Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) is not only a toxic environmental pollutant but also a key indicator of food spoilage, thus driving the demand for reliable detection tools. Herein, a novel fluorescent probe based on 5-(4-hydroxyphenyl)thiophene-2- carbaldehyde was developed for the selective detection of H₂S. In a DMSO/PBS system, the probe demonstrated excellent sensing performance, including high selectivity, a rapid "turn-on" fluorescence response, as well as good photostability and pH stability. Fluorescence titration and competitive experiments confirmed its low detection limit and strong anti-interference ability. The recognition mechanism was further verified by HRMS analysis and DFT calculations. Furthermore, the probe was successfully fabricated into test strips and fluorescent films for the convenient and visual detection of H₂S in liquid and solid samples. In the field of food safety, the probe was also effectively applied for the rapid assessment of the freshness of various meat products (such as fish, pork, chicken, and shrimp), offering a new and reliable tool for real-time monitoring.

As a green and sustainable synthetic route for preparing valuable organofluorine compounds, heterogeneous photocatalytic perfluoroalkylation using semiconductors as photocatalysts has drawn more and more attention for its advantages of more stable, easier to be recycled and relative broad spectral absorption. In this study, an efficient PbO2/PbBiO2Br S-scheme heterojunction nanosheet photocatalyst was fabricated by a facile photo-deposition process. This heterogeneous photocatalyst exhibits high activity, excellent stability and good compatibility in the photocatalytic perfluorobutylation of 3-substituted indoles. Moreover, this heterogeneous reaction can be easily scaled and the PbO2/PbBiO2Br photocatalyst can be easily recovered and recycled for several times, showing potential industrial application value. The PbO2/PbBiO2Br heterojunction not only facilitates the transfer of photo-excited charges but also preserves higher redox potentials for the reduction of the perfluorobutyliodide and oxidation of the radical intermediates, which may be the main reason for the superior performance of PbO2/PbBiO2Br to PbBiO2Br. This study not only develops an alternative photocatalyst for heterogeneous light-driven perfluoroalkylation reaction, but also gives a reference for fabricating robust and high-performance photocatalysts for heterogeneous organic synthesis.

Proton exchange membranes with high proton conductivity and robust mechanical strength are crucial for fuel cell. Constructing acid-base pair in membranes can significantly reduce the proton transfer energy barrier, but acid-base pair consume some proton-conducting groups, resulting in limited improvement in membrane performance. Sulfonated polyether ether ketone (SPEEK) has abundant tunable sulfonic acid groups, and polybenzimidazole can provide abundant basic sites, making them suitable materials for preparing acid-base blend membranes. In this work, a sulfonated polybenzimidazole with sulfonic acid side chains (SPBI) was synthesized and blended with SPEEK to fabricate acid-base polymer blend membranes. The flexible sulfonic acid side chains attached to the PBI backbones allow for the formation of acid-base pair structures within SPBI, and acid-base pair also occur between the sulfonic acid groups on SPEEK and the basic imidazole groups on SPBI. Through the above dual acid-base network, a simultaneous improvement in both membrane proton conductivity and mechanical strength was achieved. The optimized SPBI/SPEEK-50 blend membrane achieved an excellent balance of properties, including a proton conductivity of 360.9 mS cm- 1 at 80 degrees C and 100% RH, a tensile strength of 83 MPa, and significantly improved dimensional stability. When tested in a hydrogen fuel cell, this membrane delivered a peak power density of 340 mW cm- 2 at 60 degrees C, representing a 36% improvement over the pure SPBI membrane.

Pesticide residues detection is critical for protecting health and food quality. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has become a highly effective technique for pesticide analysis, with substrate performance largely dependent on material structure and surface properties. This study developed a three-dimensional hierarchical SERS substrate composed of fluorinated silver nanoparticles@titanium dioxide nanorods@silicon pyramids (F-Ag NPs @TiO₂ NRs@py-Si). This design synergistically combines efficient light capture by py-Si, high surface area of TiO2 NRs, and strong localized surface plasmon resonance from Ag NPs, enhancing light energy utilization, hotspot density, and electromagnetic enhancement. The hydrophobic surface promotes analyte enrichment and enhances detection sensitivity. The substrate exhibited good reproducibility with RSDs ≤6.09%. The limit of detection of 10-8 M was achieved for carbaryl, thiram, and thiabendazole in fruit extracts. This hierarchical substrate offers a promising approach for ultrasensitive pesticide residue detection in complex food matrices and advances the practical application of SERS in food safety.

