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As the new green solvent, the ionic liquid is widely used in separation, synthesis, electrochemistry, and catalysis research. Accompanied by the oil sulfur content, high standards, and strict requirements, how to achieve deep desulfurization has become a challenge that refineries must face. To comprehensively understand the ionic liquids for oil desulfurization research, 848 papers from 2008 to 2023 are used as research data in this paper. Visualization and analysis were carried out with the help of bibliometric methods. The study found that Chinese publications are in the first position, and literature on this topic shows a more apparent geographical trend. Ionic liquids are currently used in oil desulfurization mainly as catalysts or extractants and are widely used in extractive desulfurization and oxidative desulfurization technologies for fuel oils. Future development may include new ionic liquids research and desulfurization effect performance, polymetallic oxides and ionic liquids fusion research, and research on desulfurization of novel materials similar to ionic liquids such as deep eutectic solvents.

Luminescent gold nanoparticles (L-AuNPs) with diameters exceeding 2 nm hold great promise for biomedical imaging due to their unique optical properties and excellent biocompatibility. However, they typically exhibit weak photoluminescence (PL) because of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effects. Moreover, conventional synthesis of L-AuNPs, often through thermal or chemical reduction, tends to be complex and labor-intensive. It is crucial, therefore, to develop more straightforward synthesis methods that enhance PL emission efficiency. Herein, we introduce a facile photochemical method for synthesizing highly luminescent AuNPs coated with 2-n-hexylthio-1,3,4-thiadiazole-5-thiol (L-AuNP@HTT). These nanoparticles, with a diameter of 3.19 nm, exhibit outstanding optical properties, including a high quantum yield (φ~ 12%), an extremely long luminescence lifetime (~ 1 µs), a symmetric PL spectrum, and a narrow full width at half maximum (FWHM ≤ 49 nm). They also feature an exceptionally large two-photon absorption cross-section (σ), reaching up to 8.0 × 104GM (1 GM = 10−50cm4s photon−1). Upon encapsulation in a polymer matrix (p-AuNPs), the TPA cross-sections were further enhanced to 1.1 × 108GM. These p-AuNPs demonstrated high photostability and efficient targeting to mitochondria, making them highly effective for mitochondrial-targeted two-photon excited luminescence (TPEL) imaging. Deep-tissue time-gated TPEL imaging and in vivo computed tomography (CT) imaging have also been achieved with p-AuNPs. This work establishes a straightforward synthesis route for highly luminescent gold nanoparticles larger than 2 nm, significantly broadening their potential in various bioimaging applications.

Graphitic carbon nitride (CN) has attracted much attention in photocatalytic fields due to its unique electronic band structure. However, the rapid recombination of photogenerated carriers severely inhibits its catalytic activity. The heterojunction structure has been widely confirmed to significantly improve the photocatalytic activity of CN through the formed interface structure. However, researchers often give attention to the band matching and conductivity of the cocatalyst, while the importance of the interface as a migration channel for photogenerated carriers is often overlooked. In this work, we adopt the strategy of morphology engineering to regulate the morphology of the CN photoactive component so as to achieve the interface optimization of the traditional heterojunction structure. The photocatalytic degradation experiment of rhodamine B shows that compared with the traditional CeO2@CN heterojunction structure, the photocatalytic activity of the interface-optimized CeO2/CN is increased by more than 20%. The following points could be used to explain the improvement of photocatalytic activity: (I) the formed S-scheme heterojunction structure, which inhibits the recombination of useful electrons and holes but expedites the recombination of relatively useless electrons and holes, (II) the increased interface area, which provides more carrier migration channels, and (III) the reduced interface contact resistance, which facilitates the separation and migration of photogenerated carriers. Furthermore, the interface optimization of the traditional Al2O3@CN and Fe2O3@CN heterojunction structures also achieved consistent results. This shows that the strategy in this work is a universal method for interface optimization, which provides potential alternative for further improving the catalytic activity of other heterojunction composites.

Photocatalytic water splitting holds huge potential to meet the current challenges of energy and environments. Among them, polymeric carbon nitride (CN) has drawn much attention as a promising metal-free photocatalyst. As it is known, a number of promising co-catalysts have been developed to improve catalytic reactions, Pt nanoparticles is still among the best co-catalysts for CN in photocatalytic H2evolution, due to the suitable Fermi level to transfer excited electrons and the low overpotential for H2reduction. Herein, we report the interface engineering of urea-derived bulk CN and Pt co-catalyst by using a small portion of N-doped carbon (N-C) as a transition layer with a boosted photocatalytic activity up to 7 times. It was revealed that the activation energy of the Pt co-catalyst for water reduction was lowered in the presence of N-C, and the intimate interaction between CN and N-C, ascribing to the similar elemental composition and crystal structure, promoted the efficient separation and migration of charge carriers. This study may open a new avenue to develop CN-based photocatalysts for solar fuel conversion with even higher activity by photocatalyst/co-catalyst interface engineering.

