Diastereo‐ and Enantioselective Palladium‐Catalyzed Dearomative [3+2] Cycloaddition of 3‐Nitroindoles

Diastereo‐ and enantioselective cycloaddition of 3‐nitroindoles with vinyl aziridine was realized under Pd‐catalysis using commercially available Walphos as the ligand, affording pyrroloindolines in high yields with high diastereo‐ and enantioselectivities. The reaction can be scaled up to a gram scale and the reaction products are easily converted to amino pyrroloindoline and other pyrroloindoline derivatives.     

An Unconventional Polymerization Route to Hydrophilic Fluorescent Organic Nanoparticles for Multicolor Cellular Bioimaging

We demonstrated an unconventional polymerization route to synthesize hydrophilic fluorescent organic nanoparticles (FONs) for multicolor cellular bioimaging in this contribution. The route benefits from our unexpected discovery of a rapid polymerization reaction between 1,6‐hexanediol dipropiolate and 2,4,6‐triazide‐1,3,5‐triazine under the catalysis of N,N,N′,N′′,N′′‐pentamethyldiethylenetriamine (PMDETA). Interestingly, the 2,4,6‐triazide‐1,3,5‐triazine and PMDETA system can also induce rapid free radical polymerization at room temperature. The as‐prepared FONs exhibited promising water solubility and stability with an average diameter of 20 nm. The excitation wavelength‐dependent fluorescent properties endow the FONs with blue, yellow, and red fluorescent emission under UV, blue, and green excitation, respectively. The cytotoxicity of FONs was investigated by using a Cell Counting Kit (CCK‐8) assay, which indicated good biocompatiblity. More importantly, the cell uptake experiment verified the FONs were excellent fluorescent nanoprobes for multicolor cellular bioimaging. Therefore, this unconventional route provides a novel fabrication strategy of highly hydrophilic FONs for biomedical applications.     

A Universal Organic Cathode for Ultrafast Lithium and Multivalent Metal Batteries

Low‐cost multivalent battery chemistries (Mg²⁺, Al³⁺) have been extensively investigated for large‐scale energy storage applications. However, their commercialization is plagued by the poor power density and cycle life of cathodes. A universal polyimides@CNT (PI@CNT) cathode is now presented that can reversibly store various cations with different valences (Li⁺, Mg²⁺, Al³⁺) at an extremely fast rate. The ion‐coordination charge storage mechanism of PI@CNT is systemically investigated. Full cells using PI@CNT cathodes and corresponding metal anodes exhibit long cycle life (>10000 cycles), fast kinetics (>20 C), and wide operating temperature range (?40 to 50 °C), making the low‐cost industrial polyimides universal cathodes for different multivalent metal batteries. The stable ion‐coordinated mechanism opens a new foundation for the development of high‐energy and high‐power multivalent batteries.     

Real‐Time Probing of Nanowire Assembly Kinetics at the Air–Water Interface by In Situ Synchrotron X‐Ray Scattering

Although many assembly strategies have been used to successfully construct well‐aligned nanowire (NW) assemblies, the understanding of their assembly kinetics has remained elusive, which restricts the development of NW‐based device and circuit fabrication. Now a versatile strategy that combines interfacial assembly and synchrotron‐based grazing‐incidence small‐angle X‐ray scattering (GISAXS) is presented to track the assembly evolution of the NWs in real time. During the interface assembly process, the randomly dispersed NWs gradually aggregate to form small ordered NW‐blocks and finally are constructed into well‐defined NW monolayer driven by the conformation entropy. The NW assembly mechanism can be well revealed by the thermodynamic analysis and large‐scale molecular dynamics theoretical evaluation. These findings point to new opportunities for understanding NW assembly kinetics and manipulating NW assembled structures by bottom‐up strategy.     

Enantioselective Construction of Silicon‐Stereogenic Silanes by Scandium‐Catalyzed Intermolecular Alkene Hydrosilylation

The catalytic asymmetric construction of silicon‐stereogenic silanes is of great interest and significance, but has met with only limited success to date. We herein report the enantioselective hydrosilylation of alkenes with dihydrosilanes by a chiral half‐sandwich scandium catalyst, which constitutes an efficient and general route for the synthesis of a wide range of enantioenriched silicon‐stereogenic silanes from easily accessible starting materials. This reaction features a broad substrate scope, high yields, and high enantioselectivity. Some of the chiral tertiary silane products were also converted into valuable derivatives, such as chiral silanol, quaternary silane, and benzosilole compounds.     

Cross‐Linked Aptamer–Lipid Micelles for Excellent Stability and Specificity in Target‐Cell Recognition

The specific binding ability of DNA–lipid micelles (DLMs) can be increased by the introduction of an aptamer. However, supramolecular micellar structures based on self‐assemblies of amphiphilic DLMs are expected to demonstrate low stability when interacting with cell membranes under certain conditions, which could lead to a reduction in selectivity for targeting cancer cells. We herein report a straightforward cross‐linking strategy that relies on a methacrylamide branch to link aptamer and lipid segments. By an efficient photoinduced polymerization process, covalently linked aptamer–lipid units help stabilize the micelle structure and enhance aptamer probe stability, further improving the targeting ability of the resulting nanoassembly. Besides the development of a facile cross‐linking method, this study clarifies the relationship between aptamer–lipid concentration and the corresponding binding ability.     

The use of hydrophobicity and pozzolanic reactivity of the PMHS/nanosilica hybrid composites on the water absorption of cement mortar

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The durability of cement-based materials can be significantly improved by surface treatment with organic or inorganic silica-based treatment agents. In...     

Patterned Colloidal Photonic Crystals

Colloidal photonic crystals (PCs) have been well developed because they are easy to prepare, cost‐effective, and versatile with regards to modification and functionalization. Patterned colloidal PCs contribute a novel approach to constructing high‐performance PC devices with unique structures and specific functions. In this review, an overview of the strategies for fabricating patterned colloidal PCs, including patterned substrate‐induced assembly, inkjet printing, and selective immobilization and modification, is presented. The advantages of patterned PC devices are also discussed in detail, for example, improved detection sensitivity and response speed of the sensors, control over the flow direction and wicking rate of microfluidic channels, recognition of cross‐reactive molecules through an array‐patterned microchip, fabrication of display devices with tunable patterns, well‐arranged RGB units, and wide viewing‐angles, and the ability to construct anti‐counterfeiting devices with different security strategies. Finally, the perspective of future developments and challenges is presented.     

Direct Observation of Transition Metal Dichalcogenides in Liquid with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

We present atomic-resolution images of TiSe\begin{document}$_2$\end{document}, MoTe\begin{document}$_2$\end{document} and TaS\begin{document}$_2$\end{document} single crystals in liquid condition using our home-built scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). By facilely cleaving of single crystals in liquid, we were able to keep the fresh surface not oxidized within a few hours. Using the high-stable home-built STM, we have obtained atomic resolution images of TiSe\begin{document}$_2$\end{document} accompanied with the single atom defects as well as the triangle defects in solution for the first time. Besides, the superstructure of MoTe\begin{document}$_2$\end{document} and hexagonal charge-density wave domain structure in nearly commensurate phase of TaS\begin{document}$_2$\end{document} were also obtained at room temperature (295 K). Our results provide a more efficient method in investigating the lively surface of transition metal dichalcogenides. Besides, the high stable liquid-phase STM will support the further investigations in liquid-phase catalysis or electrochemistry.     

Hypersurfaces in a sphere with constant mean curvature

Let be a closed hypersurface of constant mean curvature immersed in the unit sphere . Denote by the square of the length of its second fundamental form. If , is a small hypersphere in . We also characterize all with .