Water contaminant: Use it but do not shield it to synthesize co-polymers with multiple emission colours.

Due to the high affinity with water molecules, amide compounds are easily contaminated by moisture; therefore, the water interference effect cannot be totally excluded from the amide-involved reactions. Thus, the perfect solution is to use the interference effect but not shield it in a real application. In this work, we introduced different contents of sodium acrylate (AAS) to scavenge water from the monomers of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAm) when copolymerized with TPA-Vinyl-4CN. Herein, water molecules play a role as nucleophilic reagents to attack highly active functional groups as -C=C-CN from TPA-Vinyl-4CN, leading to a blue emissive TPA-Vinyl-2CHO. From this study, we made a deep awareness of the interactions between three reaction partners of AAS and NIPAm as well as TPA-Vinyl-4CN. Our results clearly demonstrated the fact that water can be perfectly used and controlled by the water absorbent of AAS, developing a new approach to synthesizing multiple emission-coloured polymers by using only one luminogen of TPA-Vinyl-4CN.

Simple Way to Fabricate Emissive Boron-Containing Covalent Organic Frameworks.

Highly fluorescent covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are rarely obtained because of the π-π stacked layers with aggregation-caused quenching behavior. Unarguably, highly fluorescent COFs with tunable emission colors are even more rarely achieved. Herein, a general strategy to modify the classical COF material (named COF-1) by different fluorescent molecules via N → B interaction was developed. In this method, the boron-containing COF-1 acted as a porous and crystalline matrix as well as a reaction partner of Lewis acid; after interacting with fluorescent molecules with the anchoring group of pyridine (Lewis base), COF-1 takes a gorgeous transfiguration from a non-emissive powder into a highly fluorescent COF material with tunable emission colors. This disclosed method endowed the typical COFs with new emissive life and is speculated with the general research concept for all boron-containing COFs. Benefiting from the prominent fluorescent emission in the aggregation state, sensitive probes toward amines are achieved.

Hypochlorite Detection by Fluorescent Sensors Bearing Long Alkyl Chains: The Role of Chain Length in Sensing Properties.

Three pyridinium derivatives bearing alkyl chains of different lengths (C1, C8, and C18) that show aggregation-enhanced emission were synthesized. These compounds can be used to detect ClO- ion as the reaction releases the fluorescent core with an increase in emission intensity and change in absorption wavelength. The lowest detection limit of TPA-Pyr-18C was 6.04 µM. The length of the alkyl chain and resulting lipophilicity allowed the targeting of different subcellular structures. TPA-Pyr-18C could be used for staining yolk lipids in zebrafish.

A Cost-Effective Way to Produce Gram-Scale 18O-Labeled Aromatic Aldehydes.

Obtaining 18O-labeled organic substances is of great research importance and also an extremely challenging work. In this work, depending on the reversed Knoevenagel reaction, 18O-labeled aromatic aldehydes (3a-3x) are successfully obtained with high total yields (52-72%) and sufficient 18O abundance (90.90-96.09%).

Functional Copolymers Married with Lanthanide(III) Ions: A Win-Win Pathway to Fabricate Rare Earth Fluorescent Materials with Multiple Applications.

Lanthanide(III)-based luminescent materials have attracted great research interests due to their unique optical, electronic, and chemical characteristics. Up to now, how to extend these materials into large, broad application fields is still a great challenging task. In this contribution, we are intended to present a simple but facile strategy to enhance the luminescence from lanthanide ions and impart lanthanide(III)-based luminescent materials with more applicable properties, leading to meet the requirements from different purposes, such as being used as highly emissive powders, hydrogels, films, and sensitive probes under external stimuli. Herein, a water soluble, blue color emissive, temperature sensitive, and film-processable copolymer (Poly-ligand) was designed and synthesized. Upon complexing with Eu3+ and Tb3+ ions, the red color-emitting Poly-ligand-Eu and green color-emitting Poly-ligand-Tb were produced. After finely tuning the ratios between them, a standard white color emitting Poly-ligand-Eu1:Tb4 (CIE = 0.33 and 0.33) was obtained. Furthermore, the resulted materials not only possessed the emissive luminescent property but also inherited functions from the copolymer of Poly-ligand. Thus, these lanthanide(III)-based materials were used for fingerprint imaging, luminescent soft matters formation, colorful organic light-emitting diode device fabrication, and acid/alkali vapors detection.