Photocatalysis is an attractive technology for clean energy production and environmental pollution prevention, which is of significant importance in promoting the realization of “carbon peaking and carbon neutral” in the future and adjusting the energy structure of China. However, among the various photocatalytic materials, bismuth-based catalysts with layered structures are of considerable attention in the field of photocatalysis owing to their suitable band gap. However, the photocatalytic activity of bismuth-based catalysts is limited by the lower separation and transport efficiency of carriers. This paper provides a summary of the strategies to enhance the photogenerated carrier separation and transport efficiency of bismuth-based catalysts through surface interface modulation, including morphology modulation, defect engineering, heteroatom doping and heterostructure construction. Particularly, the mechanism of the above strategies for improving the strength of the built-in electric field of bismuth-based catalysts, constructing efficient internal carrier transport channels and prolonging carrier lifetime is analyzed from the perspective of electronic structure and geometry. It provides a theoretical reference for further research on the design of catalysts with high carrier separation and transport efficiency. Finally, we analyzed the specific reasons for the improvement of carrier separation and transport efficiency by different surface interface strategies and the challenges and development prospects of bismuth-based catalysts in industrial applications.

Hyaluronic acid is one of the primary components of the natural extracellular matrix, which has outstanding biocompatibility, biodegradability and excellent water retention capacity. Hyaluronic acid based micro- and nanogels have many desirable features of size adjustability, easy modification, deformability and structural integrity. They can not only meet most application requirements of bulk hydrogels, but also possess unique advantages due to small dimension, thus have been widely researched and used in biomedical field. This paper reviews the preparation methods and biomedical applications of hyaluronic acid based micro- and nanogels, and the future development of it is prospected.

As the material basis of active substances and life activities in living organisms, peptides and proteins play vital roles in basic physiological processes such as signal transmission, energy utilization, immune response, etc. And they are closely related to the occurrence of a variety of diseases. An important prerequisite for studying their structure and biological function and developing related drugs is to obtain a certain number of high pure peptides and proteins. The sources of natural peptides and proteins mainly include tissues and organs of animals and plants, secondary metabolites of microorganisms, etc. Natural extraction, recombinant technology, and chemical synthesis are the main methods to obtain peptides and proteins. Chemical synthesis can conveniently introduce unnatural amino acids or specific types of post-translational modification groups at any site of peptides and proteins compared with the former two, such as glycosylation, phosphorylation, fluorophores, and photorelinking reaction groups, which has greatly promoted the application and development of peptides and proteins in the field of medicine research. This review comprehensively introduces the various chemical synthesis strategies of peptides and proteins, along with the basic principles, advantages and disadvantages, and application values, aiming to provide a novel sight for synthesizing peptides and proteins.

Metal oxides have been widely investigated in experimental and industrial catalysis due to their excellent activity, selectivity and stability in many important reactions, especially in some redox reactions, such as CO₂ reduction, water-gas shift (WGS) reaction, reduction of nitrogen, oxygen evolution reaction. It has been proved that metal oxides usually contain many defects, which are the active sites in catalytic reactions, and oxygen vacancies (OVs) are one of the most representative species among them. OVs affect crystal structure and electronic structure of the materials, thus affecting the catalytic activity, so they have great significance to be studied. In this review, we firstly introduce the classification and regulation strategies of OVs based on the formation of them in metal oxides. Secondly, the characteristics and mechanisms of OVs in thermocatalysis, electrocatalysis and photocatalysis were discussed. Finally, the potential applications and future challenges were summarized and prospected.

Wet adhesion plays an important role in the gestation and development of life. The research shows that hydrogel is a kind of intelligent material with both solid and liquid properties. They have been widely used in such areas as wound closure and repair, cell engineering and tissue engineering, owing to their noteworthy versatility and bio-compatibility. However, the physiological environment is usually wet, and the hydration layer on wet tissue surface prevents hydrogel from forming interfacial adhesion bonds with tissue surface. Faced with this challenge, inspired by the fact that the catechol group of DOPA is critical group for the underwater adhesion of mussels, the structure and functional unit design of catechol hydrogel have attracted wide attention. This review introduces the structure and wet adhesion mechanism of mussel foot proteins (Mfps), and the main types of catechol derivatives are classified into natural Mfps or Mfps synthesized by genetic engineering, catechol small molecular compounds, natural polymers modified by catechol groups and synthesized functional polymers containing catechol groups. Nextly, the research progress of catechol hydrogel as wet tissue adhesive in the past decade is summarized, such as tissue wound repair materials, biological coating materials, targeted drug delivery materials and bioelectronic equipment materials. Finally, the opportunities and challenges of catechol hydrogel are prospected.

