Themed collection 2022 Emerging Investigators

The review paper outlines the current state-of-the-art strategies adopted to fabricate polymeric porous capsules which represent a novel supramolecular construct that broadens the applicability and versatility of self-assembled polymeric systems.

This feature article summarizes the current research on the control of overflow behavior.

Recent development of DNA nanodevices for the detection and control of mechanical forces in vitro and in a cellular environment.

Herein, we construct a series of Ru(II) metallacycles with multimodal chemo-phototherapeutic properties, which exhibited much higher anticancer activity and better cancer-cell selectivity than cisplatin.

A simple, mechanistically unique photochemical procedure is reported for the efficient, direct, catalytic stannylation of P₄ and ‘one pot’ transformation into valuable monophosphorus compounds.

This work provides an effective strategy to improve the PEC performance for water splitting of photoanodes via the incorporation of 3D porous architecture rGO with efficient photothermal effect.

The migration propensity and spatially modulated surface deposition of calf thymus DNA have been reported in response to gradients of different monovalent and divalent ions.

Two formally antiaromatic s-indacenodicarbazole isomers were synthesized and characterized, to show that the curved isomer possesses a stronger s-indacene paratropicity than that of the linear isomer.

A series of novel push–pull dyes containing heptagon-embedded polycyclic aromatic dicarboximides show interesting photophysical properties including tunable emissions leading to NIR, high fluorescence quantum yields (Φ_F), and large Stokes shifts.

Unprecedented pillar[5]arene–isocyanide [2] and [3]pseudorotaxane complexes are reported. Importantly, electron deficient aryl isocyanides are also demonstrated to form inclusion complexes with the cavity of pillar[5]arene.

The redox noninnocence of the popular formazanate ligand backbone has been utilized for electron transfer and further synthesis of α-ketoamide from α-ketoacid and amine.

With the idea of exploiting metal templated C–S bond forming reactions to achieve modification of cysteines in bacterial proteins, a cyclometalated Au(III) compound was explored in a competitive chemoproteomic approach in S. aureus cell extracts.

A new coordination polymer has been designed as a chiral fluorescence sensor, which demonstrated enantioselectivity ratios up to 2.61 in the sensing of chiral analytes.

Based on a sequential process of haloamine formation and radical borylation, a novel strategy for synthesizing β-aminoboronic acids is devised.

Unavailable high loading of uranium with controllabe doping site on pyrochlore was achieved through molten salt synthesis.

We report the phase diagram for the binary creatine–citric acid mixture which features a stable and broad eutectic region.

Solvent-free organic liquids enable doping to deliver hybrid liquids with exciting luminescent features. Here exciplex emission and room temperature phosphorescence are achieved from two donor–acceptor combinations.

Through the design of a pyridine-activated diyne monomer, the catalyst-free multicomponent polymerizations of sulfur, aromatic alkyne, and a group of commercially available primary and secondary diamines were realized at room temperature or 40 °C.

Proline catalysis sparked not only the golden age of organocatalysis, but also the design of elaborate proline derivatives; instead, we propose to modify organocatalysts in situ under reaction conditions.

The multilayered catalyst 1.91%Pt@TiO₂ with atomically dispersed Pt clusters shows excellent performance in the semi-hydrogenation of phenylacetylene.

Inversion of supramolecular chirality with a single enantiomer of a hydrogen-bonded pi-conjugated system is achieved by applying external stimuli such as solvent and temperature.