Photoinduced Reaction of α-Bromoacetophenone with Thiosulfonate: Synthesis of β-Keto Thiosulfone

A photoinduced synthesis of β-keto thiosulfone/β-keto selenosulfone by the reaction of α-bromoacetophenone with thiosulfonate/selenosulfonate under metal-free and visible light irradiation conditions is developed. Two C−S bonds or one C−S bond and one C−Se bond were constructed simultaneously.     

The development of molecular and nano actinide decorporation agents

Internal contamination of actinides has led to significant health hazards to the public and workers in the context of nuclear power plant accidents, uranium ore mining, and reprocessing of the used fuel. An effective sequestering agent that is able to remove accidentally incorporated actinides in vivo with low toxicity is always in urgent need. The molecular decorporation ligands have been the most widely researched agents for the past few decades, while preliminary studies of functionalized nanoparticles have shown their clear advantages in metal binding selectivity, toxicity, and oxidative stress alleviation. Herein, the state-of-the-art of those two types of decorporation agents is presented with special attention being paid on the correlation between the solution and solid-state chemistry of those agents with actinides and the corresponding decorporation efficacies.     

Detection of motion through susceptibility fields in two-dimensional exchange diffusive–MASS experiments

We show that the off-diagonal coherence peaks in two-dimensional Fourier transform NMR spectroscopy of fluids contained in porous media undergoing magic angle sample spinning (MASS) arise from amplitude modulation of the fluid’s magnetization. The amplitude modulation originates from the combined effect of MASS and the molecular diffusion through the inhomogeneous magnetic fields created by the susceptibility contrasts in the porous medium. The magnitude of the off-diagonal peaks provides information on the porous medium’s structural length scales, which give rise to correlation length scales of the magnetic susceptibility.     

Gleaming Uranium: An Emerging Emitter for Building X-ray Scintillators

Scintillators are a unique class of luminescent materials with specific applications towards radiation detection. The emitters within state-of-the-art scintillators are mostly limited to bismuth, cerium, europium, thallium, lead, tungsten, etc. A shared feature of these elements is the relatively high atomic number, which is responsible for high radiation stopping power and radiation-induced luminescence. Searching for new scintillating materials is an essential target aiming at specific applications. In this Concept article, we will discuss our recent works on the topic of “uranyl-bearing scintillators”. As a virgin territory in this field, uranyl-bearing scintillators show intrinsic merits for designing new materials with X-ray detection capability, that is, the large photoelectric cross-section, high X-ray attenuation efficiency, and high crystal density. In addition, we also present challenges in the further development of the uranyl-bearing scintillators.     

晶态多孔材料合成方法的研究进展

晶态多孔材料是一类具有高孔隙率、多样结构、可控功能的功能材料,在客体分子吸附及分离、催化、储能等众多领域具有广阔的应用前景.其中,以沸石分子筛(zeolites)、金属有机框架材料(metal-organic frameworks, MOFs)和共价有机框架材料(covalent-organic frameworks, COFs)最具代表性.随着对晶态多孔材料研究的不断深入,众多新型的合成手段被开发用于材料的基础研究.同时,晶态多孔材料合成方法学的发展与其工业应用密切相关.本综述主要概述了晶态多孔材料的各种合成手段的优缺点和它们的潜在应用.     

Si掺杂调控15-冠-5配位Li+机理的理论研究

基于密度泛函理论研究了以—SiMe₂—SiMe₂—单元或—CH₂—SiMe₂—单元取代—CH₂—CH₂—的方式调控15-冠-5配位Li⁺性能的机理。结果表明掺杂Si能够增大冠醚的尺寸,并且通过不同的掺杂方式可以有效增强/减弱冠醚配位Li⁺的能力。分子中的原子（AIM）理论的电子密度拓扑分析和对称匹配微扰理论（SAPT）能量分解分析表明,冠醚与Li⁺的相互作用本质为伴随少量轨道极化和电子转移的离子-偶极相互作用。由于Si的电子比C更容易被O和Li⁺极化,因此Si掺杂能够增强冠醚-Li⁺之间的静电相互作用和诱导相互作用,但自然布居分析表明,若掺杂之后冠醚环内存在Si—O—Si单元,整体上将使O难以充分极化Si的电子,同时导致带正电的Si与Li⁺距离更近,因此不利于冠醚配位Li⁺。     

