Construction of cellular architectures has been expected to enhance materials' mechanical tolerance and to stimulate and broaden their efficient utilizations in many potential fields. However, hitherto, there have been rather scarce developments in boron nitride (BN)-type cellular architectures because of well-known difficulties in the syntheses of BN-based structures. Herein, cellular-network multifunctional foams made of interconnective nanotubular hexagonal BN (h-BN) architectures are developed using carbothermal reduction-assisted in situ chemical vapor deposition conversion from N-doped tubular graphitic cellular foams. These ultralight, chemically inert, thermally stable, and robust-integrity (supporting about 25,000 times of their own weight) three-dimensional-BN foams exhibit a 98.5% porosity, remarkable shape recovery (even after cycling compressions with 90% deformations), excellent resistance to water intrusion, thermal diffusion stability, and high strength and stiffness. They remarkably reduce the coefficient of thermal expansion and dielectric constant of polymeric poly(methyl methacrylate) composites, greatly contribute to their thermal conductivity improvement, and effectively limit polymeric composite softening at elevated temperatures. The foams also demonstrate high-capacity adsorption-separation and removal ability for a wide range of oils and organic chemicals in oil/water systems and reliable recovery under their cycling usage as organic adsorbers. These created multifunctional foams should be valuable in many high-end practical applications.

Ideal materials for modern electronics packaging should be highly thermoconductive. This may be achieved through designing multifunctional polymer composites. Such composites may generally be achieved via effective embedment of functional inorganic fillers into desirable polymeric bodies. Herein, two types of high-performance 3D h-BN porous frameworks (3D-BN), namely, h-BN nanorod-assembled networks and nanosheet-interconnected frameworks, are successfully created via an in-situ carbothermal reduction substitution chemical vapor deposition using carbon-based nanorodinterconnected networks as templates. These 3D-BN porous materials with densely-interlinked frameworks, excellent mechanical robustness and integrity, highly-isotropous and multiple heat transfer paths, enable reliable fabrications of diverse 3D-BN/polymer porous composites. The composites exhibit combinatorial multi-functional properties, such as excellent mechanical strength, light weight, ultra-low coefficient of thermal expansion, highly isotropic thermal conductivities (~ 26 -This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.3 51 multiples of pristine polymers), relatively-low dielectric constants and super-low dielectric losses, and high resistance to softening at elevated temperatures. In addition, the regarded 3D-BN frameworks are easily recycled from their polymer composites, and may be reliably reutilized for multi-functional reuse. Thus, these materials should be valuable for new-era advanced electronic packaging and related applications.

Organic–inorganic halide single-crystal perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are promising for higher efficiency and better stability, but their development lags far behind that of their polycrystalline counterparts. In particular, the low efficiency (<5%) of large-area devices makes the development of an alternative perovskite photovoltaic technology challenging. In this Perspective, we highlight that the optimization of crystal growth and reduction of crystal thickness are keys to improving the performance of the large-area single-crystal PSCs. After analyzing the characteristics of perovskite crystal growth methods and efficiency evolution of single-crystal PSCs, we conclude the low efficiency of large-area devices is due to the conflict between low crystal quality and large crystal thickness. Then, we propose methods to grow high-quality perovskite single crystals and a possible strategy to reduce the crystal thickness. Finally, investigation of key factors and exploration of large-area application are suggested to be conducted in parallel for future development of single-crystal PSCs.

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Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

In order to achieve enhanced and synergistic delivery of paclitaxel (PTX), a hydrophobic anticancer agent, two novel prodrug copolymers, POEG15-b-PFTS6 and POEG15-b-PFTS16 composed of hydrophilic poly(oligo(ethylene glycol) methacrylate) (POEG) and hydrophobic farnesylthiosalicylate (FTS, a nontoxic Ras antagonist) blocks, were synthesized. Both POEG-b-PFTS polymers were able to form micelles with intrinsic antitumor activity in vitro and in vivo. Employing these micelles as a carrier to load PTX, their drug loading capacity, stability, in vivo biodistribution and tumor inhibition effect were evaluated. PTX/POEG15-b-PFTS16 mixed micelles exhibited an excellent stability of 9 days at 4°C with a PTX loading capacity of 8.2%, which was more effective than PTX/POEG15-b-PFTS6 mixed micelles. In vivo biodistribution data showed that DiR-loaded POEG-b-PFTS micelles were more effectively localized in the tumor than in other organs. Moreover, both PTX/POEG-b-PFTS micelles showed significantly higher antitumor activity than Taxol in a 4T1.2 murine breast tumor model, and the tumor inhibition and animal survival followed the order of PTX/POEG15-b-PFTS16 > PTX/POEG15-b-PFTS6 > POEG15-b-PFTS16 > Taxol ≈ POEG15-b-PFTS6. Our data suggest that POEG-b-PFTS micelles are a promising anticancer drug carrier that warrants more studies in the future.