Self-healing polyurethanes (PUs) represent a new type of functional material which are highly desirable for applications such as surface protection coatings and transparent films. However, it is still challenging to obtain self-repairable PUs with good mechanical properties and excellent optical properties. Herein, in view of molecular design, a self-healing thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) was designed with polytetramethylene ether glycol (PTMEG) as the soft segment and aliphatic isocyanate (m-xylylene diisocyanate, XDI) and aliphatic disulfide (bis(2-hydroxyethyl)disulfide, HEDS) as the hard segment. The TPU exhibited widely tunable mechanical properties, i.e., tensile stress values of 3.51–8.12 MPa with elongation at break values of 825–1320%. The cooperation of dynamic disulfide bonds and hydrogen bonding endowed the TPU elastomer with self-healing capacity and a self-healing efficiency of about 39% at a moderate temperature. Both the amorphous phase structure and XDI chemical structure contributed to a colorless, transparent and anti-yellowing TPU film with nearly 97% transparency and long-term optical stability. The tough, colorless and transparent self-healable elastomers have wide applications in optical and protective fields, including in automotive laminated glass, flexible displays, printers, and photographic equipment cleaning scrapers.

V₂O₅-WO₃/TiO₂ catalysts were synthesized from waste selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalyst through oxalic acid leaching and impregnating with various V₂O₅ mass loadings. The denitration (deNO_x) activity and physiochemical properties of the catalysts were investigated. All the catalysts were characterized by N₂ adsorption/desorption, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and H₂-temperature programmed reduction. The evaluation result revealed that the deNO_x activity of newly synthesized catalyst with 1.0% V₂O₅ was almost recovered to the level of fresh catalyst, with NO conversion being recovered to 91% at 300 °C, and it also showed a good resistance to SO₂ and H₂O. The characterization results showed that the decrease of impurities, partial recovery of the V⁴⁺/V⁵⁺ ratio, and increased reducibility were mainly responsible for the recovery of catalytic activity.

Hydrogenation of ethylene carbonate (EC) is an attractive and promising approach for indirect hydrogenation of CO₂ to co-produce ethylene glycol (EG) and methanol (MeOH). In this work, thermodynamics of EC hydrogenation was firstly calculated, and the results disclosed that EC hydrogenation is exothermic (Δ_rH^θ _m = −71.59 kJ mol⁻¹) and thermodynamically favorable (Δ_rG^θ _m = −25.62 kJ mol⁻¹). The mesoporous silica supported copper catalysts were successfully prepared by facile ammonia evaporation method using KIT-6, MCM-41 and SBA-15 as support materials. The as-prepared Cu/KIT-6, Cu/MCM-41 and Cu/SBA-15 were thoroughly characterized by N₂ physisorption, ICP-AES, N₂O titration, FT-IR, XRD, H₂-TPR, TEM, XPS and XAES. It was found that copper nanoparticles were well dispersed on these supports. Interestingly, a larger metallic Cu surface area with higher dispersion was obtained on SBA-15 when compared with KIT-6 and MCM-41. Furthermore, Cu⁰ and Cu⁺ species in various ratios were verified to co-exist on the surfaces of the three catalysts, which originated from CuO and copper phyllosilicate, respectively. The catalytic performances showed that Cu/SBA-15 exhibited a superior catalytic activity with a TON of 22.0 and 11.4 (mol mol⁻¹) towards EG and MeOH, respectively. Importantly, 100% of EC conversion, 94.7% of EG yield and 62.3% of MeOH yield were achieved within a short reaction time of 4 h over Cu/SBA-15 under optimized conditions. The synergetic effect between Cu⁰ and Cu⁺ species, in which it was proposed that Cu⁰ species dissociated H₂, while Cu⁺ species absorbed the carbonyl group of EC, was responsible for the higher catalytic activity of Cu/SBA-15.