Graphene-encapsulated mesoporous Co₃O₄ microspheres have been successfully fabricated through a facile self-assembly approach. Driven by the mutual electrostatic interactions, the mesoporous Co₃O₄ microspheres prepared by a nanocasting method are fully wrapped by graphene shells. We performed the evaluation as anode materials for Li-ion batteries: the composites exhibit a first discharge capacity of 1533 mA h g⁻¹ and rapidly stabilize while remaining at a reversible capacity up to 820 mA h g⁻¹ during all the discharge–charge cycles at a current of 100 mA g⁻¹. The substantially improved electrochemical performance of the Co₃O₄–graphene composites were ascribed to the synergistic effects between the conductive graphene shells and mesoporous Co₃O₄ microspheres. Notably, the graphene shells not only act as buffers to accommodate the volume variation of Co₃O₄ but also serve as the reliable conductive channels of the electrode. In addition, the mesostructure of the mesoporous Co₃O₄ microspheres provides extra space for the storage of Li⁺ and significantly reduces paths for both Li⁺ ion and electron diffusion.

Patients of diabetes mellitus urgently need noninvasive and continuous glucose monitoring in daily point-of-care. As the tear glucose concentration has a positive correlation with that in blood, the hydrogel colloidal crystal integrated into contact lens possesses promising potential for noninvasive monitoring of glucose in tears. This paper presents a new glucose-responsive sensor, which consists a crystalline colloidal array (CCA) embedded in hydrogel matrix, attached onto a rigid gas permeable (RGP) contact lens. This novel sensing lens is able to selectively diffract visible light, whose wavelength shifts between 567 and 468 nm according to the alternation of the glucose concentration between 0 and 50 mM and its visible color change between reddish yellow, green, and blue. The detection limit of responsive glucose concentration can be reduced to 0.05 mM. Its combination with a contact lens endows it with excellent biocompatibility and portability, which shows great possibility for it to push the development of glucose-detecting devices into new era.

Stable CsPbBr₃@SiO₂ nanocomposites in polar solvents were prepared via an organosilicon ligand-assisted re-precipitation method with polystyrene preventing excessive particle cross-linking and aggregation.

CsPbBr₃ QDs are in situ grown in mesoporous SiO₂ microsphere due to confinement effect and work as photoinitiator to realize photocatalytic polymerization of CLA. The composite material maintain optical performance and have great water resistance.

We have demonstrated a sandwich-structured Fe₃O₄/SiO₂/Au/TiO₂ photocatalyst, which shows magnetic separability, selective absorption and photocatalysis activity, and high efficiency, in catalyzing the decomposition of organic compounds under illumination of visible-light and simulated sunlight. The structural design of the photocatalyst takes advantage of the dense, homogeneous structure and the AuNPs content (ca. 4 nm, 1.63 wt%), which is prepared by a simple method. It possesses high efficiency visible-light photocatalytic activity due to the stable from nonmetal-doping and the plasmonic metal decoration, which enhances light harvesting and charge separation, and the small grain size of the anatase nanocrystals, which reduces the exciton recombination rate. More importantly, the catalyst is synthesized by a combination of plasmonic metal decoration of TiO₂ nanocrystals with exposed {001} facets, and the selective adsorption and photocatalytic decomposition of azo dyes is accomplished by design of the surface chemistry. Additionally, these sandwich-structured photocatalysts can be applied to other catalytic system such as dye decoloration, water decomposition, hydrogen generation, and so on.