A new and tri-responsive fluorescent Schiff base probe (DBAB) has been designed and developed for the recognition of iron( iii ) ions (Fe ³⁺ ), iron( ii ) ions (Fe ²⁺ ) and copper( ii ) ions (Cu ²⁺ ) simultaneously.

In recent years, multifunctional nanoparticles have attracted much research interest in various biomedical applications such as biosensors, diagnosis, and drug delivery systems. In this study, we report an NIR imaging diagnosis and therapy nanoplatform which is developed by complexing upconversion nanoparticles (UCNP@OA) NaLuF₄:Er³⁺,Yb³⁺ with nanographene oxide (NGO). The obtained nanocomposites UCNP@NGO showed excellent stability and low cell toxicity, which not only acted as upconversion luminescence (UCL) probes for tumor imaging, but also served as therapy agents by converting laser energy into thermal energy for photothermal therapy (PTT) with high photothermal conversion efficiency. This work highlights the potential of UCNP@NGO nanocomposites as an integrated theranostic nanoplatform for the UCL image combinatorial PTT of cancer, providing a promising candidate for clinical antitumor treatments.

In this paper, we developed a silk fibroin nanofiber (SF) hydrogel system complexed with upconversion nanoparticles and nano-graphene oxide (SF/UCNP@NGO) for upconversion luminescence imaging and photothermal therapy. The NaLuF₄:Er³⁺,Yb³⁺ upconversion nanoparticles were complexed with the nano-graphene oxide composite by a ligand exchange strategy, and then doped into an aqueous SF solution to form a hybrid hydrogel system. In vitro studies demonstrated that the SF/UCNP@NGO hydrogels possessed excellent biocompatibility and were capable of efficiently ablating cancerous cells via the photothermal effect. In vivo antitumor studies further confirmed that the SF/UCNP@NGO hydrogels could present outstanding antitumor efficacy. This work presents a novel hydrogel system, which could not only act as tumor imaging probes, but could also serve as therapy agents.

Vinyl Benzoate/Heptadecafluorodecyl acrylate (VBe/HFDA) co-polymers were synthesized and characterized as thickening agents for supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO₂). The solubility and thickening capability of the co-polymer samples in SC-CO₂ were evaluated by measuring cloud point pressure and relative viscosity. The molecular dynamics (MD) simulation for all atoms was employed to simulate the microscopic molecular behavior and the intermolecular interaction of co-polymer–CO₂ systems. We found that the introduction of VBe group decreased the polymer–CO₂ interaction and increased the polymer–polymer interaction, leading to a reduction in solubility of the co-polymers in SC-CO₂. However, the co-polymer could generate more effective inter-chain interaction and generate more viscosity enhancement compared to the Poly(Heptadecafluorodecyl) (PHFDA) homopolymer due to the driving force provided by π-π stacking of the VBe groups. The optimum molar ratio value for VBe in co-polymers for the viscosity enhancement of SC-CO₂ was found to be 0.33 in this work. The P(HFDA_0.67-co-VBe_0.33) was able to enhance the viscosity of SC-CO₂ by 438 times at 5 wt. %. Less VBe content would result in a lack of intermolecular interaction, although excessive VBe content would generate more intramolecular π-π stacking and less intermolecular π-π stacking. Both conditions reduce the thickening capability of the P(HFDA-co-VBe) co-polymer. This work presented the relationship between structure and performance of the co-polymers in SC-CO₂ by combining experiment and molecular simulations.