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Membrane chromatography is mainly used for the separation and purification of proteins and biological macromolecules in the downstream processing process, also applications in sewage disposal. Membrane chromatography is recognized as an effective alternative to column chromatography because it significantly improves chromatography from affinity, hydrophobicity, and ion exchange; the development status of membrane chromatography in membrane matrix and membrane equipment is thoroughly discussed, and the applications of protein capture and intermediate purification, virus, monoclonal antibody purification, water treatment, and others are summarized. This review will provide value for the exploration and potential application of membrane chromatography.

Combination chemotherapy is widely exploited to overcome multidrug resistance (MDR) and enhance the therapeutic effect of anti-tumor agents clinically. The traditional combination regimens applied in clinical practice still suffer from various obstacles, such as inevitable side effects. Fortunately, the application of nanotechnology and the proposal of co-delivery systems make the combination therapy more effective. The occurrence, development, and metastasis of tumors are closely related to the cell cycle. The sensitivity of tumor cells to chemotherapeutic drugs can be improved with the cooperation of cell cycle regulators. In this review, the influence of the cell cycle on tumorigenesis and development is introduced briefly. The current strategies of combining chemotherapeutic drugs and cell cycle regulators through co-delivery systems are discussed in detail. We also sketch the possibility of treating tumors mildly via artificially controlling the cell cycle and outline the challenges and perspectives about the improvement of co-delivery systems for cancer therapy.

Bio-nanochannels in living organisms participate in the physiological activities by selectively transporting ions through cell membranes. The structure and function of biological ion channels inspire the development of artificial ion nanochannels with practical applications. The bioinspired nanochannels based on polymer materials present good mechanical stability, high-performance ion transport and designability, which have attracted much attention. In this review, we mainly focus on the fabrication and application of polymer-based biomimetic nanochannels especially in environmentally responsive biosensor and energy conversion. We firstly introduce the basic understanding of nanochannels in ion regulation and osmotic energy conversion. Then, we discuss the fabrication methods of polymer-based nanochannels and highlight their advantages compared with other materials. The practical applications of polymer-based biomimetic nanochannels, especially in energy conversion and environmentally responsive biosensor, are detailedly discussed. Finally, we summarize the unsolved problems in bioinspired nanochannels and overview the further developing direction in this field.

Graphical Abstract Infectious diseases, such as the coronavirus disease-19, SARS virus, Ebola virus, and AIDS, threaten the health of human beings globally. New viruses, drug-resistant bacteria, and fungi continue to challenge the human efficacious drug bank. Researchers have developed a variety of new antiviral and antibacterial drugs in response to the infectious disease crisis. Meanwhile, the development of functional materials has also improved therapeutic outcomes. As a natural material, chitosan possesses good biocompatibility, bioactivity, and biosafety. It has been proven that the cooperation between chitosan and traditional medicine greatly improves the ability of anti-infection. This review summarized the application and design considerations of chitosan-composed systems for the treatment of infectious diseases, looking forward to providing the idea of infectious disease therapy.

Biofluorescence imaging enables real-time, visual detection of biomolecules, cells and tissues/organs on a three-dimensional scale. And it can track the various physiological processes of the organism and understand the relationship between biomolecules and their structure and function. Near-infrared imaging has a high temporal and spatial resolution, low damage to biological tissues and strong penetrating capability, good sensitivity and low background fluorescence interference, which are the advantages of imaging technology. However, at present, the deficiencies of fluorescent groups include relatively low fluorescence quantum yield and unfavorably short emission wavelength in the NIR region, especially in the second near-infrared window (1000–1700 nm, NIR-II). In the in vivo processes and applications of NIR fluorescence materials, biocompatibility, fluorescence quantum efficiency and adjustability of excitation and emission wavelengths in the NIR region should be considered. Therefore, organic polymeric materials are ideal for the construction of the NIR fluorescence probe. In this review, the synthesis and applications of NIR fluorescence polymers were summarized and the future trend has prospected as well.

