Niobium Diselenide Nanosheets: An Emerging Biodegradable Nanoplatform for Efficient Cancer Phototheranostics in the NIR-II Window.

As a prominent class of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), niobium diselenide nanosheets (NbSe2 NSs) have garnered tremendous interest on account of promising applications pertaining to optoelectronics and energy storage. Although NbSe2 NSs have many unique advantages such as inherent biocompatibility and broad absorption in the NIR region, their biomedical applications have rarely been reported, especially as therapeutic agents for the second near-infrared (NIR-II) range. Herein, a biodegradable nanotherapeutic platform consisting of NbSe2 NSs is designed and demonstrated for NIR-II light-triggered photothermal therapy. NbSe2 NSs synthesized by grinding and liquid exfoliation exhibit superior photothermal conversion efficiency (48.3%) and remarkable photothermal stability in the NIR-II region. In vitro assessment demonstrates that NbSe2 NSs have favorable photothermal cell ablation efficiency and biocompatibility. After intravenous injection in vivo, the NbSe2 NSs accumulate passively in tumor sites to facilitate fluorescence imaging and tumor ablation by NIR-II illumination. Furthermore, as a result of gradual degradation in the physiological environment, NbSe2 NSs can be excreted from the body to avoid potential toxicity caused by long-term retention in vivo. The results reveal a promising NIR-II light-triggered PTT strategy with the aid of NbSe2 NSs and the platform is expected to have large potential in cancer theranostics.

CoSe2-Decorated NbSe2 Nanosheets Fabricated via Cation Exchange for Li Storage.

Though 2D transition metal dichalcogenides have attracted a lot of attention in energy-storage applications, the applications of NbSe2 for Li storage are still limited by the unsatisfactory theoretical capacity and uncontrollable synthetic approaches. Herein, a controllable oil-phase synthetic route for preparation of NbSe2 nanoflowers consisted of nanosheets with a thickness of ∼10 nm is presented. Significantly, a part of NbSe2 can be further replaced by orthorhombic CoSe2 nanoparticles via a post cation exchange process, and the predominantly 2D nanosheet-like morphology can be well-maintained, resulting in the formation of CoSe2-decorated NbSe2 (denoted as CDN) nanosheets. More interestingly, the CDN nanosheets exhibit excellent lithium-ion battery performance. For example, it achieves a highly reversible capacity of 280 mAh g-1 at 10 A g-1 and long cyclic stability with specific capacity of 364.7 mAh g-1 at 5 A g-1 after 1500 cycles, which are significantly higher than those of reported pure NbSe2.