Herein, we report the self-sacrificial template strategy to design mesoporous layered CeVWOx/TiO2catalysts for the selective catalytic reduction of NO by NH3(NH3-SCR). As-fabricated CeVWOx/TiO2catalysts with unique mesoporous and layered structure were successfully prepared through the synthesis of Ce,Ti-MOFs by solvothermal method, the impregnation of vanadium and tungsten in Ce,Ti-MOFs and high temperature calcination process. As NH3-SCR catalysts, well-designed CeVWOx/TiO2catalysts exhibit excellent SCR activity with the NOxconversion of over 90% between 210 and 470 °C. Meanwhile, CeVWOx/TiO2shows superior tolerance to water vapor and SO2. The features of unique mesoporous layered nanostructure, surface acidity, tunable reducibility, active and the strong interaction of active metal oxide and support in CeVWOx/TiO2nanosheets should contribute to the improved SCR performance. In situdiffuse reflection infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) analysis indicates that both Langmuir–Hinshelwood (L-H) and Eley-Rideal (E-R) mechanisms are present on the surface of CeVWOx/TiO2at low temperature. This work offers a facile strategy to design and fabricate efficient 2D deNOxcatalyst.

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Responsive assembly of 2D materials is of great interest for a range of applications. In this work, interfacial functionalized carbon nitride (CN) nanofibers were synthesized by hydrolyzing bulk CN in sodium hydroxide solution. The reversible assemble and disassemble behavior of the as-prepared CN nanofibers was investigated by using CO2as a trigger to form a hydrogel network at first. Compared to the most widespread absorbent materials such as active carbon, graphene and previously reported supramolecular gel, the proposed CN hydrogel not only exhibited a competitive absorbing capacity (maximum absorbing capacity of methylene blue up to 402 mg/g) but also overcame the typical deficiencies such as poor selectivity and high energy-consuming regeneration. This work would provide a strategy to construct a 3D CN network and open an avenue for developing smart assembly for potential applications ranging from environment to selective extraction.

Polymeric carbon nitride (CN) has recently emerged as a novel metal-free semiconductor due to its unique electronic structure, wide availability, and promising applications in photoelectrochemical solar energy conversion. However, few works regarding CN photoelectrode optimization such as by minimization of unwanted grain boundary effects have been reported, which would greatly influence the photoelectrochemcial conversion efficiency. Herein, three general ways of preparing CN photoelectrode are presented and compared, including drop-casting of CN particles, or further blendeding with Nafion or PEDOT–PSS as the binder. In addition, the influences of CN particle sizes (0.5, 1.1, and 3.2 μm) and the film thickness (i.e., the loading amount) to the overall photoelectrochemcial activity were also evaluated in detail. As a result, when PEDOT–PSS acted as binder, CN particles with size of 0.5 μm and an optimal loading amount (2.4 mg/cm2) were adopted; the as-prepared CN photoelectrode had much superior photoelectrochemical activity than all other counterparts. Therefore, this study would pave the way for preparing CN photoelectrode of superior quality so as to promote CN materials to be better applied in solar fuel and sensing applications.

Hematite (α-Fe2O3) crystals with uniform size and structure are synthesized through very facile one-pot hydrothermal methods without any additive. The as-synthesized sub-micrometer-sized α-Fe2O3crystals with small surface areas perform superb visible light photodegradation activities, even much better than most other α-Fe2O3nanostructures with large surface areas. Profound mechanism analyses reveal that the microwave-assisted hydrothermal (Mic-H) synthesized α-Fe2O3is enclosed by 12 high-index {2-15} facets. The structure and the low unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of the high-index planes result in the excellent photocatalytic activity. This is the first report on the formation of {2-15} plane group of hematite, and the synthesis of the hematite particles with the {2-15} planes is very simple and no any facet-controlling agent is used. This study may pave the way to further performance enhancement and practical applications of the cheap hematite materials.

An efficient light-induced photothermal synergistic strategy was proposed to achieve efficient photocatalytic degradation of gaseous formaldehyde based on an innovative 0D/2D S-scheme CeO2/CN heterojunction. The S-scheme photocatalyst shows excellent photocatalytic formaldehyde degradation activity under visible light irradiation, which can be attributed to the synergistic effect of the following aspects: (I) the S-scheme heterojunction: photogenerated carriers with stronger redox ability; (II) the increased interface migration channel and reduced interface contact resistance facilitated the migration and separation of photogenerated carriers; (III) light-induced photothermal effect improved the temperature of photocatalyst. The optimal photocatalytic HCHO degradation rate of the S-scheme CeO2/CN-1:1is 20.3, 4.7 and 1.8 times that of CN, CN-1:1and traditional type-II CeO2@CN-1:1, respectively. Therefore, this work not only provides an efficient strategy for elimination of formaldehyde pollutants, but also provides new ideas for the design of efficient photocatalysts for other kinds of VOCs pollutants in the future.

Summary Group transfer polymerization of acrylonitrile was conducted in bulk at room temperature with 1,1,3-trimethyl-5-methylen-2, 6-dioxa-1-silacyclohexen (TMDSCH) as the initiator and tetrabutylammonium bibenzoate (TBABB) as the catalyst. The experimental results showed that the new GTP initiator gave polyacrylonitrile in fairly good yields with well control of the molecular weight and polydispersity.