multi-macrocyclic hosts, including covalent chain bridged, covalent fused, coordinated, and mechanically interlocked pathway. And their applications in recognition, luminescence, catalysis, biomedical and chiral materials are highlighted, while the advantages of multi-macrocycles in enhancing binding affinity, selectivity, and stimulus-responsive behavior are elucidated. Furthermore, we discuss future directions, such as novel multifunctional hosts design, optimization of assembly strategies, and interdisciplinary applications, providing theoretical insights and practical guidance for the development of multi-macrocycles-based high performance supramolecular materials.
The degradation of perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs), persistent organic pollutants, remains a significant environmental challenge. Photolysis represents a key pathway for their degradation, yet the molecular mechanisms driving defluorination and decarboxylation remain unclear. This study investigates the first step of direct PFCA photolysis by analyzing excitation properties using density functional theory (DFT), aiming to elucidate the relationship between electronic structure changes and degradation pathways. To better demonstrate and analyze the impact of internal factors on the first step of PFCAs photolysis, quantum chemical calculations were conducted to quantify and compare the molecule’s properties in the ground state and the excited state, aiming to explore the changes in the molecule’s behavior. Key parameters, including α C–F bond elongation (0.31%–1.62%), α C–C bond contraction (−6.23% to −9.10%), and excitation energy reduction (5.76–5.47 eV), revealed chain-length-dependent trends. The lower bond dissociation energy of α C–C (90–93 kcal/mol) compared to α C–F (116–124 kcal/mol) rationalized the dominance of decarboxylation over defluorination. Charge transfer spectroscopy further indicated localized n → π* excitation at carboxyl groups, promoting decarboxylation. A quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) model linking hole-electron indices to degradation rates (R2 = 0.91) was developed and validated via leave-one-out cross-validation (RMSE = 0.338). These findings not only advance the mechanistic understanding of PFCA photolysis but also provide a predictive tool for optimizing UV-based water treatment systems targeting persistent fluorinated pollutants.
Fe-bearing clay minerals have garnered significant attention in environmental catalysis due to their unique Fe(Ⅱ)/Fe(Ⅲ) redox cycling and high surface area, which enable the effective activation of oxidants such as molecular oxygen (O2), peroxymonosulfate, and other species, and the subsequent generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). This review offers a comprehensive overview of the structural characteristics and iron coordination environments within these minerals that govern electron transfer processes from Fe(Ⅱ) to oxidant species. It further explores the mechanistic pathways that lead to the formation of superoxide, hydroxyl radicals (•OH), and singlet oxygen, detailing the chemical reactions involved. Additionally, the influence of various co-substrates and chelating agents, such as humic acids and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), on the enhancement of redox processes and ROS generation is discussed, focusing on their roles in modulating reaction kinetics and improving catalytic efficiency. Furthermore, the review highlights the recent advancements in applying Fe-bearing clay minerals for the degradation of persistent organic pollutants, including dyes, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides, in both aqueous and soil environments. The potential for optimizing these mineral-based catalytic systems by tailoring their composition or creating hybrid materials is also explored to develop more efficient and scalable solutions for environmental remediation. This review outlines future research directions, emphasizing the integration of fundamental mechanistic insights with practical applications for pollutant degradation.
Photocatalytic water oxidation is considered as the bottleneck step for overall artificial photosynthesis, due to the slow photocarrier transfer kinetics and climbing thermodynamics. Developing the electronic structure of catalytic with more dynamic-thermodynamic advantages is crucial to deal with the above dilemma and realize the photocatalytic water oxidation. This work successfully explores an S-induced modification strategy to induce electronic delocalization and non-equilibrium states for unique Bi active sites. The introduction of V4+ species leads to asymmetric coordination of Bi atoms in the S-Bi-V4+ structure to provide more nonlocalized electrons, which initiates a concerted electron transfer in the system. The fine regulation on the local electron density and energy level structure of the Bi active site optimizes the reaction energy barriers to construct thermodynamically more favourable active centers for water oxidation. The optimized 2% S-BVO catalyst achieves outstanding water oxidation rate of 70.25 μmol/h (40 mg catalyst) triggering up to 11.06% apparent quantum efficiency at 420 nm. This work elucidates the influence of synergistic electron interaction of asymmetric coordination structure on both photocarrier transfer kinetics and reaction thermodynamic.