The rapid application of big data and artificial intelligence, and the deep intersection of machine learning (ML) and chemistry disciplines have inspired more promising development approaches for the integration of ML technology with battery materials, especially in the material design of battery, performance prediction, structure optimization, and so on. The application of ML can effectively accelerate the selection process of battery materials and predict the performance of lithium batteries (LBs), consequently driving the development of LBs. This review briefly introduces the basic idea of ML and several important ML algorithms in the field of LBs, then the error performance and analysis of the traditional simulation calculation method and ML method are discussed, thereby increasing understanding of ML methods by LBs experts. Secondly, the application of ML in the practical development of battery materials, including cathode materials, electrolytes, multi-scale simulation of materials and high-throughput experiments (HTE), is emphatically introduced to draw out the ideas and means of applying ML methods in the field of batteries. Finally, the recent works of ML in lithium batteries are summarized and their application prospects are foreseen. It is hoped that this review will shed light on the application of ML in the development of LBs and promote the development of advanced LBs.

Levulinic acid is important biomass-derived compounds, and catalytic conversion of them to γ-valerolactone (GVL) over heterogeneous bifunctional catalysts has become a hot focus in the field of biorefining. In this paper, the direct hydrogenation of levulinic acid and its esters to GVL catalyzed by noble and non-noble metal bifunctional catalysts, and the transfer hydrogenation of levulinic acid and its esters to GVL catalyzed by the bifunctional catalysts, such as metal-supported catalysts, modified zeolite, and mixed metal oxides, are reviewed. Conversion of levulinic acid and its esters to GVL over bifunctional catalysts involves two steps, including hydrogenation of carbonyl group and subsequent lactonization reaction. In addition, the importance of active sites of various bifunctional catalysts in conversion of levulinic acid and its esters is studied in this paper, and the advantages and problems of different catalysts during the conversion of levulinic acid/esters are discussed. Finally, the development of bifunctional catalysts and the synthesis of GVL in the future are prospected.

At present, ecological pollution and energy shortage have become global problems threatening human survival. Green and low energy consumption photocatalytic technology is of strategic significance to solve environmental disaster and energy crisis. As a ternary Aurivillius compound, Bi₂MoO₆ has attracted extensive attention of researchers due to its unique layered structure. However, the high carrier recombination rate limits its application in photocatalysis. This paper summarizes the strategies for modifying the performance of Bi₂MoO₆ based photocatalysts, such as surface structure tuning, defect engineering, metal deposition, heterojunction fabrication and photosensitization treatment. In many modification strategies, the influence of the construction of Bi₂MoO₆ based heterojunction on the photocatalytic performance has been mainly discussed. Finally, the current challenges faced by Bi₂MoO₆ based photocatalyst in photocatalysis technology are summarized, and the future development prospects are given, providing new ideas for accelerating the development of Bi₂MoO₆ based photocatalyst.

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in mobile electronic products, electric vehicles, energy storage systems, aerospace and other fields due to their high energy and power density, long life and no memory effect. However, in recent years, the frequent safety accidents of electric vehicles and energy storage systems related to battery thermal runaway have attracted high attention. The high safety of high energy density batteries is the primary guarantee to promote the large-scale application of batteries, and the research on the characteristics of battery heat generation, thermal runaway mechanism, protection and suppression methods has become a hot topic in the field of battery thermal safety research in recent years. Therefore, the core issues in the field of battery thermal safety are comprehensively reviewed in this paper. Firstly, the thermal generation characteristics of the battery under normal conditions, the thermal runaway chain exothermic reaction and the failure mechanism of the battery under three kinds of abuse conditions are discussed; Secondly, the mechanistic equation, construction, application and evolution of the electrochemical-thermal coupling model and thermal runaway model are described; and then, the research progress of anode and cathode materials, separator, electrolyte and current collector safety modification technology are introduced; finally, this paper makes a prospect for the research trend in this field to provide ideas and directions for improving the intrinsic safety of lithium-ion batteries and preventing thermal runaway.

Electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction (ECR) is an environmentally friendly energy conversion method that can convert CO₂ into various high value-added fuels or chemicals. However, it usually is subject to low catalytic activity, low selectivity and low macrocyclic stability at high current densities. Benefitting from the advantages of high selectivity, high catalytic activity and high atom utilization, single atom catalysts show great potential in ECR process. Therefore, how to design single atom catalysts with high activity, high selectivity and high macrocyclic stability has become a research hot issue in this field. This paper reviews the research progress of a series of single atom catalysts in electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction at high current densities, and focuses on the activity regulation mechanisms, product selectivity regulation mechanisms and macrocyclic stability regulation mechanisms to enhance the ECR performance of single atom catalysts, which provides ideas for the systematic design and synthesis of ECR single atom catalysts. The opportunities and challenges of ECR single atom catalysts are prospected.