ABSTRACT Plastic food packaging has caused the increasingly severe environmental crisis and biological threats, which necessitates an urgent switch to regenerative alternatives. In this background, insect‐based materials have become a breakthrough advance in sustainable food packaging science. Insect‐based materials like chitin, proteins, and resins demonstrate biodegradability and superior film‐forming attributes coupled with potent bioactivity. Insect bionics (such as cicada wings, spider silk and beetle cuticles) offer innovative strategies to fortify mechanical resilience for food packaging, surface repellency, and contact‐killing antimicrobial efficacy. This review provides a comprehensive organization and summary of new processing technologies for insect materials. We critically explore the potential of insect resources in intelligent packaging functionalities, concomitantly analysing the crucial bottlenecks impeding their large‐scale industrialization. Ultimately, the application of insect resources will advance the development of green packaging science and technology, whose aim is for a more circular and eco‐friendly future.

Hollow carbon spheres (HCSs) attracted increasing attention in the field of supercapacitor materials owing to their unique hollow structure. However, their hollow shells exhibited weak mechanical strength and tended to collapse under high-rate cycling. In this study, a nitrogen/sulfur co-doped hollow carbon sphere (NS-HCS) with tunable shell thickness was synthesized by adjusting the shell thickness and dopant loading. The optimized NSHCS-1 integrated double-layer and pseudocapacitive storage while retaining the intrinsic high-power characteristics of carbon materials. The appropriate shell thickness enhanced structural durability, whereas N and S doping enriched the pore structure, accelerated ion transport, and provided additional pseudocapacitance, thereby improving electrochemical performance. In a three-electrode system, the material delivered a specific capacitance of 366 F g 1 at 1 A g 1 and retained 98.42 % of its initial capacitance after 20,000 cycles at 15 A g 1. The assembled symmetric cell achieved a maximum energy density of 34.08 Wh kg 1 and a power density of 570 W kg 1. This synergistic engineering of shell thickness and heteroatom doping afforded outstanding electrochemical performance, rendering NS-HCS-1 a promising electrode candidate for next-generation supercapacitors.

Herein, a novel Ti3C2Tx MXene-based nanozyme (CoN-TiC) with remarkable peroxide-like activity was successfully synthesized. CoN-TiC can catalyze hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), which could oxidize colorless 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) into oxTMB with characteristic absorption peak at 650 nm. Cu doped silicon quantum dots (Cu-SiQDs) with excellent fluorescence property was used as the fluorescence probes. The fluorescence of Cu-SiQDs at 458 nm would be quenched by oxTMB due to inner filter effect. Gallic acid (GA) as a typical antioxidant had great free radical scavenging ability, it could inhibit the oxidization of TMB into oxTMB, so the fluorescence of Cu-SiQDs would be restored. Therefore, a colorimetric and fluorometric sensing platform that had dual output signals and self-correction function was strategically constructed for GA determination. This sensing system possessed excellent sensitivity with low limits of detection (LOD) of 0.12 μM (fluorescent method) and 0.20 μM (colorimetric method). Moreover, this proposed platform was successfully applied to detect GA in green tea samples.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains refractory to systemic therapy due to poor tumor selectivity, rapid drug clearance, and acquired resistance to sorafenib (SF). Here, we report a membrane-engineered biomimetic gold-carbon theranostic nanoplatform (ARG-SF@M) that integrates immune evasion, homologous targeting, dual-modal imaging, and synergistic chemo-photothermal therapy (chemo-PTT) within a single nanosystem. The platform is constructed by co-assembling gold nanorods (AuNRs) and a fluorescent carbon nanomaterial (GTTN) for efficient SF loading, followed by cloaking with HCC cell membranes to confer prolonged circulation and tumor-homotypic recognition. AuNRs enable efficient near-infrared photothermal conversion and thermal imaging (TI), while GTTN provides stable fluorescence imaging (FI) for real-time biodistribution monitoring. The membrane camouflage markedly enhances tumor accumulation and reduces off-target distribution, thereby improving SF delivery efficiency. In vivo studies demonstrate that ARG-SF@M achieves a tumor inhibition rate of 81.92%, significantly higher than that of free SF (42.43%) and non-biomimetic ARG-SF (66.05%). Under NIR irradiation, tumor suppression further increases to 90.77%, substantially outperforming AuNRs + L (55.35%), confirming strong chemo-PTT synergy. Mechanistically, photothermal activation induces intratumoral hyperthermia, mitochondrial dysfunction, excessive reactive oxygen species generation, HSP70 upregulation, and activation of the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. Collectively, this work presents a rational biomimetic membrane-engineering strategy for imaging-guided precision HCC theranostics.

