Chiral self-assembly of peptides is an important way to prepare chiral nanomaterials, including nanohelices, nanotubes and chiral hydrogels. The self-assembled chiral nanomaterials with unique biological and optical activities have important applications in the fields of biology, chemistry, medicine and materials science. Although many chiral nanomaterials have been designed and synthesized based on the self-assembly of peptides, the precise control of their chiral assembly process and their chirality is still a challenge. This paper focuses on the design of peptide molecules and the regulation strategies for peptide chiral self-assembly, including the regulation of internal factors such as the amino acid sequences and configuration of polypeptide molecules, and the regulation of external factors such as pH, solvents and additives. Moreover, the applications of peptide-based chiral nanomaterials in the fields of chiral catalysis, chiral sensing, template synthesis and chiroptics are also reviewed.

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) has attracted huge attention recently due to its high energy conversion efficiency, low operating temperature and environmental benign. With the launch of the Mirai fuel cell electric vehicle by Toyota in 2014, a new wave of industrialization of fuel cells and fuel cell vehicles has been brought about. However, enhancing the durability of PEMFC and developing a new generation of membrane electrode assembly(MEA) and fuel cells are still challenging topics in the field. The MEA is the core component of PEMFC, and its durability directly determines the life of the fuel cell. The MEA is mainly composed of a proton exchange membrane, anode and cathode catalyst layers and gas diffusion layers on both sides. In last decade, great efforts have been paid to improving the durability of MEAs/PEMFCs from three aspects, membrane, catalyst layer and gas diffusion layer. In this paper, we introduce these research works systematically, and a review and prospect for the research and development of this topic in the future is also made.

Controlled drug release systems can ameliorate the release, absorption, metabolism and excretion of drug molecules in the body, significantly improve drug utilization and reduce the side effects of drugs. Intelligent-responsive hydrogels have been extensively studied for controlled drug release carriers due to their responsiveness, hydrophilicity, good biocompatibility and non-toxicity. In this paper, the research progress of the intelligent-responsive hydrogels-based controlled drug release systems is summarized in detail, including the conception, mechanism and applications. According to the kinds of external stimuli, the intelligent-responsive hydrogels-based controlled drug release systems can be classified into pH-responsive, temperature-responsive, light-responsive, glucose-responsive, enzyme-responsive, electric field-responsive, magnetic field-responsive, pressure-responsive, redox-responsive and multiple-responsive hydrogels-based controlled drug release systems. The applications of the intelligent-responsive hydrogels-based controlled drug release systems in treating diseases, such as cancer, acute kidney injury, eye diseases, diabetes and its complications, and antibiotic treatments for preventing wound infection are further briefly described. Then, the problems of the intelligent-responsive hydrogels-based controlled drug release systems researches, such as poor biocompatibility, burst release or stagnant release, and non-degradability, are analyzed. Finally, the future development of the intelligent-responsive hydrogel-based controlled drug release systems is prospected.

As a continuous ion exchange process, ion exchange membrane(IEM) process has many advantages in terms of green, sustainability, cost and pollution free. The latest applications and current progress of emerging ion exchange membrane process-based zero liquid discharge(ZLD) technology for saline wastewater, such as selectrodialysis, electrodialysis metathesis and reverse electrodialysis, are summarized from the view of some elementary factors(configurations, working mechanism, etc.), by considering the key issues of ZLD process, i.e., huge energy waste, easy scaling and difficult salts separating. The integrations with other separation technologies are introduced and summarized specifically. The review has made a generalization and summarization of the previous works in order to provide some reference for the future works in ZLD progress.

Rare earth fluoride upconversion nanomaterials have immense potential applications for biological imaging and photothermal therapy, biosensing, solar cell and anti-counterfeiting technology, due to its high chemical stability, large anti-stokes shifts, no photobleaching, long fluorescence life, narrow emission band and deep penetration, which is a promising fluorescent material. However,such materials are limited in practical application due to their low upconversion luminescence efficiency and small absorption cross-section of activator. Based on the above problems, upconversion luminescence enhancement of rare earth doped fluoride materials such as ion co-doping, core shell structure, surface plasmon coupling, photonic crystal, broadband sensitization and thermal effect are expounded herein, and the mechanisms of enhancement of upconversion luminescence are analyzed. In addition, the research status in the fields of biological imaging and photothermal therapy, biosensing, solar cell and anti-counterfeiting technology is elaborated. Moreover, the limitations and development directions for future are also prospected.

