A pillared-layer fluorescence metal-organic framework [Zn2(TCPP)(BPE), GXZ-1] has been synthesized by using the AIE ligand 2,3,5,6-tetrakis(4-carboxyphenyl) pyrazine (TCPP) and 1,2-Bis(4-pyridyl) ethylene (BPE). The GXZ-1 exhibited remarkable stability in both air and various solvents. Furthermore, fluorescence experiments demonstrated its potential as a fluorescence probe for the sensitive detection of picric acid (PA). Additionally, the activated GXZ-1 exhibited permanent porosity with a high BET surface area of 210.59 m2 g-1 and a narrow pore size distribution of 0.6 nm. These properties enable GXZ-1 ideally suitable for gas separation applications. Gas adsorption experiments revealed promising CO2/CH4 separation properties, with an IAST adsorption selectivity of 8.37 and 5.39 for equimolar CO2/CH4 gas mixtures at 273/298 K and 1 atm, respectively. In addition, GXZ-1 displayed outstanding chemical and thermal stability, further enhancing its potential for practical applications.

The separation of methane from higher hydrocarbons (C2-C3) in natural gas processing is a crucial and energy-intensive operation. This work presents a comprehensive study on the separation of propane and ethane from methane using cobalt-based metal-organic frameworks (FNU-2), which exhibit exceptional stability and selectivity and preferential adsorption towards C2-C3 hydrocarbons. The selectivity values of C2H6/CH4 and C3H8/ CH4 calculated by IAST are 43.9 and 638.9, respectively. According to theoretical calculations, the Van der Waals interactions of guest molecules play crucial roles in influencing the separation performance. Moreover, dynamic breakthrough experiments have revealed the promising potential of this adsorbent in industrial separations. These experiments indicate that the adsorbent is highly suitable for effectively separating and purifying natural gas. This study overall presents a novel and efficient adsorbent that can be employed to separate and purify natural gas in various industrial applications.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have garnered increasing attention for their effective separation of light hydrocarbons owing to their prominent separation selectivity and energy-efficient adsorption process. Here, we constructed a robust stable ultramicroporous Cd(II)-MOF ([Cd-5(NTA)(4)(H2O)(2)] (Me2NH2+)(2)10H(2)O (1)) with abundant accessible oxygen sites and investigated its adsorption performance for recovering high-purity methane (CH4) from natural gas (NG) including C-1(CH4)/C-2(C2H6)/C-3(C3H8) mixtures. At ambient conditions, the theoretical equilibrium separation selectivity of 1 for C2H6/CH4 (v/v = 10/85) and C3H8/CH4 (v/v = 5/85) were found to be 34.3 and 223.8, respectively. The CH4/C2H6/C3H8 (v/v/v = 85/10/5) mixture breakthrough experiments for 1, conducted at 298 K, demonstrated effective separation performance with breakthrough times of up to 136 and 280 ming(-1) for C2H6 and C3H8. Particularly, the CH4 productivity (purity > 99.9 %) with 9.8 mmolg(-1) ranked the third in reported literatures, lower to the reported maximum value of 13.28 mmolg(-1) for Ni(TMBDC)(DABCO)(0.5). Furthermore, Grand Canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulations and first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed that the high uptake and selectivity for C3H8 and C2H6 can be attributed to the abundant oxygen sites present in the pores. The dynamic breakthrough experiments comprehensively demonstrated that the proposed MOF can be an effective potential adsorbent for the practical separation of CH4/C2H6/C3H8 mixtures.

