Hollow micro-/nanostructures are of great interest in many current and emerging areas of technology. Perhaps the best-known example of the former is the use of fly-ash hollow particles generated from coal power plants as partial replacement for Portland cement, to produce concrete with enhanced strength and durability. This review is devoted to the progress made in the last decade in synthesis and applications of hollow micro-/nanostructures. We present a comprehensive overview of synthetic strategies for hollow structures. These strategies are broadly categorized into four themes, which include well-established approaches, such as conventional hard-templating and soft-templating methods, as well as newly emerging methods based on sacrificial templating and template-free synthesis. Success in each has inspired multiple variations that continue to drive the rapid evolution of the field. The Review therefore focuses on the fundamentals of each process, pointing out advantages and disadvantages where appropriate. Strategies for generating more complex hollow structures, such as rattle-type and nonspherical hollow structures, are also discussed. Applications of hollow structures in lithium batteries, catalysis and sensing, and biomedical applications are reviewed.

Hollow Micro-/Nanostructures: Synthesis and Applications**

The term photonic crystals appears because of the analogy between electron waves in crystals and the light waves in artificial periodic dielectric structures. During the recent years the investigation of one-, two-and three-dimensional periodic structures has attracted a widespread attention of the world optics community because of great potentiality of such structures in advanced applied optical fields. The interest in periodic structures has been stimulated by the fast development of semiconductor technology that now allows the fabrication of artificial structures, whose period is comparable with the wavelength of light in the visible and infrared ranges.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/6354/16969/00781867.pdf

Photonic crystals

Graphene, a two-dimensional, single-layer sheet of sp(2) hybridized carbon atoms, has attracted tremendous attention and research interest, owing to its exceptional physical properties, such as high electronic conductivity, good thermal stability, and excellent mechanical strength. Other forms of graphene-related materials, including graphene oxide, reduced graphene oxide, and exfoliated graphite, have been reliably produced in large scale. The promising properties together with the ease of processibility and functionalization make graphene-based materials ideal candidates for incorporation into a variety of functional materials. Importantly, graphene and its derivatives have been explored in a wide range of applications, such as electronic and photonic devices, clean energy, and sensors. In this review, after a general introduction to graphene and its derivatives, the synthesis, characterization, properties, and applications of graphene-based materials are discussed.

Graphene-Based Materials: Synthesis, Characterization, Properties, and Applications

Molecular imprinting technology (MIT), often described as a method of making a molecular lock to match a molecular key, is a technique for the creation of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) with tailor-made binding sites complementary to the template molecules in shape, size and functional groups. Owing to their unique features of structure predictability, recognition specificity and application universality, MIPs have found a wide range of applications in various fields. Herein, we propose to comprehensively review the recent advances in molecular imprinting including versatile perspectives and applications, concerning novel preparation technologies and strategies of MIT, and highlight the applications of MIPs. The fundamentals of MIPs involving essential elements, preparation procedures and characterization methods are briefly outlined. Smart MIT for MIPs is especially highlighted including ingenious MIT (surface imprinting, nanoimprinting, etc.), special strategies of MIT (dummy imprinting, segment imprinting, etc.) and stimuli-responsive MIT (single/dual/multi-responsive technology). By virtue of smart MIT, new formatted MIPs gain popularity for versatile applications, including sample pretreatment/chromatographic separation (solid phase extraction, monolithic column chromatography, etc.) and chemical/biological sensing (electrochemical sensing, fluorescence sensing, etc.). Finally, we propose the remaining challenges and future perspectives to accelerate the development of MIT, and to utilize it for further developing versatile MIPs with a wide range of applications (650 references).

http://ir.yic.ac.cn/bitstream/133337/17045/1/Molecular%20imprinting%20perspectives%20and%20applications.pdf

Molecular imprinting: perspectives and applications

Molecular imprinting technology (MIT) concerns formation of selective sites in a polymer matrix with the memory of a template. Recently, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have aroused extensive attention and been widely applied in many fields, such as solid-phase extraction, chemical sensors and artificial antibodies owing to their desired selectivity, physical robustness, thermal stability, as well as low cost and easy preparation. With the rapid development of MIT as a research hotspot, it faces a number of challenges, involving biological macromolecule imprinting, heterogeneous binding sites, template leakage, incompatibility with aqueous media, low binding capacity and slow mass transfer, which restricts its applications in various aspects. This critical review briefly reviews the current status of MIT, particular emphasis on significant progresses of novel imprinting methods, some challenges and effective strategies for MIT, and highlighted applications of MIPs. Finally, some significant attempts in further developing MIT are also proposed (236 references).

http://ir.yic.ac.cn/bitstream/133337/4853/1/Recent%20advances%20in%20molecular%20imprinting%20technology%20current%20status%2c%20challenges%20and%20highlighted%20applications.pdf

