The study of organoactinide compounds has become one of the hot fields in organometallic chemistry, which are extremely challenging on synthesis and separation, and the potential application of actinide-heterobimetal compounds lie in catalysis and small molecule activation. With the deep understanding of unique electronic structure and properties of actinide compounds, some progress has been made in actinide-heterobimetal compounds. This review summarizes the research results of actinide-heterobimetal compounds in the past 30 years, including experimental and theoretical studies on actinide-transition metal and actinide-main group metal systems.

As the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide(CO₂) has caused a series of environmental and energy-related problems worldwide. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a variety of methods to capture CO₂ and convert it into useful chemical products, thus effectively improving the environment and promoting sustainable development. In the past decades, metal-organic frameworks(MOFs) have shown prominent heterogeneous catalytic activity due to their multiple active sites, large BET surface area, structural diversity and easy functionalization. These characteristics endow MOFs catalysts with unique advantages in the field of CO₂ chemical fixation. The application of MOFs catalysts in organic synthesis involving CO₂, such as chemical reactions of CO₂ with epoxides, terminal alkynes, propargyl alcohol and propargyl amine are reviewed herein, and the structure-function relationship between the active sites within MOFs and catalytic performances are illustrated.

Heterocyclic compounds are widely present in natural products and drug molecules and many of them also have potential biological activities and pharmacological effects. Therefore, methodologies toward rapid and efficient construction of heterocyclic compound libraries have become one of the research hotspots in the fields of organic synthesis and pharmaceutical chemistry. Ugi reaction has unique advantages in diversity-oriented synthesis to generate a large number of target products with structural complexity. Meanwhile, Diels-Alder [4+2] cycloaddition reaction can efficiently form carbon-carbon bonds to access various heterocyclic rings with good stereo- and region-selectivity. Nowadays, Ugi/Diels-Alder tandem reaction, which combine merits of the two, presents enormous advantages and infinite potential in synthesis of heterocyclic compounds. In this paper, the recent advances in Ugi/Diels-Alder tandem reaction is summarized and reviewed according to the types of dienes in DA reactions, such as furan, pyrrole, thiophene, oxazole, 1,2,4-triazine, benzene, and unsaturated bond with aromatic ring.

The metalloregulatory protein is the metal-specific binding protein in microorganisms that tightly regulates the intake, efflux, and storage of the metal ions through the regulatory mechanism of transcriptional repression or activation, which is particularly important for the maintaining of suitable metal concentration and homeostasis. In this review, the regulatory mechanism and topological structure are summarized within the current seven major families of metalloregulatory proteins, and the structural feature and metal-ligand coordination geometry of metal-binding domain are also introduced in detail. Based on the metal-ligand coordination geometry, the mechanisms are discussed for the metal selectivity of metalloregulatory proteins. In addition, the applications of metalloregulatory proteins in metal-ion detection and adsorption are also introduced, which not only broadens the research and application areas of metalloregulatory proteins, but also exploits new direction for the bioinorganic chemistry research.

Circulating tumor DNA(ctDNA), the main item of liquid biopsy, is DNA fragments from tumor genome that carries certain characteristics(including single nucleotide variation, deletion, insertion, rearrangement, copy number variation, and methylation) in the human blood circulation system. It mainly originates from apoptotic or necrotic tumor cells. The detection and analysis of ctDNA can provide genomic information in tumors, such as copy number variation, single nucleotide mutation, and methylation enrichment across the genome. It has a certain correlation with tumor size and development and considered as an emerging and promising tumor biomarker for cancer progression, reoccurrence, and routine monitoring after surgery. Compared with other tumor markers, the isolation method is relatively simple due to the stability of ctDNA. However, the extremely low abundance of ctDNA, the high content of background cell free DNA(cfDNA), the large difference between individuals, and the need of predicted detection sites in advance make it necessary to analyze ctDNA in a comprehensive way. Herein, we summarize the recent progress on ctDNA detection from digital PCR to next generation sequencing, including some commercialized apparatuses and certain methods that have recently been developed.

