Lokupitiya, Hasala N.; Stefik, Morgan
Cavitation-enabled rapid and tunable evolution of high-χN micelles as templates for ordered mesoporous oxides
The kinetic-entrapment of block copolymer micelles enables size-persistence, however tuning micelle sizes under such conditions remains challenging. Agitation-induced chain exchange via vortexing is limited by the production of solution–air interfaces. Here, we use ultrasonic cavitation for rapid interface production that accelerates micelle growth by an order of magnitude over…
Multifaceted Gold–Palladium Bimetallic Nanorods and Their Geometric, Compositional, and Catalytic Tunabilities
Sun, Lichao; Zhang, Qingfeng; Li, Guangfang Grace; Villarreal, Esteban; Fu, Xiaoqi; Wang, Hui
Kinetically controlled, seed-mediated co-reduction provides a robust and versatile synthetic approach to multimetallic nanoparticles with precisely controlled geometries and compositions. Here, we demonstrate that single-crystalline cylindrical Au nanorods selectively transform into a series of structurally distinct Au@Au–Pd alloy core–shell bimetallic nanorods with exotic multifaceted geometries…
Overcoming the Interfacial Lattice Mismatch: Geometry Control of Gold–Nickel Bimetallic Heteronanostructures
Li, Guangfang Grace; Blom, Douglas A.; Pandey, Shubham; Koch, Robert J.; Misture, Scott T.; Phillpot, Simon R.; Wang, Hui
Seed-mediated heteroepitaxial growth provides a versatile synthetic approach to a diverse set of geometrically distinct bimetallic heteronanostructures. In bimetallic nanocrystal systems, interfacial heteroepitaxial growth typically occurs between structurally similar metals with lattice mismatch below 5%, whereas controlled epitaxial growth of bimetallic nanocrystals comprising metals with…
The role of fast and slow processes in the formation of structure and properties of thermoplastic polyurethanes
Anokhin, D. V.; Gorbunova, M. A.; Estrin, Ya I.; Komratova, V. V.; Badamshina, E. R.
New multi-blocked thermoplastic polymers containing rigid polyurethane-urea and soft polydiethylene glycol adipate blocks have been synthesized. Basic features of their structure formation have been revealed. Three types of supramolecular organization have been found, which define the behavior of samples under heating and deformation conditions. The shape memory effect has been…
A strong influence of the positions of solubilizing alkyl side chains on optoelectronic and photovoltaic properties of TTBTBTT-based conjugated polymers
Akkuratov, A. V.; Susarova, D. K.; Moskvin, Y. L.; Anokhin, D. V.; Chernyak, A. V.; Prudnov, F. A.; Novikov, D. V.; Babenko, S. D.; Troshin, P. A.
We report the synthesis and comparative study of five conjugated polymers P1–P5 with different arrangements of two solubilizing 2-ethylhexyl side chains in their repeating units. It has been shown that positioning of the alkyl substituents affects strongly frontier energy levels of the polymers and results in variation of their optical…
Acid Induced Self-Assembly Strategy to Synthesize Ordered Mesoporous Carbons from Biomass
Xu, Fan; Chen, Yiqing; Tang, Minghui; Wang, Haiyan; Deng, Jiang; Wang, Yong
Hydrothermal carbonization of biomass is an economic and sustainable technique for the fabrication of functional carbonaceous materials. However, the introduction of biomass into synthesis of ordered mesoporous carbon materials achieves slow progress due to complicated requirements. It is still challenging to prepare biomass-derived ordered mesoporous carbon materials. Herein, we report…
Clustering-Triggered Emission and Persistent Room Temperature Phosphorescence of Sodium Alginate
Dou, Xueyu; Zhou, Qing; Chen, Xiaohong; Tan, Yeqiang; He, Xin; Lu, Ping; Sui, Kunyan; Tang, Ben Zhong; Zhang, Yongming; Yuan, Wang Zhang
Nonconventional biomacromolecular luminogens have attracted extensive interest due to their fundamental importance and potential applications in diverse areas. To explore novel luminogens and, moreover, to gain deeper insights into their emission mechanism, we study the emission behaviors of sodium alginate (SA), a natural anionic polysaccharide composed of mannuronic (M) and…
Enhanced intramolecular charge transfer of unfused electron acceptors for efficient organic solar cells
Qin, Ran; Yang, Weitao; Li, Shuixing; Lau, Tsz-Ki; Yu, Zhipeng; Liu, Zhang; Shi, Minmin; Lu, Xinhui; Li, Chang-Zhi; Chen, Hongzheng
It is promising, yet challenging, to employ molecules of slight synthetic complexity to construct efficient and low-cost organic solar cells (OSCs). Herein, two unfused acceptors, DF-TCIC and HF-TCIC, were developed for OSC applications, in which the 3,4-difluorothiophene core connected through a cyclopentadithiophene (CPDT) bridge to 1,1-dicyanomethylene-3-indanone derivatives (IC for DF-TCIC…
An inverted planar solar cell with 13% efficiency and a sensitive visible light detector based on orientation regulated 2D perovskites
Lian, Xiaomei; Chen, Jiehuan; Fu, Ruilin; Lau, Tsz-Ki; Zhang, Yingzhu; Wu, Gang; Lu, Xinhui; Fang, Yanjun; Yang, Deren; Chen, Hongzheng
Improving the film quality is of great importance in promoting the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 2D perovskite-based solar cells (PVSCs), but the solution to this issue is limited. In this work, a strategy of combining the advantages of the ammonium thiocyanate (NH4SCN) additive and merged annealing (MA) process was…
Reactive oxygen species (ROS)-responsive nanomedicine for RNAi-based cancer therapy
Li, Yang; Bai, Hongzhen; Wang, Hebin; Shen, Youqing; Tang, Guping; Ping, Yuan
Although much effort has been dedicated to the development of efficient siRNA delivery for cancer therapy, delivery nanomaterials that can particularly respond to reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are overproduced in the tissue and mitochondria of cancer cells, are still rare for the clinical translation of RNA interference (RNAi)-based therapy.…