Recent advances in molecular imprinting technology: current status, challenges and highlighted applications

A new “turn on” fluorescence nanosensor for selective Hg2+ determination is reported based on bis(dithiocarbamato)copper(II) functionalized carbon nanodots (CuDTC2-CDs). The CuDTC2 complex was conjugated to the prepared amine-coated CDs by the condensation of carbon disulfide onto the nitrogen atoms in the surface amine groups, followed by the coordination of copper(II) to the resulting dithiocarbamate groups (DTC) and finally by the additional coordination of ammonium N-(dithicarbaxy) sarcosine (DTCS) to form the CuDTC2-complexing CDs. The CuDTC2 complex at surface strongly quenched the bright-blue fluorescence of the CDs by a combination of electron transfer and energy transfer mechanism. Hg2+ could immediately switch on the fluorescence of the CuDTC2-CDs by promptly displacing the Cu2+ in the CuDTC2 complex and thus shutting down the energy transfer pathway, in which the sensitive limit for Hg2+ as low as 4 ppb was reached. Moreover, a paper-based sensor has been fabricated by printing the CuDTC2-CDs p...

Fluorescence “Turn On” Detection of Mercuric Ion Based on Bis(dithiocarbamato)copper(II) Complex Functionalized Carbon Nanodots

Single‐Hole Hollow Polymer Microspheres toward Specific High‐Capacity Uptake of Target Species

Biological receptors including enzymes, antibodies and active proteins have been widely used as the detection platform in a variety of chemo/biosensors and bioassays. However, the use of artificial host materials in chemical/biological detections has become increasingly attractive, because the synthetic recognition systems such as molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) usually have lower costs, higher physical/chemical stability, easier preparation and better engineering possibility than biological receptors. Molecular imprinting is one of the most efficient strategies to offer a synthetic route to artificial recognition systems by a template polymerization technique, and has attracted considerable efforts due to its importance in separation, chemo/biosensors, catalysis and biomedicine. Despite the fact that MIPs have molecular recognition ability similar to that of biological receptors, traditional bulky MIP materials usually exhibit a low binding capacity and slow binding kinetics to the target species. Moreover, the MIP materials lack the signal-output response to analyte binding events when used as recognition elements in chemo/biosensors or bioassays. Recently, various explorations have demonstrated that molecular imprinting nanotechniques may provide a potential solution to these difficulties. Many successful examples of the development of MIP-based sensors have also been reported during the past several decades. This review will begin with a brief introduction to the principle of molecular imprinting nanotechnology, and then mainly summarize various synthesis methodologies and recognition properties of MIP nanomaterials and their applications in MIP-based chemosensors. Finally, the future perspectives and efforts in MIP nanomaterials and MIP-based sensors are given.

/pdf/imprinting-of-molecular-recognition-sites-on-nanostructures-56xsozwk90.pdf

Imprinting of Molecular Recognition Sites on Nanostructures and Its Applications in Chemosensors.

Fluorescent colorimetry test papers are promising for the assays of environments, medicines, and foods by the observation of the naked eye on the variations of fluorescence brightness and color. Unlike dye-absorption-based pH test paper, however, the fluorescent test papers with wide color-emissive variations with target dosages for accurate quantification remain unsuccessful even if the multicolorful fluorescent probes are used. Here, we report the dosage-sensitive fluorescent colorimetry test paper with a very wide/consecutive “from red to cyan” response to the presence and amount of arsenic ions, As(III). Red quantum dots (QDs) were modified with glutathione and dithiothreitol to obtain the supersensitivity to As(III) by the quenching of red fluorescence through the formation of dispersive QDs aggregates. A small amount of cyan carbon dots (CDs) with spectral blue-green components as the photostable internal standard were mixed into the QDs solution to produce a composited red fluorescence. Upon the ad...

Color-Multiplexing-Based Fluorescent Test Paper: Dosage-Sensitive Visualization of Arsenic(III) with Discernable Scale as Low as 5 ppb

https://www.rsc.org/suppdata/cc/c2/c2cc31992f/c2cc31992f.pdf

Bianhua Liu

Papers

Fluorescence “Turn On” Detection of Mercuric Ion Based on Bis(dithiocarbamato)copper(II) Complex Functionalized Carbon Nanodots

Single‐Hole Hollow Polymer Microspheres toward Specific High‐Capacity Uptake of Target Species

Imprinting of Molecular Recognition Sites on Nanostructures and Its Applications in Chemosensors.

Color-Multiplexing-Based Fluorescent Test Paper: Dosage-Sensitive Visualization of Arsenic(III) with Discernable Scale as Low as 5 ppb

Fluorescent graphene oxide logic gates for discrimination of iron (3+) and iron (2+) in living cells by imaging