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The biodegradable nanoparticles hold tremendous potential in the field of nanomedicine because of the negligible toxicity concerns in healthy tissues/organs. We reported a simple route for the synthesis of pH-responsive biodegradable ZnO nanospheres (ZnO NSs) assembled from ultrasmall particles (sizes ranging from 4 to 8 nm, average 6 nm) with a suitable size. The nanoplatform could be responsively decomposed into small fragments under the weak acid environment to meet the requirement for pH-stimulus drug release and in favor of the biodegradation. The confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) studies showed that the ZnO NSs could be efficiently internalized by cancer cells, and the loaded doxorubicin (DOX) in the NSs could be successfully released under acidic intracellular environment. Notably, the cell viabilities of DOX-loaded NSs with different sizes towards HepG-2 and HeLa cells for different incubation time were investigated, which exhibited dose-dependent and time-dependent effects. Furthermore, in vivo experiments showed that the DOX-loaded NSs displayed a significant antitumor effect (79% average inhibition rate relative to the control group) without distinct side effects. All in all the designed NSs as drug delivery systems not only achieved the excellent cancer chemotherapy but also could be rapidly decomposed or metabolized to reduce their toxicity.

Maricite NaFePO4 (NFP) as cathode for sodium-ion batteries has attracted much attention because of the high theoretical capacity (155 mA h g−1) and simple synthetic process. However, electrochemically active maricite NFP is greatly dependent on the design of the nanostructure. Highly dispersed maricite NFP nanoclusters (NFPNCs) with ultrafine NFP@C subunits (3 nm) are designed and synthesized by a facile method. The unique ultrafine NFPNCs nanostructure makes electrochemically inactive maricite NFP change to highly active amorphous phase due to the ultrafine nanosize effect. The NFPNCs based cathode displays ultrahigh capacity (149.2 mA h g−1 at 0.2C), excellent rate performance (75.7 mA h g−1 at 50C) and superior cycling performance (91.3 mA h g−1 at 10C after 5000 cycles with 95.0% retention). Even at low temperature (-10 and −20 °C), the NFPNCs still exhibit 85.5% and 75.8% capacity retention at −10 and −20 °C, respectively, in comparison to that of 25 °C. Furthermore, when coupled with hard carbon anode, the fabricated sodium-ion full batteries also exhibit high capacity, splendid cycling and rate properties. The ultrafine NFP@C subunits shorten Na+/electron diffusion pathways and provide high electrical conductivity, leading to high rate property and outstanding low temperature application.

Although lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have high theoretical capacity and energy density, their practical applications have been hampered by the rapid decay of capacity caused by the shuttle effect of polysulfides. In this paper, we synthesize the MoS2/Ni3S2 yolk-shell heterostructure nanosphere (NS) and use it for the first time as the host material for Li-S batteries. The combination of yolk-shell structure and heterostructure enables MoS2/Ni3S2 NSs to have large sulfur storage space and abundant active sites, which can effectively capture polysulfides and dynamically promote the redox reaction. As the cathode of Li-S batteries, MoS2/Ni3S2@S exhibits excellent electrochemical performance and has an initial discharge capacity of 1445.4 mA h g−1 at 0.1 C. Moreover, the capacity of 739 mA h g−1 is maintained after 1000 cycles under 1 C, with an average coulomb efficiency is 97.4%. It can be seen that the multi-functional sulfur host material MoS2/Ni3S2 has great application prospects in Li-S batteries.

Co-delivery of hydrophilic/hydrophobic drugs in separate rooms and bimodal triggered drugs release from independent channels without mutual effect, coupled with multi-mode imaging are vitally significative for overcoming drug resistance and enhancing the therapeutic effects. Herein, we report the polydopamine@upconversion nanoparticle@mesoporous silica yolk-shell nanoparticles (PDA@UCNP@mSiO2 NPs) to simultaneously load the hydrophilic doxorubicin (DOX) and hydrophobic hydroxycamptothecin (HCPT) in their distinct domains for combinational chemotherapy. The oleic acid-coated UCNPs attaching onto the surface of polydopamine (PDA) exhibited the multi-mode upconversion luminescence (UCL)/computed tomography (CT)/magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and the hydrophobic environment held great ability for storage of the hydrophobic HCPT. While the mSiO2 shell was used for loading the hydrophilic DOX and ensuring the good water dispersibility of the NPs. Additionally, the NPs with near-infrared (NIR) excitation possessed an efficient photothermal efficiency of 31.1% achieving through the PDA. In a word, the resulted NPs were successfully employed for multi-mode imaging-guided synergistic dual drug chemo-photothermal therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma.

For the development of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, it is important to construct advanced host materials with large conductive, specific surface area and high activity exposed polar sites for adsorption of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs), which could promote uniform nucleation of lithium sulfide (Li2S) and liquid/solid conversion efficiency of sulfur species. Herein, we first reported the synthesis of ordered micro-mesoporous carbon (OMMC) nanospheres embedded with ultrafine iron carbide (Fe3C) nanocrystals by a facile one-step carbonizing process as effective sulfur host materials. As expected, the Fe3C/OMMC nanospheres (Fe3C/OMMC NSs) can realize homogeneous loading of sulfur, strong adsorption and catalysis of LiPSs with high efficiency, and promote uniform nucleation of Li2S through the ordered micro-mesoporous structures and ultrafine (average 5 nm) Fe3C nanocrystals. The Fe3C/OMMC-S NSs cathodes achieved excellent sulfur utilization, outstanding cyclic stability (700 mAh g−1 at 1.0 C after 1000 cycles with an ultralow capacity decay of 0.033% per cycle) and impressive rate performance (656 mAh g−1 at 5.0 C).

Elaborate design of multifunctional Janus nanoparticles (JNPs) with asymmetric compositions and independent functions has drawn extensive attention in biological fields. Here, a mild synthesis strategy is first explored for the preparation of spherical zeolitic imidazolate framework-8/polydopamine JNPs with hollow structure (H-ZIF-8/PDA JNPs). The resultant H-ZIF-8/PDA JNPs are further selectively functionalized on PDA sides with heptakis-(6-mercapto-6-deoxy)-β-cyclodextrin (CDs) to gain the capability of loading hydrophobic drug (H-ZIF-8/PDA-CD JNPs). Meanwhile, the ZIF-8 domains with hollow cavities can serve as reservoirs for loading hydrophilic drug molecules. Moreover, the pH-sensitive ZIF-8 and the strong near-infrared (NIR) absorption of PDA make the H-ZIF-8/PDA JNPs possess the conversion capacity from laser energy to heat and pH/NIR dual-responsive drug release behaviors. Besides, the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8), hemolysis and histological assays manifest the excellent biocompatibility of H-ZIF-8/PDA-CD JNPs. The therapeutic results in vitro and in vivo both reveal that the hydrophobic/hydrophilic drugs co-loaded H-ZIF-8/PDA-CD JNPs irradiated by 808 nm laser groups show the best therapeutic efficiency. Taken together, the H-ZIF-8/PDA-CD JNPs are capable of serving as promising platform for cancer treatment through collaborative photothermal and dual-drug chemical therapy.