Although extensive research has explored modulating the built-in electric field (BIEF) and interfacial dipole electric field (IDEF) individually, a strategy leveraging their synergistic interplay for bidirectional electron regulation remains scarcely explored. Herein, a bifunctional FeCoNiP/P-doped g-C3N4 (FeCoNiP/PCN) heterojunction was constructed and confirmed by TEM analysis. XPS and DFT analyses confirmed the co-existence of synergistic dual electric fields: a BIEF directed from PCN to FeCoNiP and an oppositely oriented IDEF, which cooperatively establish a bidirectional charge-transfer channel. This unique dual-field configuration drove highly efficient spatial charge separation, as evidenced by significantly quenched photoluminescence (PL), diminished charge-transfer resistance (EIS), and a markedly enhanced photocurrent response. The synergistic electric fields enabled bidirectional electron flow, thus enabling the simultaneous photooxidation of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) and its selective reduction to 4-aminophenol (4-AP). The optimized FeCoNiP/PCN heterojunction showed significantly enhanced catalytic performance, achieving a 91 % degradation of 4-NP within 1.5 h with a rate constant 4 times and 25 times higher than pristine PCN and FeCoNiP, respectively. Moreover, it exhibited bifunctional performance, reducing 100 mg/L 4-NP nearly completely to 4-AP within only 4 min. The superior performance is primarily attributed to the synergistic interplay between the BIEF and IDEF, which efficiently lowers energy barriers and orchestrates directional electron transfer, as elucidated by combined experiments and theory. This study proposes a feasible strategy to regulate bidirectional electron flow via synergistic dual electric fields in heterojunctions, which opens a new avenue for designing high-performance bifunctional catalysts to tackle complex environmental issues.

The hypoxic as a typical indicator, is closely involved with grow, invasion, metastasis and drug resistance of tumors. The upregulation of nitroreductase (NTR) has been universally used for assessing the hypoxic degrees of tumor cells and solid tumors. The fluorescence imaging technique, an important analytical instrument, has the ability to in suit detect the NTR activity and assess the hypoxia degree of tumors. Therein, we proposed a near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent probe (MTR), which detected mitochondrial NTR activity, thereby evaluating the degree of hypoxia in mouse tumors. The probe MTR demonstrated outstanding detection performance toward NTR in the buffer system, such as high selectivity, lower detection limit, large Stokes shift and NIR emission. Moreover, the probe MTR mainly concentrated within the mitochondria and detected NTR activity under hypoxic conditions. Employing this probe, the ascending of NTR activity was monitored in mouse tumors. Therefore, this work provides a decent practical tool for the detection and diagnosis of tumor hypoxia.

