Water is an indispensable strategic resource for biological and social development. The problem of oily wastewater pollution originating from oil spillages, industrial discharge and domestic oil pollution has become an extremely serious international challenge. At present, numerous superwetting materials have been applied to effectively separate oil and water. However, most of these materials are difficult to scale and their large–scale application is limited by cost and environmental protection. Herein, a simple, environmentally friendly strategy including sol–gel, freeze–drying and surface hydrophobic modification is presented to fabricate a bamboo cellulose foam with special wetting characteristics. The bamboo cellulose foam is superhydrophobic, with a water contact angle of 160°, and it has the superoleophilic property of instantaneous oil absorption. Owing to the synergistic effect of the three–dimensional network structure of the superhydrophobic bamboo cellulose foam and its hydrophobic composition, it has an excellent oil–absorption performance of 11.5 g/g~37.5 g/g for various types of oil, as well as good recyclability, with an oil (1,2–dichloroethane) absorption capacity of up to 31.5 g/g after 10 cycles. In addition, the prepared cellulose–based foam exhibits an outstanding performance in terms of acid and alkali corrosion resistance. Importantly, owing to bamboo cellulose being a biodegradable, low–cost, natural polymer material that can be easily modified, superhydrophobic/superoleophilic bamboo cellulose foam has great application potential in the field of oily wastewater treatment.

A novel three-component supramolecular hydrogel based on riboflavin, melamine and amino acid derivatives were constructed for controlled release of pesticides, Niclosamide derivatives. The formation of hydrogel may be attributed to self-assemble via hydrogen bonding and π–π interaction, which have been researched via scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra. The rheological experiments showed that the hydrogel materials and drug-loaded hydrogel all demonstrated good mechanical strength and high stability. Further experimental results indicated that the drug-loaded hydrogels show large drug loadings, long-term release time and relatively higher efficiency to anti-cercariae in the water environment.

To investigate the steric effect of amino acids, N,N′-dialanine-1,4,5,8-naphthalene tetracarboxylic acid diethylamide (ANTA) and N,N′-diphenylalanine-1,4,5,8-naphthalene tetracarboxylic acid diethylamide (PNTA) were synthesized based on naphthalene-1,4,5,8-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (NTA) with alanine and phenylalanine, respectively. These compounds were characterized by infrared spectroscopy (IR), magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS). Interestingly, ANTA could self-assemble into spiral nanorings, but PNTA formed nanospheres. In order to reveal the self-assembly driving forces, the two-dimensional (2D) supramolecular self-assembly behaviours were studied on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) at the solid–liquid interface, which indicated the driving forces could be attributed to intermolecular hydrogen-bonding and π–π stacking interactions. These results represent different self-assembly behaviours due to the steric effect of amino acids.

Bleached bamboo pulp, as a kind of natural cellulose, has received significant attention in the field of biomass materials due to its advantages of environmental protection and the abundance of raw materials. Low-temperature alkali/urea aqueous system is a green dissolution technology for cellulose, which has promising application prospects in the field of regenerated cellulose materials. However, bleached bamboo pulp, with high viscosity average molecular weight (Mη) and high crystallinity, is difficult to dissolve in an alkaline urea solvent system, restraining its practical application in the textile field. Herein, based on commercial bleached bamboo pulp with high Mη, a series of dissolvable bamboo pulps with suitable Mη was prepared using a method of adjusting the ratio of sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide in the pulping process. Due to the hydroxyl radicals being able to react with hydroxyls of cellulose, molecular chains are cut down. Moreover, several regenerated cellulose hydrogels and films were fabricated in an ethanol coagulation bath or a citric acid coagulation bath, and the relationship between the properties of the regenerated materials and the Mη of the bamboo cellulose was systematically studied. The results showed that hydrogel/film had good mechanical properties, as the Mη is 8.3 × 10⁴ and the tensile strength of a regenerated film and the film have values up to 101 MPa and 3.19 MPa, respectively. In this contribution, a simple method of a one-step oxidation of hydroxyl radicals to prepare bamboo cellulose with diversified Mη is presented, providing an avenue for a preparation of dissolving pulp with different Mη in an alkali/urea dissolution system and expanding the practical applications of bamboo pulp in biomass-based materials, textiles, and biomedical materials.

In this study, a novel three-component hydrogel has been designed and fabricated via hierarchical self-assembly by amino acid derivative (NPPD), riboflavin (RF) and α-cyclodextrin (α-CD). These molecules were aggregated to form some fibrous structures based on hydrogen bond and π–π stacking. The results show that the hydrogel has a specific response to α-amylase and the fluorescence disappears once hydrolyzed. Therefore, this multi-component hydrogel has potential application in the field of drug delivery.