Optical Nanomaterials Lab

Solar-driven desalination has emerged as a promising strategy to address freshwater scarcity; however, its practical application is often hindered by severe performance deterioration under oily seawater conditions. To overcome the limitations of conventional interfacial evaporation systems, this study presents an asymmetric Janus hydrogel membrane based on copper oxide nanoparticles encapsulated within a nitrogen-doped carbon shell (CuO@NC), integrated into a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) matrix. The CuO@NC-PVDF Janus membrane features a hydrophilic–hydrophobic dual-layer architecture, enabling the functional decoupling of oil rejection and solar-driven evaporation. The hydrophobic layer effectively prevents oil penetration, while the hydrophilic photothermal layer facilitates efficient water evaporation. These findings highlight the effectiveness of integrating photothermal functionality with asymmetric wettability in a Janus architecture, providing a robust and scalable platform for simultaneous oil–water separation and solar-driven desalination. This approach offers strong potential for practical applications in sustainable oily wastewater treatment and resource recovery.  This work has been published in Desalination (IF = 9.8).

In this study, we report the rapid, room-temperature synthesis of red/near-infrared (NIR) dual-emissive carbonized polymer dots (RCPDs) via successive oxidative aromatic coupling of 1,3-dihydroxynaphthalene in isopropanol, catalyzed using iron nitrate and nitric acid. The resulting RCPDs exhibit two well-defined emission bands centered at approximately 610 and 750 nm. These emissions can be rationalized within a framework involving proposed molecular fluorophores based on a fused aromatic motif, represented by 1,3,7,9,11,13-hexahydroxyacenaphthyleno[1,2-b]perylene (HHAP), and their excimer states formed through π–π stacking, respectively. Remarkably, these RCPDs achieve a quantum yield of over 85%, among the highest reported for long-wavelength-emitting CPDs. Integration of the RCPDs into polymer matrices enables the fabrication of red/NIR-emitting light-emitting devices, demonstrating their practical utility. This study presents an efficient synthetic strategy for producing structurally defined, long-wavelength-emitting CPDs and provides mechanistic insights that can guide the rational design of next-generation luminescent carbon nanomaterials. This work has been published in Chemical Engineering Journal (IF = 13.2).