Bin Liu

Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications | BUPT

Sn-based materials have been demonstrated as promising catalysts for the selective electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). However, the detailed structures of catalytic intermediates and the key surface species remain to be identified. In this work, a series of single-Sn-atom catalysts with well-defined structures is developed as model syst...

White-light-emitting carbon dots (WCDs) show innate advantages as phosphors in white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs). For WLEDs, the color rendering index (CRI) is the most important metric to evaluate its performance. Herein, WCDs are prepared by a facile one-step solvothermal reaction of trimellitic acid and o-phenylenediamine. It consists of four...

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is the critical stage in the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) from simple and reversible steatosis to irreversible cirrhosis and even hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Thus, the diagnosis of NASH is important for preventing the progress of NAFLD into a fatal condition. The oxidative enzyme my...

Integrated n-Si/BiVO4 is one of the most promising candidates for unbiased photoelectrochemical water splitting. However, a direct connection between n-Si and BiVO4 will not attain overall water splitting due to the small band offset as well as the interfacial defects at the n-Si/BiVO4 interface that severely impede carrier separation and transport...

Electrocatalytic hydrogenation enables the efficient treatment of oxidized contaminants in water under mild conditions, but its application has been greatly hindered by the need for a supporting electrolyte and the large amounts of unsafe intermediate products. Here we report the development of a rhodium nanoparticle-modified palladium membrane ele...

Single-atom catalysts with a well-defined metal center open unique opportunities for exploring the catalytically active site and reaction mechanism of chemical reactions. However, understanding of the electronic and structural dynamics of single-atom catalytic centers under reaction condition is still limited due to the challenge of combining opera...

Halide perovskite quantum dots have recently attracted increasing research interests in photocatalytic CO2 reduction due to their high light absorption coefficient, tunable bandgap, and long charge diffusion length. However, the...

Providing affordable safe drinking water and universal sanitation poses a grand challenge especially after the global COVID-19 pandemic. In this work, we developed atomically dispersed Au on potassium-incorporated polymeric carbon nitride (AuKPCN) that could simultaneously boost photocatalytic generation of ·OH and H 2 O 2 with an apparent quantum...

Electrochemically reducing CO 2 to valuable fuels or feedstocks is recognized as a promising strategy to simultaneously tackle the crises of fossil fuel shortage and carbon emission. Sn-based catalysts have been widely studied for electrochemical CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) to make formic acid/formate, which unfortunately still suffer from lo...

Polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) has been regarded as a promising technology for renewable hydrogen production. However, acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts with long‐term stability imposes a grand challenge in its large‐scale industrialization. In this review, critical factors that may lead to catalyst’s instabi...

Polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) has been regarded as a promising technology for renewable hydrogen production. However, acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts with long‐term stability imposes a grand challenge in its large‐scale industrialization. In this review, critical factors that may lead to catalyst’s instabi...

Zinc homeostatic medicine is of great potential for cancer chemo‐immunotherapy, however, there are few reports on anti‐tumor compounds that can trigger Zn2+‐mediated immune responses. In this work, we developed a novel cyclometalated Pt(IV)‐terthiophene complex Pt3, not only inducing DNA damage and cellular metabolism dysregulation, but also disrup...

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is an established method to prepare protective layers for Si-based photoelectrodes for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. Although ALD has been widely used in microelectronics and photovoltaics, it remains a great challenge to design simple and effective ALD systems to deposit large and uniform protective film...

Designing and synthesizing highly efficient and stable electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is important for realizing hydrogen economy. Tuning the electronic structure of the electrocatalysts is essential to achieve optimal HER activity, and interfacial engineering is an effective strategy to induce electron transfer in a heteros...

The great promise of photodynamic therapy (PDT) has thrusted the rapid progress of developing highly effective photosensitizers (PS) in killing cancerous cells and bacteria. To mitigate the intrinsic limitations of the classical molecular photosensitizers, researchers have been looking into designing new generation of nanomaterial-based photosensit...

Zinc homeostatic medicine is of great potential for cancer chemo‐immunotherapy, however, there are few reports on anti‐tumor compounds that can trigger Zn2+‐mediated immune responses. In this work, we developed a novel cyclometalated Pt(IV)‐terthiophene complex Pt3, not only inducing DNA damage and cellular metabolism dysregulation, but also disrup...

Electrochemically reducing CO 2 to valuable fuels or feedstocks is recognized as a promising strategy to simultaneously tackle the crises of fossil fuel shortage and carbon emission. Sn‐based catalysts have been widely studied for electrochemical CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) to make formic acid/formate, which unfortunately still suffer from lo...

Photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction reaction flow cells are promising devices to meet the requirements to produce solar fuels at the industrial scale. Photoelectrodes with wide bandgaps do not allow for efficient CO2 reduction at high current densities, while the integration of opaque photoelectrodes with narrow bandgaps in flow cell configurations...

Based on partial coherence theory, this study rigorously deduces the principle of spatial light interference microscopy (SLIM) and improves the calculation method of SLIM. The main problem we found with SLIM is that it simply defaults the phase of the direct light to 0. To address this problem, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a double fou...

The water oxidation reaction (or oxygen evolution reaction, OER) plays a critical role in green hydrogen production via water splitting, electrochemical CO2 reduction, and nitrogen fixation. The four-electron and four-proton transfer OER process involves multiple reaction intermediates and elementary steps that lead to sluggish kinetics; therefore,...

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been a well‐accepted clinical treatment for malignant tumors owing to its non‐invasiveness and high spatiotemporal selectivity. However, the treatment outcome of current PDT applications is hindered by hypoxia and intracellular oxidative resistance of solid tumors. Recent studies showed that inhibiting histone deacety...

Available online Clusteroluminescence (CL) materials, as an emerging class of luminescent materials with unique photophysical properties, have received increasing attention owing to their great theoretical significance and potential for biological applications. Although much progress has been made in the design, synthesis and application of CL mate...

Adsorption energy (AE) of reactive intermediate is currently the most important descriptor for electrochemical reactions (e.g., water electrolysis, hydrogen fuel cell, electrochemical nitrogen fixation, electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction, etc.), which can bridge the gap between catalyst's structure and activity. Tracing the history and evolut...

Inducing the surface enrichment of active noble metal can not only help to stabilize the catalyst but also modify the catalytic performance of the catalyst through electronic and geometric effects. Herein, we report the in situ surface enrichment of Ir on IrRu alloy during the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The surface enrichment of Ir was probed...

π-Molecules play important roles in many applications such as organic light-emitting devices, photocatalysis, photovoltaics, biosensors, and medicine. Very often, π-conjugated molecules with high utilization of excited states in the solid state are of great research interest. However, owing to the gap between molecular structure and effective molec...

Noble metal electrocatalysts (e.g., Pt, Ru, etc.) suffer from sluggish kinetics of water dissociation for the electrochemical reduction of water to molecular hydrogen in alkaline and neutral pH environments. Herein, we found that an integration of Ru nanoparticles (NPs) on oxygen-deficient WO3-x manifested a 24.0-fold increase in hydrogen evolution...

Due to their marvelous electrical and optical properties, perovskite nanocrystals have reached remarkable landmarks in solar cells, light‐emitting diodes, and photodetectors. However, the intrinsic instability of ionic perovskites, which would undergo an undesirable phase transition and decompose rapidly in ambient humidity, limits their long‐term...

Traditional glioblastoma (GBM) cell lines do not maintain the heterogeneity of the original tumor, cell interactions, and therapy response, thus limiting their investigation in GBM theranostics. Herein, a kind of GBM tumor‐targeting nanoparticles (NPs) TCFNP@iRGD are designed and constructed, which are generated by photoacoustic (PA) contrast agent...

Even though Ni catalysts have shown promising performance in the semi-hydrogenation of ethylene, the selectivity and stability remain to be improved so that they may be used to replace expensive noble metal catalysts. Herein, an aluminate-intercalated NiMgAl-layered double hydroxide (LDH) was prepared through a facile co-precipitation approach, and...

Immunotherapy, the most promising strategy of cancer treatment, has achieved promising outcomes, but its clinical efficacy in pancreatic cancer is limited mainly due to the complicated tumor immunosuppressive microenvironment. As a highly inflammatory form of immunogenic cell death (ICD), pyroptosis provides a great opportunity to alleviate immunos...

Phospholipid nanoparticles have been actively employed for numerous biomedical applications. A key factor in ensuring effective and safe applications of these nanomaterials is the regulation of their interactions with target cells, which is significantly dependent on an in‐depth understanding of the nanoparticle‐cell interactions. To date, most stu...

To date, only Cu-based catalysts have been used to generate appreciable C2 chemicals via the electrochemical CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR). Here we report a Cu-free, Sn-based tandem electrocatalyst consisting of SnS 2 nanosheets and single Sn atoms coordinated with three oxygen atoms on three-dimensional (3D) carbon, which exhibits significant...

Doping has shown very promising potential in endowing room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) properties of organic phosphors with minimal effort. In this work, we report a new isomer design and doping strategy that is applicable to dibenzothiophene (DBT) and its derivatives. Three isomers were synthesized to study the dopant effect on enhancing RTP...

