Nanomaterial features a high surface area-to-volume ratio and strong surface effects, offering excellent performance in water treatment and broad application prospects. Incorporating nanoparticles into millimeter-scale hosts to prepare millimeter-sized nanocomposite materials can couple the high reactivity of nanoparticles with the easy operability of millimeter-scale hosts. This is an important technical approach to overcome the engineering application bottlenecks of nanomaterials, such as their tendency to agglomerate, low stability, potential environmental risks, and difficult separation. This review summarizes the preparation methods, structural characteristics, and adsorptive and catalytic oxidative removal of pollutants from aqueous systems by millimeter-sized nanocomposites. It elaborates on the confinement effects from the perspectives of confined growth of nanoparticles, confined adsorption properties, and confined catalytic oxidation properties, as well as the synergistic purification effect between the hosts and nanoparticles. Finally, the scientific issues and practical challenges that urgently need to be addressed in the development of millimeter-sized nanocomposites are discussed. We believe this review will provide theoretical guidance and technical references for promoting the practical applications of nanomaterials.

As a potent neurotoxin, methylmercury (MeHg) in the environment is primarily synthesized by anaerobic microorganisms such as methanogens, sulfate-reducing bacteria, and iron-reducing bacteria, which can bioaccumulate through aquatic trophic levels and affect human health. The identification of mercury methylation gene pair, i.e., hgcA and hgcB, not only broadens our understanding of potential mercury methylators but also opens up new avenues for investigating the molecular mechanism of biological mercury methylation. In this review, we outline the predicted structures of hgcA and hgcB genes and their expressed proteins HgcA and HgcB as well as their molecular role in mediating mercury methylation, discuss recent advances in environmental mercury methylation studies using hgcA and hgcB as biomarkers, summarize current limitations and challenges in hgcA and hgcB research, and prospect the research direction of mercury methylation gene field.

Chitosan has great potential in the fields of materials science and biomedicine because of its advantages such as coagulation, antibacterial, biocompatibility and biodegradation. This paper introduces the coagulation and bacteriostatic mechanism of chitosan, and lists the research progress of new dressings based on chitosan. According to the different morphology, the new dressings can be divided into the following types: fabric dressings based on chitosan, hydrogel dressings based on chitosan, spongy dressings based on chitosan, hydrocolloid dressings based on chitosan, asymmetric wettable dressings based on chitosan and frozen gel dressings based on chitosan. The experimental results of the new dressings based on chitosan in terms of antibacterial properties, in vitro coagulation properties, waterproof properties, breathable properties and mechanical properties were summarized. The application of new dressings based on chitosan in the treatment of diabetic foot ulcer, burn wound, inferior vena cava injury and endoscopic sinus surgery was summarized in detail. Finally, based on some problems existing in the new dressings based on chitosan (for example, the preparation process is greatly affected by the external environment conditions, some working mechanism of chitosan is still in the preliminary stage), the future development of the new dressings and their application are prospected.

The optoelectronic properties of organic luminescent materials are strongly correlated with the molecular structure, the flexibility of conformational change and the intermolecular interaction. From the perspective of structure, the carbonyl group and benzene ring of benzophenone have high chemical modifiability. In this paper, the chemical synthesis methods to produce multifunctional organic luminescent materials based on benzophenone framework in recent years are systematically reviewed, including three basic strategies: multiple substitution of benzophenone, using heteroatom as bridging group, vinyl coupling and direct coupling of benzene ring as the center. A variety of multifunctional organic luminescent materials based on this framework have been developed, including fluorescence materials, hosts of precious metal phosphorescence complex, thermally activated delayed fluorescence materials, aggregation-induced emission materials and pure organic room temperature phosphorescence materials. Finally, the development prospect of multi-functional organic luminescent materials based on benzophenone framework is prospected.

The liquid-liquid phase separation of biological macromolecules is widely observed in various biological systems, and has become an emerging research focus of life science in recent years. Biological macromolecules are continuously enriched through multivalent interaction. When the molecular concentration reaches the dissolution threshold in solution, they will be precipitated from solution in the form of liquid-liquid phase separation. It is closely related to many important biological processes in cells (such as the formation of membraneless organelles). With the deepening of research on phase separation, its research methods are also developing and improving. Based on the principle and characteristics of phase separation, this paper introduces some commonly used research methods of phase separation. It provides the method basis for the subsequent phase separation research and promotes the further development of phase separation techniques and methods.