The persistent challenge of nitrate (NO3-) pollution in water systems, profoundly impacting ecosystems and human health, demands effective remediation strategies. Here, we present an innovative S-scheme Cu@CN/TiOx heterojunction for high-efficiency photocatalytic denitrification (PCDN). Evaluation of its performance demonstrates exceptional NO3- removal efficiency (99.5%) and remarkable N2 selectivity (95.5%), with 13.7 and 4.1 times higher rate constants of NO3- removal than the individual Cu@CN and TiOx components. Notably, this catalyst exhibits impressive stability across multiple cycles, maintaining consistent high conversion rates and selectivity. Mechanistic insights unveiled a tandem reaction pathway where Cu@CN selectively reduced NO3- to NO2-, followed by the TiOx-mediated CO2 center dot - generation, enabling highly selective NO2- to N2 conversion. This unique catalytic system, featuring spatially separated redox-active sites, presents a promising avenue for efficient, selective, and stable denitrification processes, offering significant potential in addressing water pollution challenges and advancing tandem catalytic systems.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a type of designable porous materials, are effectively employed to realize light hydrocarbons storage and separation in favor of energy conservation and environmental protection, su-perior to traditional separation technology. Significantly, a novel MOF, Ni2(L)2(HCOO)2 center dot 4H2O (1) has been constructed from a bifunctional group ligand of 3-hydroxy-4-(4H-1,2,4-triazol-4-yl) benzoic acid ligand (HL). MOF 1 possesses stable porous structure with narrow channels functionalized with multiple accessible adsorption sites of hydroxy group, carboxyl oxygen atoms from the L- and HCOO-, exhibiting a well trade-off between good capacity and selectivity for light hydrocarbons. The single-component sorption isotherm results of Ni2+ based MOF not only shows good gas sorption capacity for light hydrocarbons of C2H2, C2H6, C2H4, C3H8, and green-house gas CO2, especially remarkable uptake for C2H2 (122.0 cm3 g- 1 at ambient condition), but also favorable selectivity for binary mixtures of C2H2/CH4, C2H6/CH4, C3H8/CH4, C2H4/CH4, C2H2/C2H4 as well as C3H8/C2H6/ CH4 ternary mixture, as confirmed by ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) calculations, and dynamic break-through experiment. Grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulation reveals the multiple synergism of accessible adsorption sites including functional OH groups, carboxylate groups, HCOO- and :c center dot center dot center dot:c stacking interaction between guest molecules and host-pore are crucial to contribute selective gas adsorption of light hydrocarbons.

Tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), as a typical brominated flame retardant, has been confirmed to pose potential threats for human health and developed into a global pollutant. Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is the most used catalyst for refractory organic pollutants removal, but the weak conductivity and quick recombination of photogenerated carries restrict its practical application. To improve the photocatalytic activity of pristine g-C3N4, a p-n/Z-scheme dual heterojunction photocatalyst (BFC) was designed and prepared by introducing black phosphorus nanosheets and FeSe2 into porous g-C3N4 (CN). Compared to traditional heterojunction catalysts, BFC not only can promote photogenerated carriers directed migration and effective separation, but also can retain higher redox potential for simultaneous generating O-2(center dot-) and (OH)-O-center dot, which are due to the synergistic effects of built-in electric field formation in p-n heterojunction and bandgap structure optimization by Z-scheme hetero-junction. Above advantages promote BFC to achieve 100% TBBPA degradation efficiency in 40 min and 22.6% debromination efficiency in 60 min under visible light irradiation. The superfast reaction rate constant (0.143 min(-1)) is almost 10 times higher than that of pristine CN. This study proposes a facile design strategy to construct heterojunction photocatalysts and provides an alternative method to rapidly remove TBBPA in water.

In this paper, rubrene:MoO3 mixed films were deposited on quartz glass and p-Si substrates using thermal evaporation technique. We fabricated the devices based on rubrene:MoO3 mixed films in the form of Al/rubrene:MoO3/p-Si/Al. The electrical characteristics of the rubrene:MoO3 film (with 1:1 weight ratio)-based devices were measured using Hall system. The results indicate the enhanced hole concentration and hole carrier mobility. In addition, the presence of charge transfer complexes leads to an increase of the conductivity and the contact between sample and electrode is almost Ohmic contact. To investigate the effect of MoO3, the rubrene:MoO3 mixed films with different concentrations of MoO3 were deposited using thermal evaporation technique and the Schottky barrier devices based on rubrene:MoO3 mixed films were fabricated. The electrical characteristics demonstrate that the charge transfer complex had been formed when rubrene and MoO3 mixed. Our results demonstrated improvement of the contact between electrode and sample in electronic devices.

