As a sudden inflammation of the pancreas, acute pancreatitis presents severe complications and a high mortality rate, despite treatment. Lipase in serum serves as an essential biomarker of acute pancreatitis and even pancreatic cancer. Therefore, developing robust, convenient and sensitive probing of lipase levels is greatly needed. In this work, we present glutamate functionalized tetraphenylethylene (TPE) as a “turn-on” fluorescent probe (S1) based on the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) mechanism for lipase levels with new recognition units. In heterogeneous media, the hydrophilic amino and carboxyl groups in the probe were specifically introduced to facilitate its full access to lipase at the oil–water interface and achieve an interfacially controlled AIE process. The linear response of fluorescence ranging from 0 to 80 U L⁻¹, which included the concentration range of the lipase level in human serum, considering the dilution factor if necessary, the limit of detection as low as 0.13 U L⁻¹, and the fast response time (7 min) were determined. The value of the apparent Michaelis–Menten constant (K_m) was obtained as 4.23 μM, which indicated superior affinity between lipase and the probe molecule. The selectivity, photostability, dynamic monitoring of the enzymatic reaction, and preliminary commercial enzyme activity screening were summarized. As far as we know, this is the fastest, easiest and most sensitive method for lipase level probing in the reported literature. Finally, probing the lipase level for the first time in real human serum samples was also conducted successfully.

Three new metal-free organic sensitizers containing 11,12-bis(hexyloxy) dibenzo[a,c]phenazine (BPz) units were synthesized and used for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The broad absorption spectra indicate that the light harvesting abilities were enhanced by the introduction of the BPz unit in the π-conjugated space, which can also cause an anti-aggregation effect and the suppression of charge recombination. Among these sensitizers, LI-39 showed the best photovoltaic performance: a short-circuit photocurrent density (J_sc) of 14.40 mA cm⁻², an open-circuit photovoltage (V_oc) of 0.74 V, and a fill factor (ff) of 0.67, corresponding to an overall conversion efficiency of 7.18% under standard global AM 1.5 solar light conditions. The result shows that the organic sensitizers based on this bulky fused aromatic rings as well as the auxiliary acceptor are the promising candidates for improvement of the performance of DSSCs.