Porous noble metal nanostructures are a class of new-type multi-functional nanostructures, which have unique optical, electrical and catalytic properties, due to their unique interior, porous walls and adjustable morphology. How to regulate the size, morphology, arrangement and spatial orientation of porous noble metal nanomaterials is critical for their applications in Raman spectroscopy, biosensing, etc. Some novel porous nanostructures, which are difficult to prepare by other methods, can be obtained easily by template methods. The synthesis of products can be guided by the pre-structures which match the nanoscale characteristics of target products. Based on the diversity of templates, the pore diameter, size and composition of porous noble metal nanostructures can be conveniently adjusted to fully develop the advantages of noble metals. In this review, we summarize a series of template methods for the synthesis of porous noble metal nanostructures, and the advantages and disadvantages of these methods are discussed. Furthermore, the applications of porous noble metal nanostructures in biological detection fields are also briefly discussed.

Given their high theoretical energy density and environment compatibility, lithium-air batteries have been considered as possible alternatives to current vehicles-used Li-ion batteries. Currently lithium-air batteries still have quite a few problems and challenges to overcome, as for cathode electrodes, the development of lithium-air battery technology is hindered by air electrode with improved activity. Thus, the preparation of the high-efficiency cathode materials is still challenging. As one of the most attractive cathode materials for lithium-air batteries, carbon-based catalysts(cathode materials) have received extensive attention and research in recent years. In this paper, based on the comprehensive analysis of our group’s achievements, the recent progress of cathode catalyst for non-aqueous lithium-air batteries is briefly introduced, including porous carbon-based materials, graphene-based materials, and doped carbon materials. In every section, we also attempt to propose the future development of carbon-based cathode materials for the next stage.

Recently, thin-film transistor(TFT), as the primary building blocks of active electronics, has been intensively studied, and considerable progress on its high performance material development and multifunctional application have been made. As an emerging additive preparation technology, inkjet printing has received wide attention in such preparation field as electronic functional devices because of its low cost, environmental friendliness and masklessness. In this paper, the materials system for inkjet printing TFT is summarized. According to the corresponding classification and function, the three materials systems including semiconductor, insulator and electrode are introduced in detail, respectively. The effect of the three materials on the performance of TFT devices is also analyzed in depth. The materials system for inkjet printing TFT is prospected, and these provide the future materials selection direction for inkjet printing high-performance TFT.

The surface design of biomedical materials is becoming more and more important in the fields of tissue engineering, biomedical devices, biosensing and detection, and biochips. In-depth understanding of the properties of materials, especially the surface properties, has a certain guiding role in the development of biomedical materials. Among various methods of surface modification based on biomaterials, photochemical modification is very simple and efficient, and has the advantages of spatiotemporal controllability and non-invasiveness. Based on this, in recent years, photochemical modification has become one of the hot research fields in the interface modification of biomaterials. This review first simply introduces the recent development of photochemical modification methods on biochemical surface, then mainly focuses on tissue regeneration materials(extracellular matrix biomimetic surfaces, stiffness-controllable hydrogel films, patterning and gradient surfaces, photo-responsive smart surfaces), 2D droplet microarrays surfaces, high-throughput biochip and other applications. Finally, this article points out the current shortcomings of photochemical surface modification and the future development trend of this field is also proposed.

Frequent marine oil spills accidents and the increasing discharge of various industrial sewage have caused great threats to the ecological environment and human health. Therefore, it’s a vitally important task for scientists all over the world to develop advanced materials for separating oil/water emulsions. The separation of oil/water emulsion(also known as emulsified oil/water) is more arduous than that of the immiscible oil/water mixture. This review focuses on the materials of oil/water emulsion separation. Firstly, the formation mechanism and the separation principle of oil/water emulsion are analyzed in essence, and we emphasize the importance of "size sieving" effect and membrane demulsification technology. Then, the latest developments of advanced materials which are commonly applied to the separation of oil/water emulsion are comprehensively introduced and discussed from the perspective of substrate, and the application of various modification methods of substrates in oil/water separation are elaborated. The emphases of material modification are "appropriate pore size" and "special wettability", which can meet excellent separation efficiency, permeability, antifouling ability, mechanical ability and durability requirements. These properties are critical for actual oil/water separation operations. Importantly, the environmental system will be getting more complicated in the future. Besides, most of the oil/water emulsions contain a variety of pollutants in the real environment, and most of them are operated in a harsh environment. Therefore, oil/water separation materials need to be constantly improved to meet these conditions. We believe that in the future, an advanced multifunctional material, which can be used for efficient separation of various oil/water emulsions and other impurities under harsh conditions, will possess great prospects.