Boron, the only non-metallic element in the third main group, has special electron-deficient properties, which results in a complex bonding mechanism. It has both the normal two-center-two-electron bonds and the multi-center-two-electron bonds for keeping balance of the electron distribution of the system, which makes it have a wide variety of allotropes. In contrast to the bulk counterparts, low-dimensional boron nanostructures have unique structures and special properties, so they have attracted extensive interests in recent years. In this paper, we systematically introduce the theoretical and experimental progress on zero-dimensional boron clusters, one-dimensional boron nanotubes/nanowires and two-dimensional boron nanostructures. The structure, properties and potential applications of the boron nanostructures have been summarized and discussed. Although, there are still great challenges in the controllable preparation and stability of the nanostructures, they will be expected to have exceptionally inherent properties to make them play an important role in the future nano-devices and electrochemical catalysis.

The current situation of energy and environment makes it urgent to develop a new generation of intelligent building windows with energy-saving features to effectively reduce building energy consumption. Thermochromic materials can change their optical characteristics according to changes in external temperature, and intelligently adjust the solar radiation energy entering the room without consuming other energy sources, which makes it a great potential application in building energy conservation. In recent years, an increasing number of research works in regard to thermochromic materials have been carried out, including hydrogels, ionic liquids, perovskites, metamaterials, liquid crystals and VO₂. Among them, VO₂ is one of the ideal candidates because its transmittance decreases obviously in the near infrared region before and after the phase transition and remains unchanged in the visible light range. This review outlines the principles, construction methods, and recent progress in thermochromic smart window coating related materials. Firstly, the structural characteristics, phase transition mechanism and research progress of various thermochromic materials are introduced in detail. Then, taking VO₂ as a vital example, the surface engineering design and optimization of smart window coating is clarified and the influence of different construction methods on optical performance is discussed deeply. Finally, the challenges and future development direction of thermochromic smart coatings is presented.

MXene, the latest 2D transition metal carbides/carbonitrides/nitrides, has exerted a great influence in the fields of physics, chemistry, material science and nanotechnology. It is an important and increasingly popular category for photocatalysis because of the advantages including hydrophilia, visible-light response, high specific surface area and abundant active sites with —OH or —F terminal during preparation. This review provides an overview of the latest progress of MXenes and its composites in the field of photocatalysis research. Firstly, we give a brief introduction of the synthesis, structure and fundamental properties, methodologies of MXenes and emphasize its composites and the corresponding photocatalysis mechanisms. Then we list the important roles in photocatalytic oxidation and reduction it plays, and forecast the development and potential applications of MXenes.

In comparison with mononuclear metal catalysts in olefin polymerization, bimetallic catalysts having two active species significantly affect catalytic activities and properties of resulting polyolefins(such as microstructure of polymer, molecular weight and polydispersity). Herein we highlight the recent progress of bimetallic catalysts in ethylene polymerization and co-polymerization, which have been illustrated through the differences of metals used either early transition metals(Zr, Ti, Hf) or late transition metals(Ni, Fe, Co), and the varieties of ligands including constrained-geometry catalyst(CGC), phenoxyimines, azaallyl, a-diimines as well as iminopyridines. On the basis of these results, the early-transition metal catalysts have achieved not only homo-polymerization of ethylene but also co-polymerization of ethylene with α-olefin, while the late transition metal catalysts catalyze efficiently polymerization of ethylene, resulting in highly linear polyethylene by iron and cobalt catalysts or higher branched polyethylenes by nickel catalysts.

Environmental endocrine disruptors(EEDs) have very serious harms to human health and ecological environment, thus it is of great significance to develop efficient technologies to detect and remove EEDs in real environmental samples. Due to their traits of high adsorption selectivity, large adsorption ability and good regeneration ability, molecularly imprinted polymers(MIPs) have become more and more important in the applications of detection and removal of EEDs. In this paper, the features of EEDs and their application in our daily life, in industries and other aspects are introduced. And also the characteristics, preparation methods and performance characteristics of MIPs are described. In addition, the applications of MIPs based on solid phase extraction(SPE) method and sensor technology in the sensitive and specific detection of the low background concentration EEDs, and also the applications of MIPs based on adsorption technology and other hyphenated techniques in the selective, fast and efficient removal of EEDs, are reviewed. Furthermore, the study work of our laboratory in this respect are presented in this review. Last but not least, the problems in the synthesis and use of MIPs are also analyzed in detail, and the applications of MIPs in the future are prospected.