A Self‐Assembled Superhydrophobic Electrospun Carbon–Silica Nanofiber Sponge for Selective Removal and Recovery of Oils and Organic Solvents

An oil spill needs timely cleanup before it spreads and poses serious environmental threat to the polluted area. This always requires the cleanup techniques to be efficient and cost‐effective. In this work, a lightweight and compressible sponge made of carbon–silica nanofibers is derived from electrospinning nanotechnology that is low‐cost, versatile, and readily scalable. The fabricated sponge has high porosity (>99 %) and displays ultra‐hydrophobicity and superoleophilicity, thus making it a suitable material as an oil adsorbent. Owing to its high porosity and low density, the sponge is capable of adsorbing oil up to 140 times its own weight with its sorption rate showing solution viscosity dependence. Furthermore, sponge regeneration and oil recovery are feasible by using either cyclic distillation or mechanical squeezing.     

Stereoselective Preparation of Polyfunctional Alkenylindium(III) Halides and Their Cross‐Coupling with Unsaturated Halides

The direct insertion of indium powder to cycloalkenyl iodides in the presence of LiCl in THF allows the preparation of new highly functionalized cycloalkenylindium(III) derivatives. In addition, we discovered that, in contrast to many metal insertions to alkenyl iodides which proceed with a loss of stereochemistry, the insertion of In/LiCl to stereodefined (Z)‐ and (E)‐styryl iodides in THF proceeded with high retention of stereochemistry. After a palladium‐catalyzed cross‐coupling, various polyfunctionalized (Z)‐ and (E)‐stilbenes were obtained with high stereoselectivity.     

The Effect of the Spacer of Bis(biurea) Ligands on the Structure of A2L3‐type (A=anion) Phosphate Complexes

By tuning the length and rigidity of the spacer of bis(biurea) ligands L, three structural motifs of the A₂L₃ complexes (A represents anion, here orthophosphate PO₄^3?), namely helicate, mesocate, and mono‐bridged motif, have been assembled by coordination of the ligand to phosphate anion. Crystal structure analysis indicated that in the three complexes, each of the phosphate ions is coordinated by twelve hydrogen bonds from six surrounding urea groups. The anion coordination properties in solution have also been studied. The results further demonstrate the coordination behavior of phosphate ion, which shows strong tendency for coordination saturation and geometrical preference, thus allowing for the assembly of novel anion coordination‐based structures as in transition‐metal complexes.     

Quantum dots modified with the Al(III)-pefloxacin complex as a novel bioprobe for the sensitive turn-on and dual-fluorescence detection of dsDNA

Microchimica Acta - We describe a novel fluorescent bioprobe for the sensitive and selective detection of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA). It consists of quantum dots (Q-dots) whose fluorescence is...