Polymer molecular sieve materials (PMS) are promising porous fillers that can be used to fabricate highperformance gas separation mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) to overcome the inherent trade-off. In this work, a nitrogen-rich ultramicroporous (0.34 nm, 0.50 nm) polyaminal network (PAN-NH2) was introduced into crosslinked PEO polymer to prepare CO2-philic MMMs with superior CO2 capture performance. Due to the synergistical interaction of the dipole-quadrupole and molecular sieving effect, PAN-NH2 demonstrates excellent molecular recognition of CO2. PAN-NH2 can be well dispersed in polymer matrix to achieve good polymer-filler interface compatibility. The incorporation of PAN-NH2 significantly improves the CO2 permeability and selectivity of membranes by increasing the CO2 solubility and providing a selective CO2 transport highway. For instance, the CO2 permeability of mixed gas (15% CO2/85% N-2, 50% CO2/50% CH4) permeation tests for 2.0 wt % PAN-NH2/PEO was increased from 340 Barrer (crosslinked PEO) to 1160 Barrer along with CO2/N-2 selectivity of 73.0 and CO2/CH4 selectivity of 19.7, surpassing the Upper bound (2019) and Upper bound (2008), respectively. The long-time stability of PAN-NH2/PEO MMMs is good, which endow them with great potential in practical CO2 capture. In addition, this work demonstrates the potential of functional ultramicroporous PMS in the preparation of high-performance MMMs for other gas separation processes.

Two-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (2D-COFs) with permanent porosity, structural controllability, and excellent stability, are receiving ongoing attention in metal-free heterogeneous photocatalysis of organic conversions. In order to construct high optical performance COFs for selective organic transformation, herein, 2D porphyrin-based donor-acceptor (D-A) type COFs were prepared by adjusting the morphology and structure. The as-synthesized COFs facilitate charge transfer and separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs, efficaciously producing superoxide radical anions as mediates for selective oxidation of sulfides (97% conversion and 99% of selectivity) and reductive dehalogenation of 2-bromoacetophenone (up to 99% conversion and 82% of yield). The COFs have excellent stability and recyclability, demonstrating that the 2D D-A type COFs are attractive as heterogeneous photocatalyst for visible light driven organics transformation.

In this work, a series of novel rubber seed shell-derived N-doped ultramicroporous carbons (NPCs) were prepared by one-step high-temperature activation (500–1000 °C), using melamine as the nitrogen source and KOH as the activator. The effects of the melamine dosage and the activation temperatures on the surface chemical properties (doped N contents and N species), textural properties (surface area, pore structure, and microporosity), CO2 adsorption capacities, and CO2/N2 selectivity were thoroughly investigated and characterized. These as-prepared NPCs demonstrate controllable BET surface areas (398–2163 m2/g), ultramicroporosity, and doped nitrogen contents (0.82–7.52 wt%). It was found that the ultramicroporosity and the doped nitrogens significantly affected the CO2 adsorption and the separation performance at low pressure. Among the NPCs, highly microporous NPC-600-4 demonstrates the largest CO2 adsorption capacity of 5.81 mmol/g (273 K, 1.0 bar) and 3.82 mmol/g (298 K, 1.0 bar), as well as a high CO2/N2 selectivity of 36.6, surpassing a lot of reported biomass-based porous carbons. In addition, NPC-600-4 also shows excellent thermal stability and recycle performance, indicating the competitive application potential in practical CO2 capture. This work also presents a facile one-pot synthesis method to prepare high-performance biomass-based NPCs.

Silver nanowires (Ag-NWs), which possess a high aspect ratio with superior electrical conductivity and transmittance, show great promise as flexible transparent electrodes (FTEs) for future electronics. Unfortunately, the fabrication of Ag-NW conductive networks with low conductivity and high transmittance is a major challenge due to the ohmic contact resistance between Ag-NWs. Here we report a facile method of fabricating high-performance Ag-NW electrodes on flexible substrates. A 532 nm nanosecond pulsed laser is employed to nano-weld the Ag-NW junctions through the energy confinement caused by localized surface plasmon resonance, reducing the sheet resistance and connecting the junctions with the substrate. Additionally, the thermal effect of the pulsed laser on organic substrates can be ignored due to the low energy input and high transparency of the substrate. The fabricated FTEs demonstrate a high transmittance (up to 85.9%) in the visible band, a low sheet resistance of 11.3 Ω/sq, high flexibility and strong durability. The applications of FTEs to 2D materials and LEDs are also explored. The present work points toward a promising new method for fabricating high-performance FTEs for future wearable electronic and optoelectronic devices.