Restructuring tilth layers (RTL) is an innovative tillage practice that involves the vertical exchange of topsoil and subsoil while the deeper layer is loosened, and this practice has been verified to significantly reduce the incidence of cotton Verticillium wilt. However, the ecological mechanisms underlying disease suppression remain unclear. In this study, we integrated field experiments, metagenomic sequencing, untargeted metabolomics, and functional validation to elucidate the effects of RTL on the rhizosphere ecosystem from the perspectives of microbe and metabolite interactions. RTL significantly altered the diversity and composition of the rhizosphere microbial communities and increased their network complexity and stability. Linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe) revealed that RTL promoted the enrichment of beneficial taxa such as Pseudomonas, Lysobacter, and Mesorhizobium. Metabolomic profiling revealed that the abundance of niacinamide was 19.11-fold higher (P < 0.05) in the RTL rhizosphere than in the control rhizosphere. Exogenous supplementation and antagonistic assays demonstrated that niacinamide stimulated Pseudomonas enrichment and activation in the rhizosphere. Although niacinamide did not have direct antifungal activity, its coapplication with Pseudomonas reduced the disease index of Verticillium wilt by 81.89%. Overall, RTL suppresses Verticillium wilt through two pathways, by establishing a more stable and complex microbial network and regulating rhizosphere metabolite composition, particularly niacinamide accumulation, which drives the colonization and activation of defense mediated by beneficial microbes, forming an ecological defense mechanism that links metabolite signaling, microbial response, and pathogen suppression.

Diamond morphology is a crucial foundation for determining diamond applications, and controlled growth of diamond morphology facilitates subsequent cutting and processing. In this study, the temperature gradient method was employed to synthesize diamond, with a primary focus on investigating the effects of synthesis temperature on diamond morphology and nitrogen impurities. Research has shown that the morphology of diamond can be effectively controlled by appropriately adjusting the synthesis temperature. At lower synthesis temperatures, the resulting diamonds are primarily cubic in shape, while at higher temperatures, they are primarily octahedral. Characterization using Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy revealed that as the synthesis temperature increased, the nitrogen content in diamonds synthesized along the [100] or [111] crystal directions of the seed crystal decreased, and the internal stress and full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the Raman spectrum also decreased. This indicates that, within a reasonable synthesis temperature range, appropriately increasing the synthesis temperature helps improve the crystallization quality of diamond and reduce its nitrogen content. Furthermore, photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy revealed that the NV− defects content in the diamond gradually decreases as the synthesis temperature increases. This demonstrates that the NV− defects content in diamond can be adjusted by controlling the synthesis temperature. By adjusting the synthesis temperature, this study effectively controls the growth morphology of diamond and the formation of NV− defects, which is expected to enhance the efficiency of preparing high-performance diamonds.

The practical application of carbon and its analogues has been impeded by their high cost and the complexity of preparation methods, thereby driving significant interest in identifying cost-effective alternatives for future energy storage applications. Biomass-derived carbon has emerged as promising substitutes for graphene in energy storage devices. However, enhancing their specific surface area and electrochemical performance remains a considerable challenge. We developed a novel approach by utilizing thiourea and sodium hypophosphite as activators and co-dopants to synthesize sulfur and phosphorus co-doped porous carbon derived from biomass waste. This strategy effectively facilitated pore structure rearrangement and introduced a synergistic combination of non-metallic dopants, significantly improving the electrochemical performance for supercapacitors by adjusting the ratio of co-dopants. The resulting sample exhibited a hierarchical porous structure with superior specific surface area (2691.85 m2 g-1) and abundant micropores, endowing a high capacitance (323.5 F g- 1 at 1 A g- 1) and a superb cycling stability (100.37 % after 10,000 cycles). Furthermore, the assembled button-type supercapacitors yielded a remarkable energy density of 31.8 Wh kg- 1 coupled with outstanding cyclic stability, retaining approximately 92.17 % after 25,000 cycles. These promising results exemplified a sustainable and cost-effective approach to design electrode materials for high-performance supercapacitors with extended cycle life.

Porous thioctic acid-based hydrogels are prepared and exhibit an evaporation rate of up to 3.72 kg m-2 h-1 because of the photothermal ability provided by reduced polyoxometalates. The dynamic covalent bonds and intermolecular interactions endow hydrogels with self-healing ability to achieve an unchanged evaporation rate over multiple cycles.

