A novel approach to constructing three-dimensional (3D) highly ordered structural polyaniline–graphene bulk hybrid materials was proposed for high performance supercapacitor electrodes, in which a functional molecule, sulfonated triazine (ST), was introduced and adsorbed on graphene sheets via hydrogen bonding and π–π stacking interactions. The aim of adding ST is to achieve better dispersion of graphene nanosheets in water, and subsequently induce heterogeneous nucleation of polyaniline (PANI) through electrostatic interactions. Thus, the PANI nanorods were impelled to grow vertically on both surfaces of the individual sulfonated triazine functional graphene nanosheets (STGNS) via in situ chemical oxidative polymerization of aniline in aqueous solution. The formation mechanism of well-controlled PANI nanorod array–sulfonated triazine functional graphene nanosheet (PANI–STGNS) hybrid materials was investigated in detail using a combination of UV–vis, FTIR, Raman spectroscopy and XRD. The optimized PANI–STGNS10 bulk hybrid material possesses a specific capacitance as high as 1225 F g⁻¹ at 1 A g⁻¹, together with outstanding rate capability and cycling stability, which are essential for its application in high performance supercapacitor electrodes.

Due to the specially rigid, planar and zwitterionic structures, squaraine dyes have strong absorption (ε ≥ 10⁵ L mol⁻¹ cm⁻¹) in the visible to near-infrared region. Therefore, squaraine dyes have been extensively investigated from both fundamental and technological viewpoints. To present the readers a better understanding of the important dyes, in this article, we will highlight the recent synthetic developments of squaraine derivatives as a class of functional near infrared absorbing optic materials and their application in the areas of anti-aggregation, sensor, solar cell, nonlinear optics and self-assembly functional materials based on our own work during the recent years.

In this contribution, a new, real-time and sensitive colorimetric sensor, di-N-methyl-N-hydroxyethylaniline squaraine (SQ), has been identified and synthesized for cysteine analysis based on its ΔA in neutral aqueous medium (pH ≈ 7.5). The proposed method was applied to analyse synthetic amino acid samples and human serum samples. The results show that the linear range of cysteine detection in aqueous medium at pH ≈ 7.5 is 10∼700 nmol L⁻¹ with a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.9984 and a limit of detection (3σ, n = 20) of 3.9 nmol L⁻¹. The relative standard deviation (RSD) for cysteine detection was lower than 4.1% (n = 5). The proposed method possesses the advantages of simplicity, rapidity, high selectivity and sensitivity. This makes it possible, for the first time, the real-time detection of cysteine under normal physiological conditions.