Metals are recognized as essential cofactors in life processes and are fundamental elements in many key cellular processes. Metallomics, as an emerging research field, aims to understand and reveal the functions of bio-active metals and the molecular mechanisms of metal-based life processes, and the related studies have received growing attention due to its rapid development as a frontier science. In this review, we first introduce the concept of metallomics and the related research technologies, and focuses on an important research branch in this field, metalloproteomics, which aims to recognize the relationships between biometals and cellular proteins in a systematic manner. The development of this field has provided a number of practical research tools. We summarize and highlight the recent applications, major progress and important research findings of metallomics and metalloproteomics in biomedical research, which cover the studies of metals/metallodrugs uptake at the single-cell level, the distributions of metals/metallodrugs in cells, tissues and organs, the identification and characterization of intracellular metal-binding proteins, as well as the bioinformatics analysis of metalloproteins. Based on the current research status, the challenges and prospects of the applications of metallomics techniques in biomedical research are further discussed. Moreover, popularization of the metalloproteomics research would be an innovate and efficient way to obtain a complete understanding of the role of bioactive metals in cells. We believe that the development of new methodologies in metallomics and metalloproteomics, as well as the discovery of novel metal-related biological mechanisms will facilitate, support and expand the research perspectives in biomedicine and clinical research.

In recent years, the discovery of new drugs driven by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) has attracted much attention. Advanced artificial intelligence algorithms (machine learning and deep learning) have been gradually applied in various scenarios of new drug discovery, such as representation learning task (molecular descriptor), prediction task (drug target binding affinity prediction, crystal structure prediction and molecular basic properties prediction) and generation task (molecular conformation generation and drug molecular generation). This technology can significantly reduce the cost and time of new drug development, improve the efficiency of drug development, and reduce the costs and risks associated with preclinical and clinical trials. This review summarizes the application of advanced artificial intelligence technology in new drug discovery in recent years, to help understand the research progress and future development trend in this field, and to facilitate the discovery of innovative drugs.

In recent years, with the rapid advancement and large-scale application of lithium battery technology and electric vehicle, the market demand for lithium resource is growing sharply. However, due to insufficient mining degree and extraction technology, the total production capacity of ore lithium and brine lithium resources is far below the actual market demand. Extracting lithium from surface salt lake brine, deep brine and other liquid resources has the advantages of large resource potential and low extraction cost, which presents an important research direction in the lithium resource extraction field. Among available lithium extraction technologies, adsorption method is suitable for extracting lithium from low concentration and large volume liquid brine resources in China, and selective lithium ion adsorption materials are the core of adsorption method. In this review, we focus on the preparation and application of lithium ion selective adsorption materials for lithium extraction from brine. The preparation methods, adsorption properties and adsorption mechanisms of organic (crown ether), inorganic (aluminum-, manganese- and titanium-based adsorbents) and composite selective lithium adsorption materials are reviewed. This review provides a brief prospect for the design and development of new lithium adsorption materials, which may push forward the efficient extraction and utilization of lithium resources from salt lake brine.

Sodium-ion batteries have attracted ever-increasing attention in the fields of low-speed electric vehicles, and large-scale energy storage systems due to the advantages of abundant resources, low cost, high safety, and environmental friendliness. As one of the important components of sodium-ion batteries, the electrolyte is responsible for ion transfer between the cathode and the anode, which has a significant impact on cycle life, high-rate, safety, and self-discharge performance of sodium-ion batteries. However, it is difficult for sodium-ion batteries to perform well at low temperatures due to the decrease in ionic conductivity, the poor compatibility between the electrolyte and the electrode, the increase of desolvating power, and the poor properties of the electrode/electrolyte interphase. In this paper, the new understanding of the Na⁺ solvation structure in the electrolyte and the electrode/electrolyte interphase in recent years are summarized. And the design strategies of low-temperature electrolyte based on H-bond network breakdown, weak solvation, rapid reaction kinetics, and anion intervention are systematically analyzed. Finally, it is pointed out that the key to improving the low-temperature performance of sodium-ion batteries from the perspective of electrolyte is to understand the relationship between the Na⁺ solvation structure, the electrode/electrolyte interface properties, and the low-temperature performance of electrolyte.

Due to its strong surface activity, precipitation adsorption, redox and relatively excellent photocatalytic properties, pyrite has been widely used to treat heavy metals, organic pollutants and various inorganic salts in the polluted water. However, some inherent defects of pyrite, such as small specific surface area, high susceptibility to agglomeration, etc., limit its practical applications. Appropriate modification of pyrite via morphological adjustment, elemental doping, and material loading can improve the dispersion performance of particle size, expose more functional groups and increase electron transport rate to further modulate the related properties and enhance the wastewater treatment capacity of pyrite, In this article, we firstly introduce the basic information, the application and the mechanism of pyrite in wastewater treatment, and then describe the typical modification methods of pyrite and their corresponding strengthening mechanisms for treating wastewater. This article will provide a systematic introduction and outlook for the development of pyrite-based composite materials in the field of environmental treatment.