Both ionic liquids and water are typical green solvents. In this work, the phase behavior of the ternary system consisting of ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate (bmimPF6), TX-100, and water was determined at 25.0 degrees C. The water-in-bmimPF6, bicontinuous, and bmimPF6-in-water microregions of the microemulsions were identified by cyclic voltammetry method using potassium ferrocyanide K4Fe(CN)6 as the electroactive probe. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) and the UV-vis method were used to characterize the microemulsions. It was demonstrated that the hydrodynamic diameter (Dh) of the bmimPF6-in-water microemulsions is nearly independent of the water content but increases with increasing bmimPF6 content due to the swelling of the micelles by the ionic liquid. The UV-vis further confirmed the existence of water domains in the water-in-bmimPF6 microemulsions, and the salt potassium ferricyanide K3Fe(CN)6 could be dissolved in the water domains.

Large-size single-crystal gold nanosheets have been successfully prepared by microwave heating of HAuCl(4) in ionic liquid, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, without any additional template agent. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction (ED), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize the resultant gold nanosheets. It was demonstrated that the ionic liquid could act as template agent for the formation of gold nanosheets. The present synthesis route is very simple and fast. It can be expected that the method can be extended to the fabrication of other metal nanosheets in ionic liquids.

Zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) is an attractive metal organic framework (MOF) in drug delivery. Strong interaction between drugs and ZIF-8 is essential for high drug loadings through in situ construction of MOFs. However, only limited drugs with unique functional groups (COOH, SO 3 H, et al.) can interact with ZIF-8 and be encapsulated satisfactorily so far. Drugs without these functional groups are difficult to be loaded due to the lack of strong interaction. Herein a versatile prodrug strategy is proposed to solve the problems encountered by MOFs. Cytarabine (Ara) is chosen as a model drug since it cannot be loaded in ZIF-8 satisfactorily by itself. New indocyanine green (IR820) is utilized to bond with Ara for the formation of prodrug (Ara-IR820) and endows the prodrug with fluorescence imagingguided chemo-photothermal therapy, in which sulfonic groups strengthen the interaction between prodrug and ZIF-8. This prodrug loaded ZIF-8 is further functionalized with hyaluronic acid (HA) to result in active-targeting HA/ Ara-IR820@ZIF-8 nanoparticles. The in vitro and in vivo results demonstrate its excellent visual cancer therapy with tumor-targeted and pH-responsive release behavior. This design offers a new concept to solve the drug loading problem of MOFs, exhibiting a flexible strategy to expand the biomedical applications of MOFs.