Chiral recognition is a central tenet of life sciences and biomolecular interactions. It is indispensable for the enantiomeric analysis of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals, as well as for the development of chiral materials and devices, with significant implications for biomedical applications. Despite its importance, the creation of efficient and highly selective enantiomer recognition in synthetic systems presents a major challenge. Supramolecular macrocycles address this by providing well-defined cavities and synergistically positioned functional groups, which enhance chiral selectivity and sensitivity beyond the capabilities of traditional small molecules. While the design and synthesis of macrocyclic hosts have advanced considerably, their practical utility is often constrained by their recognition efficiency, binding affinity, and their ability to recognize a diverse range of analytes. This article reviews recent chemical strategies for enhancing chiral complexation and recognition, and discusses the future outlook and obstacles within this field.
Imidazole derivatives exhibit broad-spectrum agricultural biological activities and serve as important molecular scaffolds in the discovery of new pesticides, particularly novel herbicides and fungicides. In recent years, there have been rapid developments in the research of imidazole-derived agricultural chemicals, such as the discovery of imidazole herbicides and fungicides. Therefore, it is significant to provide a review and update on the latest advances in the discovery of imidazole derivatives for pesticide development. Based on this, we systematically reviewed the latest research progress of imidazole derivatives in pesticide discovery, summarized the antiviral, insecticidal, nematicidal, and antibacterial activities of imidazole compounds, analyzed the synthetic methods of representative imidazole compounds, and discussed the active moieties, pharmacophores, structure-activity relationships (SAR), and mechanisms of action. This review aims to provide novel insights and inspiration for the discovery of novel imidazole pesticides.
Adsorption is the most effective technique for perfluoroalkyl substances removal, owing to its simplicity and cost-effectiveness. However, conventional adsorbents suffer from low capacity, slow kinetics, poor selectivity, and reusability challenge. This study introduced a novel amine and imine functionalized covalent organic frameworks (PDA@COFs) adsorbent. Benefiting from its functional groups and unobstructed channels, PDA@COFs exhibited an ultra-high maximum adsorption capacity (3200 mg/g) and excellent selectivity for perfluorooctanoic (PFOA), which is far more than most adsorbents. Theoretical calculations revealed that electrostatic attraction is the dominant mechanism driving the selective adsorption of PFOA by PDA@COFs. The five-stages analysis of adsorption isotherms revealed that PDA@COFs adsorbed PFOA monomers via electrostatic adsorption at low concentrations and adsorbed PFOA aggregates by electrostatic and hydrophobic synergistic adsorption at high concentrations, which significantly enhanced the adsorption capacity for PFOA. To explore the practical application potential of PDA@COFs, it was evaluated as a promising anode in capacitive deionization (CDI). The recovery of PFOA was as high as 98.2%, highlighting its potential for practical application. This study is the first to demonstrate that PDA@COFs has an ultra-high adsorption capacity toward PFOA and new insights into the PFOA adsorption mechanism with five stages, and explores its practical application potential through CDI.
Broflanilide is the first listed meta-diamide insecticide, which has shown potential in the field of pesticide research and development due to its unique structure and mechanism of action. The key to the development of the meta-diamide insecticides is the derivatization of various sites in the meta-diamide compounds. It is of great research significance to develop highly effective, broad spectrum, safe, and environmentally compatible meta-diamide insecticide using Broflanilide as a lead compound to obtain structurally diverse meta-diamide compounds. An overview of meta-diamide derivatives from the perspectives of insecticidal activities and mechanism of action is offered. Their potentials as a dominant active structure for development of insecticides are also discussed.
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