Triazine-based N-rich covalent organic polymer (TBN-1) was prepared for effective removal and selective detection of Hg2+ from model solutions. The pi-pi conjugated structure formed by alternating electron-deficient triazine group and electron-rich benzene group promotes the electron transfer and strong fluorescence. The ultra-high specific surface area and abundant metal complex groups provide excellent adsorption sites for heavy metals. The TBN-1 suspension has obvious fluorescence quenching effect when encountering Hg2+ even when the solutions are treated with co-ions and humic acid. The merits of TBN-1 are unreservedly manifested when further testing the adsorption kinetics of TBN-1 for Hg2+ removal. With the maximum adsorption capacity of 1630 mg g(-1), 99.99% of Hg2+ can be removed within 20 min from a 10 ppm solution using TBN-1. The covalent organic polymer (COP) also exhibits a high stability in a wide range of pH and a significant selectivity for Hg2+. About 99.9% Hg2+ can be adsorbed in acidic, co-ions competitive and humic acid contaminated solutions. The TBN-1 can be also reused for at least 5 cycles with acceptable Hg2+ adsorption capacity retention. The mechanism for the excellent Hg2+ adsorption performance of TBN-1 is revealed by coupling physico-chemical model fitting, chemical computation, and experimental characterization, which indicates the coordination and cation-pi effects and high electron density of the material to facilitate its complexation with Hg2+. This work offers new prospects for the application of triazine-based COPs for environmental remediation.

Photocatalytic decomposition of carbamazepine using Au nanoparticles modified β-Ga2O3 film was investigated. The crystallization, morphology, optical properties, and electrical properties of the samples were investigated using XRD, SEM, UV–vis absorption spectroscopy, photoluminescence spectra, and photocurrent measurements. In the photocatalytic experiments of carbamazepine degradation, the Au nanoparticles modified β-Ga2O3 films presented a better photocatalytic property than the pure β-Ga2O3 film. The optical transmittance spectra verify that the present of Au nanoparticles can enhance the light harvesting and shrink the bandgap of the β-Ga2O3 film. The photocurrent density and photoluminescence emission spectra indicate that the localized surface plasmon resonance of Au nanoparticles promoted the charge separation and suppressed the charge recombination of photoinduced electron–hole pairs in β-Ga2O3.

Rubrene:MoO3 mixed films(in 1:1 wt ratio) were deposited on quartz substrates using the thermal evaporation technique and the absorption spectrum of the mixed film was measured. The results demonstrate that the mixed film shows intensively absorption at the near-infrared region(similar to 930 nm) which indicates that the interaction between Rubrene and MoO3 is intensively and induced intermediate level in the band gap of Rubrene and formed charge-transfer complex(CTC). Furthermore, the type of transition is direct allowed transition according to the measurement of optical band gap. To further analysis the affection of MoO3 to Rubrene, the Rubrene:MoO3 films with different proportion of MoO3 were also prepared using the thermal evaporation technique. The absorption spectrum of the mixed films was measured and the results demonstrate that the interaction between Rubrene and MoO3 is enhancing with the concentration of MoO3 increasing and the energy needed by the transition of electrons is decreasing. The near-infrared photo-detection device based on Rubrene:MoO3 film was fabricated. The current-voltage(I-V) characteristic of the device was measured and the results demonstrate that under 5 V bias, the infrared detector exhibits an I-photo/I-dark ratio of similar to 8 under a 940 nm light illumination with a light intensity of 0.5 W.cm(-2).

Herein, a quantum dot random laser was achieved using a silicon nanowire array. The silicon nanowire array was grown by a metal-assisted chemical etching method. A colloidal quantum dot solution was spin-coated on silicon nanowires to form the random laser. The performance of the random laser was controlled by the resistivity of silicon wafers and the length of silicon nanowires. A transition from incoherent random lasing to coherent random lasing was obtained by increasing the resistivity of the silicon wafers. The random lasing threshold increased with an increase in the length of the silicon nanowires. These results may be useful to explore high-performance silicon-based random lasers.