Developing low‐cost, high‐performance, and durable photoanodes is essential in solar‐driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) energy conversion. Sb2S3 is a low‐bandgap (∼1.7 eV) n‐type semiconductor with a maximum theoretical solar conversion efficiency of ∼28% for PEC water splitting. However, bulk Sb2S3 exhibits opaque characteristics and suffers from s...

The 2‐electron oxygen photo‐reduction to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is seriously inhibited by its sluggish charge kinetics. Herein, we demonstrate a polarization engineering strategy by grafting (thio)urea functional groups onto covalent triazine frameworks (CTFs), giving rise to significantly promoted charge separation/transport and obviously enhanc...

Benefiting from the merits of short response time, high current density, and differential pressure, the proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE) is attracting increasing attention from both academic and industry researchers. A limiting factor that impedes the widespread application of the PEMWE is its reliance on the rarest elements, suc...

Developing non-conjugated luminescent polymers (NCLPs) with fluorescence and long-lived room-temperature phosphorescence is of great significance for revealing the essence of NCLPs luminescence, which has gradually attracted the attention of researchers in recent years. Herein, polymethylol (PMO) and poly(3-butene-1,2-diol) (PBD) with polyhydroxy s...

Bacterial infection is the leading cause of many serious inflammation diseases threatening human health. Existing theranostic options for bacterial infection are always complicated and unsatisfactory. There is an increasing interest in developing a more effective theranostic approach for the treatment of infections. Herein, we report the developmen...

A high-rate continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) system based on high-order discrete modulation is experimentally investigated. With the help of the novel system scheme, effective digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms and advanced analytical security proof methods, the transmission results of 5.059 km, 10.314 km, 24.490 km, an...

The study of non-conjugated luminescent polymers (NCLPs) with fluorescence and long-lived room-temperature phosphorescence is of great significance for revealing the essence of NCLPs luminescence, which has gradually attracted the attention of researchers in recent years. Herein, polymethylol (PMO) and poly(3-butene-1,2-diol) (PBD) with polyhydroxy...

The electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) that converts renewable electricity into storable hydrogen, a sustainable and clean energy carrier, provides a promising method to mitigate the energy crisis and environmental pollution. In general, noble‐metal‐based nanomaterials (including Pt, Rh, Ru, Ir, etc.) have drawn tremendous research a...

Aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) fluorogens provide new opportunities to promote efficient reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in aggregates, which represent the promising candidates to construct theranostic nanoparticles for photodynamic therapy (PDT), but the size effect has been rarely explored. Herein, a universal method to fabricate org...

The electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction (eNRR) offers a promising strategy to synthesize ammonia at ambient conditions. However, the selectivity and yield of ammonia are greatly impeded by the slow kinetics of the eNRR and the competing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, we find that by growing Ru nanoparticles on rutile TiO2, the i...

ConspectusPhotodynamic therapy has been actively explored recently to combat various physiological disorders and diseases, including bacterial infections, inflammation, and cancer. As a noninvasive modality with high spatiotemporal selectivity, photodynamic therapy leverages photosensitizers, light, and reactive oxygen species to induce cytotoxicit...

As is known, quantum key distribution (QKD) can theoretically realize information-theoretic security with a reliable identity authentication protocol. However, the most commonly used identity authentication protocol based on public-key cryptography cannot resist the attacks from the adversaries with the ability of quantum computing, so quantum iden...

Vertical nanowire arrays (NWAs) have attracted great attention for their outstanding electronic and materials transport properties. Despite the recent progresses, peel‐off of the metal NWAs remains a major challenge for their application. Herein, the peel‐off problem is studied and improved synthesis to solve the problem is discussed. Severe electr...

Living materials based on bacterial cellulose (BC) represent a natural and promising candidate for wound dressing. Both physical adsorption and chemical methods have been applied to BC for realizing antibacterial function. However, effective and long‐lasting incorporation of bactericidal moieties to BC remains challenging. We herein explore a Komag...

The quantum private query (QPQ) is a quantum solution for the symmetrically private information retrieval problem. We study the security of quantum-key-distribution-based QPQ with weak coherent pulses. The result shows that multiphoton pulses have posed a serious threat to the participant’s privacy in QPQ protocols. Then we propose a decoy-state me...

Porous monolithic catalysts with high specific surface areas, which can not only facilitate heat/mass transfer, but also help to expose active sites, are highly desired in strongly exothermic or endothermic gas-solid phase reactions. In this work, hierarchical spinel monolithic catalysts with a porous woodpile architecture were fabricated via extru...