A promising and low-cost electrochemical sensor was carried out with carbon nanotube modified carbon-fiber electrodes via vapor deposition method, which improved the sensitivity and reduced the detection limit of dopamine. In virtue of various techniques, such as SEM and Raman spectroscopy, the morphological, structural and crystalline properties of composites were analyzed. Moreover, simultaneous determination of dopamine, ascorbic acid and uric acid was explored at the modified carbon fiber electrode. The presence of carbon nanotubes on the surface of carbon fiber can effectively increase the surface area and electron transfer velocity of the interaction between neurotransmitter and electrode. The good linear responses of ascorbic acid, dopamine and uric acid were obtained in the range of 25.6–2000.3 μM, 5.0–120.6 μM and 20.0–800.0 μM with detection limits (S/N = 3) of 10.0 μM, 0.03 μM and 0.6 μM, respectively. Finally, this sensor was applied to the determination of dopamine in some real sample. Keywords: Carbon fiber electrode, Carbon nanotube, Dopamine, Uric acid, Sensing

The emergence of nanomaterials for drug delivery provides the opportunity to avoid the side effects of systemic drug administration and injury caused by the removal of tumors, delivering great promise for future cancer treatments. However, the efficacy of current nano drugs is not significantly better than that of the original drug treatments. The important reason is that nano drugs enter the tumor vasculature, remaining close to the blood vessels and unable to enter the tumor tissue or tumor cells to complete the drug delivery process. The low efficiency of drug penetration into tumors has become a bottleneck restricting the development of nano-drugs. Herein, we present a systematic overview of recent advances on the design of nano-drug carriers in drug delivery systems for enhancing drug penetration into tumors. The review is organized into four sections: The drug penetration process in tumor tissue includes paracellular and transcellular transport, which is summarized first. Strategies that promote tumor penetration are then introduced, including methods of remodeling the tumor microenvironment, charge inversion, dimensional change, and surface modification of ligands which promote tissue penetration. Conclusion and the prospects for the future development of drug penetration are finally briefly illustrated. The review is intended to provide thoughts for effective treatment of cancer by summarizing strategies for promoting the endocytosis of nano drugs into tumor cells.

A bottlebrush polymer-cytotoxin prodrug, where a potent anticancer drug 10-hydroxycamptothecin (HCPT) and water-soluble methoxypolyethylene glycols (mPEG) were attached into the polyester backbone, was synthesized via thiol-ene reaction. The synthesized bottlebrush polymer-HCPT conjugate with drug loading content as high as ca. 20.4 wt% was characterized by NMR, IR, UV and fluorescence techniques. The prepared bottlebrush polymer-HCPT prodrug could self-assemble into nanosized micelles (ca. 153 nm), which were uniform and stable in aqueous solution. Moreover, when exposed to esterase, the formed prodrug micelles as stimuli-responsive nanomaterials could release HCPT. In the cellar uptake and cytotoxicity experiments, the formed prodrug micelles exhibited effective internalization into tumor cells and excellent anticancer efficacies.

Capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS) has the advantages of higher sensitivity, higher efficiency, and less sample consumption. Moreover, it possesses obvious advantages during the analysis of strongly charged and highly polar samples. CE-MS has been widely applied in life sciences, medicine, and pharmacology. In the past ten years, the main factors affecting its application were system stability, reproducibility, and data accuracy. In order to solve the existing problems of CE-MS, researchers have invested significant effort in technology innovation to further expand CE-MS application. In the fields of medicine and analytical chemistry, substantial research indicates that CE-MS is superior compared to other metabolomic and proteomic approaches. This study aims at reviewing the latest methods and applications developed in the fields of medicine and analytical chemistry since 2015. Furthermore, it also aims at enhancing the technology development-related application value of CE-MS and serving as a reference for future development. Further development of the CE-MS technology is discussed from the aspects of coating-sample interaction, interface types, and data processing methods. Concerning the coating types, neutral coatings had been applied extensively in CE-MS and there should be no limitation to the charge of the analyte. The coating decreased sample adsorption on the inner wall by covering the surface charge, greatly reducing the electroosmotic flow (EOF). A charged capillary coating could modify such an EOF direction. The cationic coating could reduce the hydrophobic interaction between the sample and the capillary column, resulting in higher EOF. If it is applied to the sheathless interface, the resolution could be improved by extending the capillary length. Anionic coatings are predominant among the anionic compounds, shortening the separation time by reducing the interaction between the anionic compounds and the capillary. The coating type should be chosen relative to the analyte characteristics. Concerning the interface technology, all interfaces should be simple, practical, and non-dependent on sheath liquid and background electrolytes. As far as data processing methods are concerned, it is necessary to design and develop a practical method for span space data comparison and processing. The optimized experimental conditions have effectively improved separation efficiency and data comparison analysis. Furthermore, they established a solid foundation for its application development. CE-MS analysis of complex samples in the fields of metabolomics and proteomics (e. g., of tissues, cells, body fluids, etc.) could provide a visualization method for future clinical analysis. It contributes to the development of cancer pathological analysis, drug development, disease surveillance, etc. The characteristic analysis of small molecule metabolites and protein biomarkers directly reflects on enzymatic activity in the biological systems. It could be associated with the development of various diseases/complications. Omics analysis also has an important directive to disease detection and surveillance with obvious advantages in disease diagnosis, staged treatment, drug development, and patient treatment progress. CE-MS is useful in detecting complications and promoting personalized medicine. It provides technical support for future clinical developments. In addition to a comprehensive review of the recent advances of CE-MS research, this paper also indicates the development directions of CE-MS. In order to avoid the problem of omics analysis and obtain the optimized analysis results, future analysis should be improved from the following three aspects:(i) The analysis conditions should be optimized concerning sample preparation methods and separation techniques. (ii) The analytic techniques should be supported to adjust to capillary coating and interface technology. (iii) New ideas should be developed in the fields of clinical research and statistical analysis.

Rare earth upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) with the superior performance in the biomedical field have attracted great attention. Due to the good light stability, low toxicity, deep tissue penetration and excellent bio-compatibility, UCNPs display great potential for development in the biomedical field. Excellent related reports are increasing year by year, like molecular sensing, bioimaging and therapeutics. In this paper, the preparation, modification, application of upconversion fluorescent nanoparticles and the latest research results in the field of biomedical materials have been reported in detail. Graphical abstract: In this paper, we systematically summarize and describe the preparation, modification, application and latest discovery in biomedical field of rare earth upconversion nanoparticles (UCNP). Due to the good light stability, low toxicity, deep tissue penetration and excellent biocompatibility, UCNPs display superior performance for the development of biomedical field in cancer therapy. Our work will certainly inspire researchers in related fields to create more meaningful upconversion nanomaterials and do more contributions to human cancer treatment research.

Nanoparticles have been developed for tumor treatment due to the enhanced permeability and retention effects. However, lack of specific cancer cells selectivity results in low delivery efficiency and undesired side effects. In that case, the stimuli-responsive nanoparticles system designed for the specific structure and physicochemical properties of tumors have attracted more and more attention of researchers. Esterase-responsive nanoparticle system is widely used due to the overexpressed esterase in tumor cells. For a rational designed esterase-responsive nanoparticle, ester bonds and nanoparticle structures are the key characters. In this review, we overviewed the design of esterase-responsive nanoparticles, including ester bonds design and nano-structure design, and analyzed the fitness of each design for different application. In the end, the outlook of esterase-responsive nanoparticle is looking forward.

A method of introducing trifluoromethyl group (-CF3) to the polymer backbone by Suzuki reaction was developed to prepare fluorinated polymers for gas separation. The CO2 permeability increased 119% after the -CF3 group was substituted. Tungsten disulfide (WS2), a graphene-like two-dimensional material, was used for first time as an inorganic filler to prepare composite MMMs to separate CO2, N2 and CH4. The introduction of WS2 nanosheets increases more transport channels for gas molecules, which lead to the permeability and selectivity of MMMs obviously improved in comparison with the pristine FPPO membrane. The CO2/N2 selectivity and CO2/CH4 selectivity of 10 wt% WS2-FPPO MMMs reached a maximum about 29.6 and 39.4, respectively, with a CO2 permeability of 472 Barrer at 10 psig and 291 K. The best performance of MMMs for CO2/N2 and CO2/CH4 surpasses the Robeson's upper bound line. The MMMs showed strong stability in long-term observation. The results indicated a new direction for CO2 separation by introducing -CF3 group to polymer and using 2D WS2 nanosheets as nanofiller.

