We present a blueprint for aromatic C-H functionalization via a combination of photocatalysis and cobalt catalysis and describe the utility of this strategy for benzene amination and hydroxylation. Without any sacrificial oxidant, we could use the dual catalyst system to produce aniline directly from benzene and ammonia, and phenol from benzene and water, both with evolution of hydrogen gas under unusually mild conditions in excellent yields and selectivities.

mance of CDs, novel methods have been proposed. Element doping is considered one of the effective strategies for improved fluorescence QYs. Sun et al. used a series of N-containing bases to synthesize nitrogen-doped CDs with a QY of 94%. [22] Yang and his colleagues condensed citric acid with ethylenediamine to obtain CDs with a QY of up to 80%. [23] Naumov et al. used glucosamine hydrochloride and thiourea as precursors to synthesize nitrogensulfur co-doped graphene quantum dots with a QY of 60%. [24] Nevertheless, obtaining long-wavelength emission CDs and multicolor emission CDs is still difficult. To this end, researchers have proposed another strategy, that is, to purify CDs or obtain multicolor CDs by adjusting the type and ratio of the solvents through a chromatographic column. Jiang and co-workers used three isomers of phenylenediamine as precursors to obtain blue, green, and red CDs and purified them by silica gel column chromatography. [25] Xiong et al. used silica gel column chromatography to separate the reaction solution and obtained CDs with visible light emissions. [26] Usually, the multicolor CDs obtained by silica column chromatography have a narrow emission wavelength range, and the QY is greatly improved, which provides conditions for the further application of CDs.However, column chromatography requires many organic solvents, which are cumbersome and time-consuming and easily cause CD loss. Therefore, the direct determination of polychromatic CDs by controlling various preparation conditions instead of silica column chromatography has become a popular research topic in recent years. Fan and co-workers reported a method for preparing multicolor CDs. They used two isomers of diaminonaphthalene and citric acid as precursors to obtain five-color CDs by controlling the reaction time or adding sulfuric acid. [27] Sun et al. obtained a series of CDs with different emission colors by adjusting the reaction temperature and the ratio of citric acid to urea. [28] In these reports, two conditions need to be adjusted simultaneously to obtain poly chromatic CDs, which requires more steps and makes the synthesis process time-consuming.In this study, a simple method for preparing multicolor CDs only by controlling the ratio of reactants in the asparagine (Asn) and p-phenylenediamine reaction system was proposed. To the In a reaction system of asparagine and p-phenylenediamine, blue, green, orange, and red carbon dots (CDs) are successfully prepared by adjusting the ratio of the two reactants. The obtained multicolor CDs have excellent stable properties and high fluorescence quantum yields (up to 74%). Clarifying the luminescence mechanism of multicolor CDs is based on the investigation of the composition, structure, and fluorescence properties of the CDs combined with quantum chemistry calculations. A high-quality white light-emitting diode (LED) with CIE color coordinates (0.33, 0.33) is successfully fabricated using a multicolor CD-epoxy resin composite, and its color temperature and color rendering index a...

In this communication, a novel chemiluminescence phenomenon was observed for the as-prepared carbon nanodots (CDs) in a concentrated sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution. The generation of superoxide anion radical (O2˙(-)) directly provides evidence for the excellent electron-donating ability of CDs.