In Situ Polymerized 1,3-Dioxolane Electrolyte for Integrated Solid-State Lithium Batteries

Solid-state lithium batteries are promising and safe energy storage devices for mobile electronics and electric vehicles. In this work, we report a facile in situ polymerization of 1,3-dioxolane electrolytes to fabricate integrated solid-state lithium batteries. The in situ polymerization and formation of solid-state dioxolane electrolytes on interconnected carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and active materials is the key to realizing a high-performance battery with excellent interfacial contact among CNTs, active materials and electrolytes. Therefore, the electrodes could be tightly integrated into batteries through the CNTs and electrolyte. Electrons/ions enable full access to active materials in the whole electrode. Electrodes with a low resistance of 4.5 Ω □⁻¹ and high lithium-ion diffusion efficiency of 2.5×10⁻¹¹ cm² s⁻¹ can significantly improve the electrochemical kinetics. Subsequently, the batteries demonstrated high energy density, amazing charge/discharge rate and long cycle life.     

Synthesis of Multifluoromethylated γ-Sultines by a Photoinduced Radical Addition–Polar Cyclization

Despite the significance of sultines in synthesis, medicine, and materials science, the chemistry of sultines has remained unexplored due to their inaccessibility. Herein, we demonstrate the development of a photoredox-catalyzed multifluoromethyl radical addition/SO₂ incorporation/polar cyclization cascade approach to multifluoromethylated γ-sultines. The reactions proceed by single electron transfer induced multifluoromethyl radical addition to an alkene followed by SO₂ incorporation, and single-electron reduction for polar 5-exo-tet cyclization. Key to the success of the protocol is the use of easily oxidizable multifluoroalkanesulfinates as bifunctional reagents. The reactions proceed with excellent functional-group tolerance to deliver γ-sultines in moderate to excellent yields.     

Selective In Situ Analysis of Mature microRNAs in Extracellular Vesicles Using a DNA Cage-Based Thermophoretic Assay

Mature microRNAs (miRNAs) in extracellular vesicles (EVs) are involved in different stages of cancer progression, yet it remains challenging to precisely detect mature miRNAs in EVs due to the presence of interfering RNAs (such as longer precursor miRNAs, pre-miRNAs) and the low abundance of tumor-associated miRNAs. By leveraging the size-selective ability of DNA cages and polyethylene glycol (PEG)-enhanced thermophoretic accumulation of EVs, we devised a DNA cage-based thermophoretic assay for highly sensitive, selective, and in situ detection of mature miRNAs in EVs with a low limit of detection (LoD) of 2.05 fM. Our assay can profile EV mature miRNAs directly in serum samples without the interference of pre-miRNAs and the need for ultracentrifugation. A clinical study showed that EV miR-21 or miR-155 had an overall accuracy of 90 % for discrimination between breast cancer patients and healthy donors, which outperformed conventional molecular probes detecting both mature miRNAs and pre-miRNAs. We envision that our assay can advance EV miRNA-based diagnosis of cancer.     

Ru(bpy)32+-Enabled Cell-Surface Photocatalytic Proximity Labeling toward More Efficient Capture of Physically Interacting Cells

Intercellular proximity labeling has emerged as a promising approach to enable the study of cell-cell interactions (CCIs), but the efficiency of current platforms is limited. Here, we use Ru(bpy)₃²⁺ to construct an efficient photocatalytic proximity labeling (PPL) system on the cell surface that allows the highly discriminative CCI detection with spatiotemporal resolution. Through the mechanism study and quantitative characterization on living cells, we demonstrate that the singlet-oxygen (¹O₂) mechanism is more efficient and specific than the single electron transfer (SET) mechanism in Ru-mediated PPL. Ru(bpy)₃²⁺ catalysts with different cell-anchoring moieties are prepared to facilitate the catalyst loading on primary cells. Finally, based on this system, we develop a “live” T cell receptor (TCR) multimer with TCR-T cells that could sensitively identify and discriminate cells presenting antigens of different affinity, providing a powerful tool to better understand the heterogeneity of antigen presenting cells.     

A Humidity-Induced Large Electronic Conductivity Change of 107 on a Metal-Organic Framework for Highly Sensitive Water Detection

The electronic conductivity (EC) of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) is sensitive to strongly oxidizing guest molecules. Water is a relatively mild species, however, the effect of H₂O on the EC of MOFs is rarely reported. We explored the effect of H₂O on the EC in the MOFs (NH₂)₂-MIL-125 and its derivatives with experimental and theoretical investigations. Unexpectedly, a large EC increase of 10⁷ on H₂SO₄@(NH₂)₂-MIL-125 by H₂O was observed. Brønsted acid–base pairs formed with the −NH₂ groups, and H₂SO₄ played an important role in promoting the charge transfer from H₂O to the MOF. Based on H₂SO₄@(NH₂)₂-MIL-125, a high-performance chemiresistive humidity sensor was developed with the highest sensitivity, broadest detection range, and lowest limit of detection amongst all reported sensing materials to date. This work not only demonstrated that H₂O can remarkably influence the EC of MOFs, but it also revealed that post-modification of the structure of MOFs could enhance the influence of the guest molecule on their EC to design high-performance sensing materials.     