Carbamate pesticides have played an irreplaceable role in increasing crop yield and ensuring harvests, meantime, pesticide residues could lead to the severer environmental pollution. A, a΄- dichloro-p-xylene (XDC) self-polymerization resin was prepared through the Friedel–Crafts reaction in this study. The XDC self-polymerization resin was subsequently modified by hydroxylation and amination. The characteristics of the modified resins revealed that hydroxyl and amine had incorporated into the XDC self-polymerization resin successfully, and the two modified resins’ pore diameter distributions transferred from 3.00 nm to 3.34 nm and 5.70 nm, respectively. The adsorption properties of three carbamate pesticides—tsumacide, carbofuran, and pirimicarb—on the XDC self-polymerization resin were investigated, and the experimental isotherms exhibited excellent agreement with the Langmuir equation. The modified resins exhibited the highest carbamate pesticides adsorption capability, the experimental isotherms exhibited excellent agreement with the Langmuir equation at room temperature (100.00, 111.11, and 128.71 mg/g, respectively). Meanwhile, the pseudo-second-order rate equation could characterize the kinetic data of three carbamate pesticides adsorption on XDC self-polymerization resin.

Catecholamine neurotransmitters and their metabolites are important biomarkers associated with neurodegenerative diseases, yet their accurate discrimination and quantification remain challenging due to structural similarity and complex biological environments. Herein, we report a tri-modal sensing platform based on metal-organic framework (MOF)-derived Co3O4 hollow nanocubes with in situ grown NiMn layered double hydroxide (Co3O4@NiMn-LDH) for the discrimination and quantification of catecholamine-related biomarkers. The oxidase-like performance of Co3O4@NiMn-LDH was significantly enhanced (1.98 U mg-1) through rationally regulation of the thickness of the NiMn-LDH shell. Using o-phenylenediamine (oPD) as the signal-responsive substrate and F-doped SiQDs as a blue-emissive fluorescent probe, the platform enabled colorimetric and ratiometric fluorescence sensing. Owing to their different reducing abilities, catecholamines and their metabolites inhibited oPD oxidation to varying extents, suppressing 2,3-diaminophenazine (DAP) formation and generating distinct absorbance signals. The decreased DAP production reduced fluorescence at 565 nm, while the emission of F-doped SiQDs at 469 nm was restored, yielding a reliable ratiometric fluorescence response. In the electrochemical channel, catecholamine-related compounds generated distinct current responses due to their different electrooxidation activities. Therefore, the tri-modal sensing platform was established for the quantification of epinephrine (EP), dopamine (DA), norepinephrine (NE), vanillylmandelic acid (VMA), and homovanillic acid (HVA) with satisfactory linear responses over a wide concentration range (1-100 μM). Moreover, machine learning-assisted linear discriminant analysis (LDA) enabled effective discrimination of these biomarkers. The tri-modal platform exhibited reliable performance in complex samples, indicating its potential for multimodal analysis of structurally similar neuroactive molecules and neurodegenerative disease diagnosis.

The development of efficient photocatalysts for antibiotic removal remains constrained by the lack of well-defined active sites and severe charge recombination. Herein, a nitrogen-vacancy-rich carbon nitride coupled with mixed-phase bismuth oxide (α-Bi2O3/β-Bi2O3/g-C3N4-nitrogen vacancies, denoted as NV-αβBO) was rationally constructed via NaBH4-assisted defect engineering and in-situ phase transformation. The optimized NV-αβBO-4 shows significantly enhanced photocatalytic performance under visible light and rapidly removes tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH). Systematic characterizations show that nitrogen vacancies facilitate O2 adsorption and activation. Meanwhile, the interfacial coupling among α-Bi2O3, β-Bi2O3 and defective g-C3N4 (NV-CN-10) promotes directional charge transfer and suppresses carrier recombination. More importantly, a dual S-scheme charge-transfer pathway is established. This pathway preserves photogenerated electrons and holes with strong redox capability, thereby promoting reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. This work demonstrates a synergistic strategy by integrating defect engineering with phase-junction construction, providing new insights into the design of high-performance photocatalysts for antibiotic wastewater treatment.

