Ionic liquid assisted synthesis of palladium nanoclusters for highly efficient formaldehyde oxidation

Outstanding catalytic performance in the semi-hydrogenation of acetylene in a front-end process by establishing a "hydrogen deficient" phase

Pd-[Bmim][Cl] phase was immobilized onto Al2O3 to neutralize the excessive hydrogen in the gas phase to prevent the over-hydrogenation of acetylene, thereby achieving a high selectivity for ethylene.

A Turn-On Detection of DNA Sequences by Means of Fluorescence of DNA-Templated Silver Nanoclusters via Unique Interactions of a Hydrated Ionic Liquid

Nucleic acid stability and structure, which are crucial to the properties of fluorescent DNA-templated silver nanoclusters (DNA-Ag NCs), significantly change in ionic liquids. In this work, our purpose was to study DNA-Ag NCs in a buffer containing the hydrated ionic liquid of choline dihydrogen phosphate (choline dhp) to improve fluorescence for application in DNA detection. Due to the stabilisation of an i-motif structure by the choline cation, a unique fluorescence emission—that was not seen in an aqueous buffer—was observed in choline dhp and remained stable for more than 30 days. A DNA-Ag NCs probe was designed to have greater fluorescence intensity in choline dhp in the presence of a target DNA. A turn-on sensing platform in choline dhp was built for the detection of the BRCA1 gene, which is related to familial breast and ovarian cancers. This platform showed better sensitivity and selectivity in distinguishing a target sequence from a mutant sequence in choline dhp than in the aqueous buffer. Our study provides new evidence regarding the effects of structure on properties of fluorescent DNA-Ag NCs and expands the applications of fluorescent DNA-Ag NCs in an ionic liquid because of improved sensitivity and selectivity.