1. Lv P, Yang SD, Ma PC*. Bio-based oil gelling agent for effective removal of oil spills from water surface. Materials Chemistry Frontiers, 2018, 2, 1784-1790.

■ A new type of oil gelator was successfully developed, through a simple hydrothermal method using biodegradable wheat bran as a starting material. The obtained gelator showed controlled hydrophilicity to water and oleophilicity to the organic compounds. Interestingly, the prepared oil gelator had the capability to adsorb various organic liquids.

2. Hao B, Cui L, Mu L, Ma Q, Yang SD, Ma PC*. Stretchable and compressible strain sensor based on carbon nanotube foam/polymer nanocomposites with three dimensional networks. Composites Science and Technology, 2018, 163, 162-170.

■ A flexible strain sensor based on nanocomposites filled with three-dimensional carbon nanotube (CNT) foam was developed. The flexible nanocomposite sensor showed excellent piezoresistivity under both compression and tension strain with high sensitivity and could be sustained with outstanding stability under the cyclic runs.

3. Chen L, Yang SD, Mu L, Ma PC*. Three-dimensional titanium dioxide/graphene hybrids with improved performance for photocatalysis and energy storage. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 2018, 512, 647-656.

■ Three-dimensional TiO₂/graphene hybrids were prepared by using a self-assembly approach followed by the gaseous reduction in a hydrothermal system. With optimized ratio of TiO₂ in the hybrids, the material exhibited a highly photonic activity, a high rate capability and stable cyclic performance for lithium ion batteries.

4. Kang X, Zhu H, Wang C, Sun K, Yin J*. Biomass derived hierarchically porous and heteroatom-doped carbons for supercapacitors. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science,2018, 509, 369-383.

■ We reported the preparation of rapeseed dregs (RD) derived hierarchically porous and heteroatom-doped carbons, by one-step carbonization and further activation of RD with ZnCl₂. The as-prepared RDACs demonstrate desirable capacitive performance in both aqueous and organic electrolytes.