Rational structural design of S-scheme heterojunctions in semiconductor-based photocatalysts constituted a pivotal strategy for optimizing their photocatalytic performance through efficient charge carriers separation and enhanced redox capability. Herein, a novel two-dimensional 2D/2D heterostructure is successfully constructed by integrating bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl) nanosheets onto g-C3N4 nanosheets, which significantly enhances the interfacial contact area between these two components and facilitates the migration of photogenerated charge carriers by forming a built-in electric field. Specifically, thiourea, urea, and melamine are employed as the precursor to prepare a series of g-C3N4/BiOCl photocatalysts, denoted as T-CN/BiOCl, U-CN/BiOCl, and M-CN/BiOCl, respectively. Benefiting from the excellent hydrophilic characteristics, wide photoresponse ranges and efficient interfacial charge transfer, M-CN/BiOCl displays exceptional degradation performance for both cationic rhodamine B (RhB) dyes and anionic methyl orange (MO). Under simulated sunlight irradiation, the photocatalytic degradation of RhB (20 mg/L) and MO (20 mg/L) can exhibit distinct kinetics, with complete removal achieves in 10 min and 100 min, respectively. Notably, the degradation rate constants of RhB demonstrate the remarkable superiority, being 29.2-fold and 475.2-fold higher than those of MO under simulated sunlight and visible light irradiation.

The efficacy of surface-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (SALDI-MS) in trace analysis is primarily constrained by uncontrolled analyte dispersion and inefficient thermal-to-desorption energy conversion. Herein, we report a high-performance photothermal CuO nanoparticle (NP)-based SALDI-MS substrate that enables ultrasensitive detection of various small molecules. The CuO NP-based substrate significantly enhances laser desorption/ionization efficiency through a synergistic effect. Its high photothermal conversion efficiency (95.39%) promotes rapid internal energy transfer and thermal desorption, while surface-assisted electron donation and strong surface-binding interactions collectively facilitate ion formation. Furthermore, the "wetting-confinement" effect suppresses the detrimental "coffee-ring" effect, enabling significant localized enrichment of analytes. This spatial confinement ensures remarkable signal homogeneity (RSD < 6%) and a pronounced amplification of detection sensitivity. Leveraging these synergistic features, the substrate exhibits high-fidelity, low detection limits for 23 diverse analytes detected in both positive and negative ion modes. Furthermore, the practical utility of the CuO NP-based substrate was validated by analyzing target molecules in complex food and environmental matrices (shrimp, fish, lake water, and tea), which demonstrate high linearity (10(-7)-10(-3) M, R-2 > 0.99), satisfactory recoveries (94.78-111.45%), minimum detectable concentrations as low as 1-90 pM. Notably, robust matrix tolerance was observed against major interferents such as proteins, fats, and polyphenols, due to the CuO NPs preferentially adsorbing these macromolecules and reducing their ionization efficiency, thus minimizing matrix-induced signal variation. With its "negligible background" characteristic, exceptional long-term stability (signal decay of only 8.81% after 12 months of storage), and high sensitivity, this work provides a robust SALDI-MS-based chemical sensing substrate for trace-level screening and offers new insights into the rational design of photothermal nanomaterials for advanced chemical sensing.

Nuclear batteries are emerging power devices that convert radioactive decay energy into electricity. In this study, we developed a six-layer AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure betavoltaic cell array by serially connecting six monocells on a single printed circuit board substrate, and a low-self-discharge Li-ion battery was integrated into the nuclear energy conversion and storage system. Through dual strategies of electrode modification and electrolyte optimization, we constructed an efficient hybrid energy conversion and storage system. To address self-discharge under microcurrent charging, two approaches were implemented: (1) constructing graphene-based conductive networks within LiCoO2 cathodes to reduce interfacial impedance via face-contact mechanisms, suppress Co3+ dissolution, and accelerate Li+ diffusion; (2) incorporating fumaronitrile additive into the electrolyte to preferentially form stable cathode electrolyte interphase films, thereby inhibiting electrolyte decomposition and metal-ion catalyzed side reactions. These strategies suppressed self-discharge via physical/chemical pathways.