Fossil fuel resources depletion and growing concern about environmental issues have raised the demand for newly sustainable biomaterials. To address this challenge, a new type of biodegradable and environmental rigid polyurethane foam called rigid polyurethane foams (RPUF)-M from full modified soy-based polyols have been synthesized without the addition of petroleum-based polyols. On the basis of the analysis of structure–activity relationship, a new kind of biobased polyurethane polyols called Bio-polyol-M was designed and synthesized directly from epoxidized soybean oil and a novel polyhydroxy compound in a three-step continuous microflow system. In the continuous microflow system, the epoxidation of soybean oil, the synthesis of GLPO (glycerine with styrene oxide), and the ring-opening reaction of epoxidized soybean oil were coupled. Another soy-polyol called Bio-polyol-B was synthesized in batch mode. In comparison to those of Bio-polyol-B, Bio-polyol-M had a higher hydroxyl number and a much lower viscosity. The RPUF-M also possessed a series of advantages over the rigid polyurethane foam called RPUF-B from Bio-polyol-B.

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Triphenylmethylium cation catalyzed Povarov reactions with excellent yields in 1 h with a remarkably low loading (0.5 mol %) are disclosed. A Lewis acidic carbenium catalysis mechanism was proposed and validated. A three-component Povarov reaction in a batch was transferred into a two-stage microflow process, which resulted in a 60-fold reduction in reaction time from 2 h to 2 min with 89% separated yield.

Three kinds of co-doped TiO 2 nanomaterials were synthesized by using a continuous precipitation method with a valve assisted micromixer in the presence of additives and titanate sources. The research results revealed that co-doped elements were incorporated into the lattice of TiO 2 by substituting Ti and O atoms in the lattice of TiO 2 . Compared with conventional methods, the substitution process was realized within a few seconds. The resulting nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), nitrophysisorption measurements, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and diffused reflectance UV-visible spectra (DRS). The synthesized samples were evaluated in the degradation of methyl orange dye (MO) under UV and visible light irradiation at room temperature. Fe, S co-doped TiO 2 (TiO 2 -Fe-S) showed nearly the same catalytic efficiency compared with pure TiO 2 (5-10 nm) under UV irradiation. The visible photocatalytic activity was higher than pure TiO 2 (5-10 nm) under visible light irradiation.

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