Chemotherapy is one of the most used method for cancer therapy, however, brings huge pain to patients as the drugs commonly causes side effects. Inducing tumor cells apoptosis by perturbing ion homeostasis is a novel approach to replace chemotherapy in recent years. Crown ether has been widely used since it was discovered in the last century and has shown its potential in biological applications. The aim of this paper is to design a series of novel nanometer micelles with crown ether on their surface. Crown ether was connected to a commonly used amphiphilic polymeric carrier, PEG-PCL, through ester bond (CPMs). Micelles about 120 nm in diameter were formed in aqueous solution. The micelles could capture potassium ions prominently in both aqueous solution and tumor cells. In vitro and in vivo experiments showed that the CPMs had certain anti-tumor activity, indicating that the CPMs had anti-tumor potential.

Protein, as the material basis of vita, is the crucial undertaker of life activities, which constitutes the framework and main substance of human tissues and organs, and takes part in various forms of life activities in organisms. Separating proteins from biomaterials and studying their structures and functions are of great significance for understanding the law of life activities and clarifying the essence of life phenomena. Therefore, scientists have proposed the new concept of proteomics, in which protein separation technology plays a momentous role. It has been diffusely used in the food industry, agricultural biological research, drug development, disease mechanism, plant stress mechanism, and marine environment research. In this paper, combined with the recent research situation, the progress of protein separation technology was reviewed from the aspects of extraction, precipitation, membrane separation, chromatography, electrophoresis, molecular imprinting, microfluidic chip and so on.

This paper reviews recent developments in the preparation, surface functionalization, and applications of Fe

The Michael addition and alkylation reaction of active methylene compounds (AMCs) with two active hydrogens had been investigated extensively in organic chemistry, while the polymerization of AMCs had few studies. Herein, we reported active methylene-based polyaddition and polyalkylation catalyzed via an organic superbase under ambient conditions. A model polymerization was first conducted between ethylene glycol diacrylate (EGDA) and methyl cyanoacetate (MCA). The molecular weight (Mw) of the model polymer was up to 50 500 g mol−1 with a high yield (99%). Eight AMCs were selected and a high-throughput parallel synthesizing instrument (HTPSI) was used to synthesize semi-library polymers of AMCs and EGDA via a Michael type polyaddition. The obtained AMC-based polymers had low cell cytotoxicity. Elastomers with cyanogen groups could be prepared using trimethylolpropane triacrylate (TMPTA) as a crosslinker. Furthermore, three dihalogen compounds were explored to polymerize with MCA and malononitrile via alkylation reactions. The pendent cyanogen or ester groups of the polymers could be reduced by lithium aluminum hydride. Novel polymer families were constructed based on the polyaddition and polyalkylation of AMCs.

As a new minimally invasive technique, photothermal therapy has attracted worldwide attention in the treatment of cancer. Photothermal therapy kills cancer cells by converting photon energy into heat energy. At the time of selection, the photothermal agents will be required to be water solubility, cytotoxicity, high photothermal conversion efficiency, metabolic pathway and so on. This report introduces the current research status of various nanoparticles used in photothermal therapy, and looks forward to the future development of photothermal therapy.

This article presented a versatile and robust adsorbent with both magnetic property and high adsorption capacity on the basis of poly(glycidyl methacrylate)@Fe3O4@diazoresin (PGMA@Fe3O4@DR) magnetic microspheres. The morphology, composition and magnetic properties of the magnetic microspheres were characterized by scanning electron microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and the hysteresis loop measurements, respectively. The obtained microspheres were applied in the adsorption of dye in the wastewater. The effects of adsorption time, initial dye concentration, pH value and other conditions were explored. Results show that the magnetic microspheres were able to remove more than 98.5% of dyes in water under optimized conditions. The use of diazoresin not only protects the Fe3O4 particles from being corroded at different pH values, but also greatly improves the adsorption capacity.

Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly infectious respiratory illness that was caused by the SARS-CoV-2. It spread around the world in just a few months and became a worldwide pandemic. Quick and accurate diagnosis of infected patients is very important for controlling transmission. In addition to the commonly used Real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) detection techniques, other diagnostic techniques are also emerging endlessly. This article reviews the current diagnostic methods for COVID-19 and discusses their advantages and disadvantages. It provides an important reference for the diagnosis of COVID-19., Graphical abstract Image 1

Seeking an effective strategy to develop inexpensive and highly stable photocatalyst materials for dye degradation is of great significance to resolve the global environmental problems caused by dye abuse. Herein, we have reported the environmental-friendly synthesis of exceptionally efficient and highly sustainable hematite nanoparticles (α-Fe2O3 NPs) using Punica granatum seed extract biomolecules. The morphology and phase purity of the synthesized α-Fe2O3 NPs were executed through a series of characterization techniques. FESEM and TEM analysis exhibited that the synthesized α-Fe2O3 NPs were irregular-shaped with an average size of 26.53 nm, while the BET surface area of nanoparticles was estimated to be 31.52 m2/g with an average pore diameter of 5.54 nm. α-Fe2O3 NPs exhibited typical ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature. The oxidation states of elements in α-Fe2O3 NPs were confirmed through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis, while the charge on α-Fe2O3 NPs was found to be −10.6 mV. The as-prepared α-Fe2O3 NPs were utilized in solar-light driven photocatalytic degradation of anionic Congo red (CR) and Bromophenol blue (BPB) dye. Experimental results indicated the remarkable photocatalytic activity of α-Fe2O3 NPs, and approximately 89.42% of CR and 87.96% of BPB was degraded in 240 min under sunlight irradiation at ambient conditions. The photocatalytic degradation experiments were also performed under different reaction conditions which followed the pseudo-first-order kinetics. The presence of reactive species generated in the reaction system liable for the CR and BPB degradation were corroborated through radical quenching experiments and further confirmed by EPR analysis. The excellent photocatalytic potential of α-Fe2O3 NPs suggested that the synthesized nanoparticles could effectually be applied to remove organic dyes from the wastewater.

A versatile porous adsorbent of sulfonated polystyrene/ferrosoferric oxide/diazoresin (SPS/Fe3O4/DR) nanocomposite microspheres with magnetic property and acidic/basic groups was prepared and applied for removal of different dyes from water. The adsorbent showed good adsorption performance due to its functional groups and strong adsorption forces. The selective removal of methylene blue (MB) from MB/methyl orange (MO) mixture can be realized using this adsorbent. The adsorption uptake capacity of the adsorbents was 223.71 mg/g and the removal efficiency was more than 90% even after five adsorption-desorption cycles. This adsorbent could be readily separated from solution within 2 min using a magnet. Furthermore, adsorption kinetics for SPS/Fe3O4/DR followed by the pseudo-second order model. Isothermal equilibrium data were fitted with Langmuir model, which indicated the adsorption process is the monolayer adsorption. This novel, low cost and high effective adsorbent possesses great potential in environmental pollution cleanup. Keywords: Sulfonated polystyrene, Ferrosoferric oxide, Diazoresin, Adsorption, Dyes

In recent years, people have been actively exploring new imaging methods with high biological imaging performance because the clinical image definition and depth in vivo cannot meet the requirements of early diagnosis and prognosis. Based on the traditional near-infrared region I (NIR-I), the molecular probe of the near-infrared region II (NIR-II) is further explored and developed. In the NIR-II region due to the wavelength is longer than the NIR-I region can effectively reduce the molecular scattering, optical absorption of the organization, the organization of spontaneous fluorescence negligible, thus the NIR-II Fluorescence imaging (FI) can get deeper penetration depth, higher signal-to-background ratio (SBR) and better spatiotemporal resolution, FI in NIR-II region are an important and rapidly developing research region for future imaging. In the NIR-II fluorophore, small organic molecule fluorophore has attracted much attention because of its good biocompatibility and good pharmacokinetic properties. In this review, we briefly introduced the existing NIR-II organic small molecule fluorophores, and introduced the existing relatively mature methods for improving quantum yield and water solubility, and the small molecule dyes on FI of various improvement methods, also briefly introduces the small molecules of photoacoustic imaging (PAI), and a brief introduction of imaging-guided surgery (IGS) for some small organic molecules, finally, a reasonable prospect is made for the development of small organic molecules.

Polymeric micelles (PMs) have been applied widely to transport hydrophobic drugs to tumor sites for cancer treatment. However, the low load efficiency of the drug in the PMs significantly reduces the therapeutic efficiency. We report here that disulfide-linked camptothecin (CPT) as a kind of dimeric drug can be effectively embedded in the core of poly(&epsilon, caprolactone)&ndash, poly(ethylene glycol)&ndash, poly(&epsilon, caprolactone) (PCL&ndash, PEG&ndash, PCL) PMs for improving drug-loading efficiency, and PEG can be used as a hydrophilic shell. Moreover, the dimeric CPT-loaded PCL&ndash, PCL PMs exhibited excellent solubility in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) media and significant cytotoxicity to cancer cells.

In this paper, we reported a pH responsive nano drug delivery system (NDDS) based on ZnO quantum dots (QDs) for controlled release of drugs. Zwitterionic poly(carboxybetaine methacrylate) (PCBMA) and poly(2-(dimethylamino) ethyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA) were introduced to modify ZnO QDs, which can help enhance water stability, increase blood circulation time, and promote endocytosis. After tuning of PCBMA/PDMAEMA ratios, the ZnO@P(CBMA-co-DMAEMA) nanoplatform shows a sensitive switch from strong protein adsorption resistance (with negatively charged surface) at physiological pH to strong adhesion to tumor cell membranes (with positively charged surface) at the slightly acidic extracellular pH of tumors. Anti-cancer drug, Doxorubicin (DOX), molecules were demonstrated to be successfully loaded to ZnO@P(CBMA-co-DMAEMA) with a relatively large drug loading content (24.6%). In addition, ZnO@P(CBMA-co-DMAEMA) loaded with DOX can achieve lysosomal acid degradation and release of DOX after endocytosis by tumor cells, resulting in synergistic treatment of cancer, which is attributed to a combination of the anticancer effect of Zn2+ and DOX.

At present, BODIPY and its derivatives are a kind of multifunctional photosensitive organic dyes, because of their small Stokes shift, strong absorption, narrow absorption and emission, low photobleaching, high fluorescence quantum efficiency, polarity, and pH insensitive and stable chemical structure, thus, it can be used in various fields such as medical treatment, energy, environmental protection and so on. This article mainly describes the application of BODIPY and its derivatives in photodynamic therapy, elaborates on its synthesis method, the role of photodynamic therapy, and discusses the factors that affect the location and efficacy of BODIPY photodynamic therapy. For the analysis and summary of BODIPY and its derivatives, we hope that this review can point the way for researchers.

Monodisperse poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) (PS-DVB) microspheres with binary porous structures were synthesized using a modified seeded polymerization method. The microspheres had small pores on the surface and big pores in the middle. Using the binary porous PS-DVB (BPPSD) microspheres as packing materials for high-performance liquid chromatography, several benzene analogs were effectively separated in a column as short as 75 mm due to the high surface areas of the stationary phase. Because of the π–π affinity interaction between BPPSD particles and analytes, the separation performance of the BPPSD column was better than commercialized C18 column at the same conditions. Compared to column filled with non-porous PS-DVB particles, the back pressure of BPPSD column could be maintained at especially low level even at high flow rates due to the excellent permeability of the fillers. In addition, approximate baseline separation of C60 and C70 was also achieved in the 75 mm BPPSD column.

A highly permeable brominated poly(phenylene oxide) (BPPO) microfiltration membrane with binary porous structures was fabricated by combination of the breath figure and colloidal crystal template methods. The pore size in the bottom layer of the membrane was adjusted by the diameter of SiO2 microspheres in the colloidal crystal template, while the pore size in the top layer of the membrane was adjusted by varying the BPPO concentration in the casting solution. The permeability of the membrane cast on the colloidal crystal substrate was much higher than that of the membrane cast on a bare silicon wafer. The binary porous BPPO membrane with high permeability and antifouling property was used for microfiltration applications.