Multiple Dynamic Bonds-Driven Integrated Cathode/Polymer Electrolyte for Stable All-Solid-State Lithium Metal Batteries

All-solid-state lithium metal batteries (LMBs) are considered as the promising higher-energy and improved-safety energy-storage systems. Nevertheless, the electrolyte-electrodes interfacial issues due to the limited solid physical contact lead to discontinuous interfacial charge transport and large interfacial resistance, thereby suffering from unsatisfactory electrochemical performance. Herein, we construct an integrated cathode/polymer electrolyte for all-solid-state LMBs under the action of polymer chains exchange and recombination originating from multiple dynamic bonds in our well-designed dynamic supramolecular ionic conductive elastomers (DSICE) molecular structure. The DSICE acts as polymer electrolytes with excellent electrochemical performance and mechanical properties, achieving the ultrathin pure polymer electrolyte thickness (12 μm). Notably, the DSICE also functions as lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO₄, LFP) cathode binders with enhanced adhesive capability. Such well-constructed Li|DSICE|LFP-DSICE cells generate delicate electrolyte-electrodes interfacial contact at the molecular level, providing continuous Li⁺ transport pathways and promoting uniform Li⁺ deposition, further delivering superior long-term charge/discharge stability (>600 cycles, Coulombic efficiency, >99.8 %) and high capacity retention (80 % after 400 cycles). More practically, the Li|DSICE|LFP-DSICE pouch cells show stable electrochemical performance, excellent flexibility and safety under abusive tests.     

Lattice Compression Revealed at the ≈1 nm Scale

Lattice tuning at the ≈1 nm scale is fascinating and challenging; for instance, lattice compression at such a minuscule scale has not been observed. The lattice compression might also bring about some unusual properties, which waits to be verified. Through ligand induction, we herein achieve the lattice compression in a ≈1 nm gold nanocluster for the first time, as detected by the single-crystal X-ray crystallography. In a freshly synthesized Au₅₂(CHT)₂₈ (CHT=S-c−C₆H₁₁) nanocluster, the lattice distance of the (110) facet is found to be compressed from 4.51 to 3.58 Å at the near end. However, the lattice distances of the (111) and (100) facets show no change in different positions. The lattice-compressed nanocluster exhibits superior electrocatalytic activity for the CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) compared to that exhibited by the same-sized Au₅₂(TBBT)₃₂ (TBBT=4-tert-butyl-benzenethiolate) nanocluster and larger Au nanocrystals without lattice variation, indicating that lattice tuning is an efficient method for tailoring the properties of metal nanoclusters. Further theoretical calculations explain the high CO₂RR performance of the lattice-compressed Au₅₂(CHT)₂₈ and provide a correlation between its structure and catalytic activity.     

ECNU-13: A High-Silica Zeolite with Three-Dimensional and High-Connectivity Multi-Pore Structures for Selective Alkene Cracking

A high-silica zeolite ECNU-13 (Si/Al=23) with a new three-dimensional (3D) pore system and a nanosized morphology has been developed, consisting of multitudes of 10-membered ring (10-R) medium pores and one set of 8-R small pores. A phase-discrimination strategy was proposed to synthesize ECNU-13 by regulating the gel compositions and nucleation processes that were used for preparing 12-R large-pore germanosilicate IM-20 with the known UWY topology. The crystallization was directed towards forming one set of single four-ring (s4r) composite building units together with one set of double four-ring (d4r) rather than two different types of d4r units in IM-20. The electron crystallographic investigations elucidated that the ECNU-13 structure was composed of two kinds of polymorphs as a result of distinct atomic positionings in s4r units. In catalytic cracking of 1-butene, ECNU-13 exhibited high propene selectivity (55.6 %) and propene to ethylene molar ratio (>4.7) superior to well-studied conventional ZSM-5 zeolite catalyst.     

Direct Visualization of Atomic Structure in Multivariate Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) for Guiding Electrocatalysts Design

The direct utilization of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has attracted increasing interests. Herein, we employ the low-dose integrated differential phase contrast-scanning transmission electron microscopy (iDPC-STEM) technique to visualize the atomic structure of multivariate MOFs (MTV-MOFs) for guiding the structural design of bulk MOFs for efficient OER. The iDPC-STEM images revealed that incorporating Fe³⁺ or 2-aminoterephthalate (ATA) into Ni-BDC (BDC: benzenedicarboxylate) can introduce inhomogeneous lattice strain that weaken the coordination bonds, which can be selectively cleaved via a mild heat treatment to simultaneously generate coordinatively unsaturated metal sites, conductive Ni@C and hierarchical porous structure. Thus, excellent OER activity with current densities of 10 and 100 mA cm⁻² are achieved over the defective MOFs at small overpotentials of 286 mV and 365 mV, respectively, which is superior to the commercial RuO₂ catalyst and most of the bulk MOFs.     

Visible-Light-Driven Three-Component Reaction of Unactivated Alkenes Enables Access to Monofluoro γ-Amino Acids

A strategy for the synthesis of diverse protected α-monofluoro-γ-amino acid derivatives has been developed. This reaction assembles a simple enamide, quinoxalin-2(1H)-one, and diethyl 2-bromo-2-fluoromalonate through a three-component reaction driven by visible light. The advantages of this protocol include the simplicity of its operation, mild conditions, high functional group tolerance, and applicability to a wide variety of substrates. The synthesis of this fluorine-containing amino acid derivative has significant value for potential applications in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology.