The molten-salt assisted self-assembly (MASA) process is applicable to fabricate high quality mesoporous metal lithiate thin films that exhibit excellent performance as electrocatalysts for water oxidation.

When plasmons supported by metal nanoparticles interact strongly with molecular excitons or excitons of semiconducting quantum dots, plexcitons are formed in the strong coupling regime. The hybrid plexcitonic nanoparticles with a wide range of sizes and shapes have been synthesized by using wet chemistry methods or have been fabricated on solid substrates by using lithographic techniques. In order to deeply understand plasmon−exciton interaction at the nanoscale dimension and boost the performance of nanophotonic devices made of plexcitonic nanoparticles, new types of plexcitonic nanoparticles with tunable optical properties and outstanding stability at room temperature are urgently needed. Herein, we for the first time report pure colloidal nanodisk shaped plexcitonic nanoparticles with very large Rabi splitting energies, i.e., more than 350 meV. We synthesize silver nanoprisms by using seed mediated synthesis and then convert nanoprisms to nanodisks at a high temperature. Localized plasmon resonance of the silver nanodisk in the visible spectrum can be effectively tuned by heating. Subsequently, self-assembly of J-aggregate dyes on plasmonic nanodisks produces plexcitonic nanoparticles. We envision that colloidal nanodisk shaped plexcitonic nanoparticles with very large Rabi splitting energies and outstanding stability at room temperature will enlarge the application of plexcitonic nanoparticles in a variety of fields such as polariton laser, biosensor, plasmon molecular nanodevices, and energy flow at nanoscale dimensions.

the literature, the synthesis of mesoporous metal oxides and metal lithiates has always been a challenge. Many strategies for synthesis, including hard and soft templating methods, have been developed over the years. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] The lyotropic liquid crystalline (LLC) templating method has also been employed to produce metals and metal oxides with the help of a reducing agent or electrochemical methods. [21][22][23][24][25] Unfortunately, the many existing metal ion precursors are not appropriate for use in soft and hard templating. There are some successful examples of the synthesis of mesoporous metal oxides by using alkoxy precursors. [26][27][28][29][30] However, most metal precursors are common ion salts, such as metal chlorides, nitrates, sulfates, and acetates, that need high temperatures to undergo hydrolysis and condensation reactions to form their oxides. Even if one can incorporate the salts into mesophases, in the next step, in going from salt precursors to oxides, the salt species shrink by 70-90%, which causes a collapse of the meso-order in soft templating processes or a nonuniform coating in the hardtemplating cases. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] There are no examples of mesoporous thin films produced through hard-templating and there has been limited success with soft templating methods. In particular, the oxides that contain two or more metals are even more difficult to assemble into mesoporous materials. It is still extremely challenging to form and maintain mesostructures in most metal based materials.Although, there are some successful examples of mesoporous metal lithiates powders, using hard templating method, [15][16][17][18][19][20] the method is quite complex and generally impossible to produce thin films. Bruce and co-workers reported the first synthesis of mesoporous low temperature spinel LiCoO 2 and LiCoO 2 nanowires. [31] The synthesis of mesoporous spinel LiMn 2 O 4 has been reported by Luo et al. [32] Hwang et al. obtained the mesoporous metal lithiates by using soft templating. [33] The resulting material had a 3.8 nm pore size, 31 nm wall thickness, and 13.8 m 2 g −1 surface area. [34] . The method described can be adopted to synthesize other metal oxides and metal lithiates. The mesoporous thin films of LiCoO 2 show promising performance as water oxidation catalysts under pH 7 and 14 conditions. The electrodes, prepared using CTAN as the cosurfactant, display the lowest overpotentials in the literature among other LiCoO 2 systems, as low as 376 mV at 10 mA cm -2 and 282 mV at 1 mA cm -2 . Mesoporous Thin Films

Nobel-metal nanostructures strongly localize and manipulate light at nanoscale dimension by supporting surface plasmon polaritons. In fact, the optical properties of the nobel-metal nanostructures strongly depend on their morphology and composition. Until now, various metal nanostructures such as nanocubes, nanoprisms, nanorods, and recently hollow nanostructures have been demonstrated. In addition, the plasmonic field can be further enhanced at nanoparticle dimers and aggregates because of highly localized and intense optical fields, which is known as "plasmonic hot spots". However, colloidally synthesized and circular-shaped nanoring nanostructures with plasmonic hot spots are still lacking. We, herein, show for the first time that colloidal bimetallic nanorings with plasmonic nanocavities and tunable plasmon resonance wavelengths can be synthesized via colloidal synthesis and galvanic replacement reactions. In addition, in the strong coupling regime, plasmons in nanorings and excitons in J-aggregates interact strongly and nanoring-shaped colloidal plexcitonic nanoparticles are demonstrated. The results reveal that the optical properties of the nanoring and the onset of strong coupling can be tamed by the galvanic replacement reaction. Further, the plasmonic nanocavity in the nanorings has immense potential for applications in sensing and spectroscopy because of the space, enclosed by the plasmonic nanocavity, is empty and accessible to a variety of molecules, ions, and quantum dots.

The first phytochemical analysis of the aquatic macrophyte Stratiotes aloides afforded two new flavonoid glucuronides, luteolin 7-O-beta-D-glucopyranosiduronic acid-(1-->2)-beta-D-glucopyranoside (1) and chrysoeriol 7-O-beta-D-glucopyranosiduronic acid-(1-->2)-beta-D-glucopyranoside (2), as well as the new 2-(2-hydroxypentyl)-5-carboxy-7-methoxychromone (5) and chrysoeriol 7-O-beta-(6-O-malonyl)glucopyranoside (3), which has been assigned via NMR data for the first time. Additionally, free amino acids such as tryptophan, arginine, leucine, isoleucine, phenylalanine, and tyrosine along with choline, cis-aconitic acid, the phenolic glycoside alpha-arbutine, the chlorophyll derivative phaeophorbide a, and the flavonoid glycoside luteolin 7-O-beta-(6-O-malonyl)glucopyranoside (4) were isolated. Despite the low quantities obtained in some cases (between 50-300 microg), the structures of all compounds were unambiguously elucidated by extensive NMR and MS experiments. With a delay of 2 days compound 1 (10 and 50 microM test concentration) strongly inhibited the growth of human SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells in a dose-dependent manner, whereas only a moderate growth inhibition of human Patu 8902 carcinoma cells could be observed. Compounds 1 and 2 showed no activities against the bacteria Escherichia coli BW25113, Pseudomonas pudida KT2440, and Enterobacter cloacae subsp. dissolvens.

Lyotropic liquid-crystalline (LLC) materials are important in designing porous materials, and acids are as important in chemical synthesis. Combining these two important concepts will be highly beneficial to chemistry and material science. In this work, we show that a strong acid can be used as a solvent for the assembly of nonionic surfactants into various mesophases. Sulfuric acid (SA), 10-lauryl ether (C 12 E 10 ), and a small amount of water form bicontinuous cubic (V 1 ), 2Dhexagonal (H 1 ), and micelle cubic (I 1 ) mesophases with increasing SA/ C 12 E 10 mole ratio. A mixture of SA and C 12 E 10 is fluidic but transforms to a highly ordered LLC mesophase by absorbing ambient water. The LLC mesophase displays high proton conductivity (1.5 to 19.0 mS/cm at room temperature) that increases with an increasing SA content up to 11 SA/ C 12 E 10 mole ratio, where the absorbed water is constant with respect to the SA amount but gradually increases from a 2.3 to 4.3 H 2 O/C 12 E 10 mole ratio with increasing SA/C 12 E 10 from 2 to 11, respectively. The mixture of SA and C 12 E 10 slowly undergoes carbonization to produce carbon quantum dots (c-dots). The carbonization process can be controlled by simply controlling the water content of the media, and it can be almost halted by leaving the samples under ambient conditions, where the mixture slowly absorbs water to form photoluminescent c-dot-embedded mesophases. Over time the c-dots grow in size and increase in number, and the photoluminescence frequency gradually shifts to a lower frequency. The SA/C 12 E 10 mesophase can also be used as a template to produce highly proton conducting mesostructured silica films and monoliths, as high as 19.3 mS/cm under ambient conditions. Aging the silica samples enhances the conductivity that can be even larger than for the LLC mesophase with the same amount of SA. The presence of silica has a positive effect on the proton conductivity of SA/C 12 E 10 systems.

The advances in colloid chemistry and nanofabrication allowed us to synthesize Noble monometallic and bimetallic nanocrystals with tunable optical properties in the visible and near infrared region of the electromagnetic...

The three‐component reaction of aniline, benzaldehyde, and dienophiles such as 2,3‐dihydrofuran, ethyl vinyl ether, 2,3‐dihydropyran, and cyclopentadiene can be promoted by ionic liquids like imidazolium salts and guanidinium salts under thermal as well as microwave conditions. The chemical yield as well as the diastereoselectivity of the Povarov reaction strongly depend on the ionic liquid employed. The guanidinium salts can be recycled and reused several times without loss of reactivity.