The separation of hydrogen isotopes for applications such as nuclear fusion is a major challenge. Current technologies are energy intensive and inefficient. Nanoporous materials have the potential to separate hydrogen isotopes by kinetic quantum sieving, but high separation selectivity tends to correlate with low adsorption capacity, which can prohibit process scale-up. In this study, we use organic synthesis to modify the internal cavities of cage molecules to produce hybrid materials that are excellent quantum sieves. By combining small-pore and large-pore cages together in a single solid, we produce a material with optimal separation performance that combines an excellent deuterium/hydrogen selectivity (8.0) with a high deuterium uptake (4.7 millimoles per gram).

The visible-light photocatalytic performance of the heterostructured g-C3N4/Ag/TiO2 microspheres was investigated. As an electron-conduction bridge, Ag nanoparticles were photodeposited as the interlayer between g-C3N4 and the surface of TiO2 microspheres to increase visible-light absorption via the surface plasmon resonance. The interface between Ag/TiO2 and g-C3N4 facilitates the direct migration of photoinduced electrons from g-C3N4 to Ag/TiO2, which is conductive to retarding the recombination of electron-holes. The g-C3N4 (4%)/Ag/TiO2 microsphere sample shows significant photocatalytic activity, higher than the sum of g-C3N4 (1.2 mg) and Ag/TiO2 samples, or the sum of TiO2 and Ag/g-C3N4 (1.8 mg) samples. It indicates that the heterostructured combination of g-C3N4, Ag and TiO2 microspheres provides synergistic photocatalytic activity through an efficient electron transfer process.

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Herein we report al inear ionic molecule that assembles into as upramolecular nano-tunnel structure through synergy of trident-type ionic interactions and p-p stacking interactions.T he nano-tunnel crystal exhibits anisotropic guest adsorption behavior.T he material shows good thermal stability and undergoes multi-stage single-crystal-tosingle-crystal phase transformations to an onporous structure on heating.T he material exhibits ar emarkable chemical stability under both acidic and basic conditions,which is rarely observed in supramolecular organic frameworks and is often related to structures with designed hydrogen-bonding interactions.B ecause of the high polarity of the tunnels,t his molecular crystal also shows al arge CO 2-adsorption capacity while excluding other gases at ambient temperature,leading to high CO 2 /CH 4 selectivity.Aggregation-induced emission of the molecules gives the bulk crystals vapochromic properties.

Macrocycles are usually non-porous or barely porous in the solid-state because of their small intrinsic cavity sizes and tendency to close-pack. Here, we use a heterochiral pairing strategy to introduce...