Gaseous reactants play a key role in a wide range of biocatalytic reactions, however reaction kinetics are generally limited by the slow mass transport of gases (typically oxygen) in or through aqueous solutions. Herein we address this limitation by developing a triphase reaction system.

Carbon spheres (CSs) have attracted great attention given their wide applications in bio-diagnostics, photonic band-gap crystals and drug delivery, etc. The morphology and size of CSs greatly affect their performances and applications. Herein, we report a green and catalyst-free hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) method to synthesize CSs with glucose as carbon precursor. The diameter of CSs can be tuned within a wide range from 450 to 40 nm by controlling the glucose concentration, reaction time and temperature. Using the obtained CSs as template, hollow TiO 2 nanospheres (HTNSs) with controllable diameters are prepared via a sol-gel method. As photocatalysts for hydrogen generation, the photoactivity of the HTNSs shows strong dependence upon size, and is much higher than that of solid TiO 2 . With particle size decreasing, the photoactivity of the obtained HTNSs gradually increases. Without any co-catalyst, the highest photocatalytic hydrogen generation activity is obtained with HTNSs of 40 nm in diameter, which exceeds that of solid TiO 2 and commercial P25 by 64 times and 3 times, respectively.

Bioinspired superhydrophobic substrates have been used in many scientific and technological areas. These substrates can trap atmosphere-linked air pockets at the solid–liquid interface, offering an opportunity to address the oxygen-deficit problem in many reaction systems. Herein, we addressed the oxygen-deficit problem in metal oxide electrochemical deposition by using a triphase electrode possessing an air−liquid−solid joint interface. Oxygen in the interface is directly available from the air phase for sufficient OH – production via oxygen cathodic reaction, thereby offering us a green approach to fabricate two-dimensional mesoporous ZnO nanoarrays over a wide range of current densities. Further, because metal oxides are deposited at the triphase interface, sufficient O 2 , a natural electron scavenger required in photocatalytic reaction to suppress the recombination of photogenerated electron–hole pairs, can be directly supplied, and we demonstrated their enhanced photocatalytic reaction kinetics in water remediation. The present work highlights a powerful interface-engineering strategy for fabricating metal oxides with unprecedented photocatalytic ability.

Intracellular delivery of exogenous macromolecules by photothermal methods is still not widely employed despite its universal and clear effect on cell membrane rupture. The main causes are the unsatisfactory delivery efficiency, poor cell activity, poor cell harvest, and sophisticated operation; these challenges stem from the difficulty of simply controlling laser hotspots. Here, we constructed latent-photothermal surfaces based on multiwall carbon nanotube-doped poly(dimethyl siloxane), which can deliver cargoes with high delivery efficiency and cell viability. Also, cell release and harvest efficiencies were not affected by coordinating the hotspot content and surface structure. This system is suitable for use with a wide range of cell lines, including hard-to-transfect types. The delivery efficiency and cell viability were shown to be greater than 85 and 80%, respectively, and the cell release and harvest efficiency were greater than 95 and 80%, respectively. Moreover, this system has potential application prospects in the field of cell therapy, including stem cell neural differentiation and dendritic cell vaccines.