Porous polyurea microspheres (PPUMs) were prepared in one-step by the precipitation polymerization of isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) in a water–acetone solvent. Monodisperse SiO2 particles were added before polymerization and etched by a crosslinking agent triethylenetetramine (TETA), which led to the arrangement of the pores on the crosslinked polyurea microspheres' surface. Another method was also tested for the synthesis of PPUMs, in which non-crosslinked polyurea/SiO2 composite microspheres were synthesized first, and the SiO2 nanoparticles were then etched away. Compared to the second way, the one-step method is simple and efficient. The crosslinked PPUMs showed excellent hydrophilicity. The influence of the amounts of SiO2 nanoparticles, TETA, and the size of SiO2 nanoparticles were studied. The adsorption tests for iodine and methyl orange (MO) dyes in water were carried out, which showed that the as-prepared crosslinked PPUMs possessed great adsorption performance.

Three-dimensional ordered macroporous (3DOM) materials based on fullerenes (C60) were prepared by using silica (SiO2) colloidal crystals as templates. The silica colloids were deposited in an orderly manner onto the gold surface, followed with the infiltration of the C60 nanoparticles into the interspaces of the colloids. The as-formed SiO2/C60 hybrid colloidal crystals were subsequently immersed in hydrofluoric acid to remove the silica components fully to obtain 3DOM C60 frameworks. The control of the C60 infiltration solution concentration is the key to obtaining a high quality 3DOM structure of C60. The band gaps of the SiO2 colloidal crystal, SiO2/C60 hybrid colloidal crystal and 3DOM C60 were measured by UV-Vis reflection spectrometry, calculated using Bragg's law, and simulated by Band SOLVE, respectively. It was demonstrated that the 3DOM C60 possesses electrochemical activity and can be used in detecting dopamine with a detection limit of 1.3 × 10−9 mol L−1. Having a three-dimensional ordered macroporous structure with a greater surface area, the 3DOM C60 modified electrode performed better than an unordered C60 modified electrode and a bare gold electrode.

This paper reviews recent developments in the preparation, surface functionalization, and applications of Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles. Especially, it includes preparation methods (such as electrodeposition, polyol methods, etc.), organic materials (such as polymers, small molecules, surfactants, biomolecules, etc.) or inorganic materials (such as silica, metals, and metal oxidation/sulfide, functionalized coating of carbon surface, graphene, etc.) and its applications (such as magnetic separation, protein fixation, magnetic catalyst, environmental treatment, medical research, etc.). In the end, some existing challenges and possible future trends in the field were discussed.

Current treatments have limited effectiveness in treating tumors. The combination of multiple drugs or treatment strategies is widely studied to improve therapeutic effect and reduce adverse effects of cancer therapy. The codelivery system is the key to realize combined therapies. It is necessary to design and construct different codelivery systems in accordance with the variable structures and properties of cargoes and vectors. This review presented the typical design considerations about codelivery vectors for cancer therapy and described the current state of codelivery systems from two aspects: different types of vectors and collaborative treatment strategies. The commonly used loading methods of cargoes into the vectors, including physical and chemical processes, are discussed in detail. Finally, we outline the challenges and perspectives about the improvement of codelivery systems., Graphical abstract Image 1

Porous cross-linked poly (glycidyl methacrylate-divinylbenzene) (PGMA-DVB) particles (7.42 ± 0.24 μm in diameter) were prepared by an improved two-step seed swelling polymerization method. The PGMA-DVB particles were further modified with poly (allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) and 4-(bromomethyl) phenylboronic acid (BPA), which were used as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) filler for nucleotides separation. The liquid chromatographic column packing materials successfully achieved complete separation of nucleotides mixture or deoxynucleotides mixture based on non-polar adsorption, hydrogen bonding interaction and electrostatic adsorption. Reckoning on the chemical structure of BPA, nucleotides and deoxynucleotides with same base group were also separated. The column packing materials were durable after over 100 time running or 7 days. It presents a kind of new notion for the separation of nucleotides by HPLC.