ssDNA functionalized nanodiamonds for uranium decorporation

The hunt for agents that are suitable for actinide decorporation to reduce the whole-body load of actinide in accidental internal exposure is the ever-lasting goal in radiation protection and medical treatment in nuclear emergency. All current decorporation agents can be categorized as two groups, one is the molecular ligands, and the other is the nanoparticles decorated with molecular ligands. Here in this work, functional nanodiamonds (fNDs) with ssDNA (the endogenous biomacromolecule rich in phosphate groups) loaded on the NDs is reported, which poses good uranyl adsorption selectivity, high cellular uptake, fast excretion, and effective decorporation of uranyl from rat renal proximal tubular epithelial cells (NRK-52E). All those results corroborate that fNDs can potentially serve as a brand new family of chelators for actinide decorporation.     

帕金森病中的关键金属元素

随着我国人口日趋老龄化,老年退行性疾病呈高发态势,据估计当今我国帕金森病患者占世界一半左右。因此,帕金森病日益成为危害我国人民生命健康的突出问题之一。当前临床上对帕金森病无有效治愈手段,而且对于帕金森病的发病机制仍无定论。在诸多可能的诱因中,过渡金属元素的内稳态失衡和氧化应激,被认为与帕金森病相关。本文以生物体两种必需的过渡金属元素铁和铜为中心,介绍了与细胞内铁元素和铜元素代谢相关的信号通路和基因蛋白,并阐述了铁元素或铜元素稳态失衡对神经细胞造成损伤的可能机制。最后,介绍了同步辐射技术应用于帕金森病中元素分析和机制的研究进展,并展望了帕金森病中生物无机问题的未来研究方向。     

Towards understanding the correlation between UO<Subscript>2</Subscript><Superscript>2+</Superscript> extraction and substitute groups in 2,9-diamide-1,10-phenanthroline

2,9-Diamide-1,10-phenanthroline (DAPhen) ligands represent a new family of tetradentate extractants given their strong affinity to actinides and the CHON principle. Among this family, N,N′-diethyl-N,N′-ditolyl-2,9-diamide-1,10-phenanthroline (Et-Tol-DAPhen), initially reported by us, exhibits excellent selectivity towards actinides (U, Th, Am, Pu) over lanthanides and thus can be potentially applied in the group actinide extraction (GANEX) process for the group separation of actinides. In this article, by tailoring the lengths of alkyl chains, we synthesized other four DAPhen ligands with different substitute groups in the diamide moieties, and characterized the relationship between properties and substitute groups of DAPhen ligand. The extraction results show that three of the ligands exhibit high performance in UO₂²⁺ extraction from an acidic solution and the extracted UO₂²⁺ can be easily stripped by only using ultrapure water. Spectrophotometry titration confirms that UO₂²⁺ combined with all the four ligands in 1:1 mode. The extended X-ray absorption finestructure (EXAFS) study shows that six donor atoms comprise the first equatorial shell of the UO₂²⁺ ions bonded by the DAPhen ligands, among which two nitrogen and two oxygen atoms are from the DAPhen ligand, while other two oxygen atoms are from one nitrate ions. This article promises to provide basic data for assessing the feasibility of this kind of DAPhen ligands applied in actinides separation from nuclear wastes.     

J-aggregation of cyanine dyes by self-assembly

The importance of highly ordered surfaces, containing adsorptive surface states, is discussed for J-aggregation by self-assembly. Such nucleating surfaces are nanometer-sized edges and corners of cubic AgBr microcrystals, or surface iodide-clusters located along edges and corners of AgBr:I microcrystals. Of particular interest are dendrimers, monoatomic steps on terraced silver halide microcrystals and fullerene derivatives as nucleating surfaces. Molecular organisation into J-aggregates by self-assembly was realized using aprotic, apolar solvents for fullerenes, and polar solvents for dendrimers and monoatomic surface steps. By using dendrimers as nucleating agents in mesopores of metal oxide nanoparticle coatings, size-controlled and stable J-aggregates with high optical densities and strong fluorescence were obtained reproducibly. Such films may be useful for sensors, opto-electronics, lighting and photovoltaics.