A high-rate continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) system based on high-order discrete modulation is experimentally investigated. With the help of the novel system scheme, effective digital signal processing algorithms and advanced analytical security proof method, the transmission results of 5 km, 10 km, 25 km, and 50 km are achieve...

Due to the complexity, aggressiveness, and heterogeneity of malignant melanoma, it is difficult to eradicate the whole tumor through conventional treatment. Herein, a strategy of metabolic engineering labeled anaerobic oncolytic bacteria (Clostridium butyricum) is demonstrated to achieve the ablation of melanoma. In this system, the metabolic subst...

Exploring catalyst reconstruction under the electrochemical condition is critical to understanding the catalyst structure–activity relationship as well as to design effective electrocatalysts. Herein, a PbF2 nanocluster is synthesized and its self‐reconstruction under the CO2 reduction condition is investigated. F− leaching, CO2‐saturated environme...

The nucleus is considered the ideal target for anti-tumor therapy because DNA and some enzymes in the nucleus are the main causes of cell canceration and malignant proliferation. However, nuclear target drugs with good biosafety and high efficiency in cancer treatment are rare. Herein, a nuclear-targeted material MeTPAE with aggregation-induced emi...

Improving the enrichment of drugs or theranostic agents within tumors is vital to achieve effective cancer diagnosis and therapy with reduced dosage and damage to normal tissues. In this work, we describe an enzyme-mediated AIEgen intracellular polymerization strategy that can simultaneously promote the accumulation and retention of the AIEgen in t...

Quantum key distribution (QKD) can achieve information security theoretically. However, it should be based on the reliable identity of both parties in the communication. Compared with classical identity authentication protocols, quantum identity authentication (QIA) protocols have higher security level in theory, and they are easier to be combined...

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) show great promise to improve the performance of catalysis because of their spatially isolated single-atom sites with unique electronic properties. Herein, we construct single Zn atoms anchored on ultrathin two-dimensional (2D) N-doped carbon nanosheets (Zn–SAs/UNCNS) as an efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction...

Pyroptose ist eine einzigartige Form des programmierten Zelltods, die im Wesentlichen proinflammatorisch und entscheidend für die Immunität ist. In ihrem Forschungsartikel (DOI: 10.1002/ange.202115800) entwickelten Qian Cao, Zong‐Wan Mao und Mitarbeiter einen an Carbonsäureanhydrase IX (CAIX) verankerten Photosensibilisator CA‐Re, der in der Lage i...

Pyroptosis is a unique form of programmed cell death that is essentially proinflammatory and critical for immunity. In their Research Article (DOI: 10.1002/anie.202115800), Qian Cao, Zong‐Wan Mao and co‐workers developed a carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX)‐anchored photosensitizer CA‐Re capable of inducing and self‐reporting membrane rupture upon irradi...

Ouzo Nanocrystallization In article number 2100808, Liu and co-workers report the simple and novel approach of ouzo nanocrystallization for the synthesis of small and highly uniform organic nanocrystals with photoluminescent properties. The process of ouzo nanocrystallization helps in bringing the unique properties of organic dyes to real biomedica...

For practical applications, molecules often exist in an aggregate state. Therefore, it is of great value if one can predict the performance of molecules when forming aggregates, for example, aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) or aggregation‐caused quenching (ACQ). Herein, a database containing AIE/ACQ molecules reported in the literature is first e...

Non-traditional intrinsic clusteroluminescence (CL) polymers with persistent room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) properties have recently attracted considerable attention owing to the availability of versatile preparation methods and their excellent processability. Herein, a...

Electrochemical CO2 reduction to value‐added chemicals/fuels provides a promising way to mitigate CO2 emission and alleviate energy shortage. CO2‐to‐CO conversion involves only two‐electron/proton transfer and thus is kinetically fast. Among the various developed CO2‐to‐CO reduction electrocatalysts, transition metal/N‐doped carbon (M‐N‐C) catalyst...

Dual-functional aggregation-induced photosensitizers (AIE-PSs) with singlet oxygen generation (SOG) ability and bright fluorescence in aggregated state have received much attention in image-guided photodynamic therapy (PDT). However, designing an AIE-PS with both high SOG and intense fluorescence via molecular design is still challenging. In this w...

Exploring efficient electrocatalytic systems for hydrogen production is crucial but challenging for realizing hydrogen economy. In this issue of Chem Catalysis, Zhou and co-workers developed a room temperature electrocatalytic chemical looping system based on copper oxide as the oxygen carrier and ascorbate as the fuel for low energy consumption hy...