As a typical family of volatile toxic compounds, benzene derivatives are massive emission in industrial production and the automobile field, causing serious threat to human and environment. The reliable and convenient detection of low concentration benzene derivatives based on intelligent gas sensor is urgent and of great significance for environmental protection. Herein, through heteroatomic doping engineering, rare-earth gadolinium (Gd) doped mesoporous WO₃ with uniform mesopores (15.7–18.1 nm), tunable high specific surface area (52–55 m²·g⁻¹), and customized crystalline pore walls, was designed and utilized to fabricate highly sensitive gas sensors toward benzene derivatives, such as ethylbenzene. Thanks to the high-density oxygen vacancies (O_V) and significantly increased defects (W⁵⁺) produced by Gd atoms doping into the lattice of WO₃ octahedron, Gd-doped mesoporous WO₃ exhibited excellent ethylbenzene sensing performance, including high response (237 vs. 50 ppm), rapid response–recovery dynamic (13 s/25 s vs. 50 ppm), and extremely low theoretical detection limit of 24 ppb. The in-situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform and gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry results revealed the gas sensing process underwent a catalytic oxidation conversion of ethylbenzene into alcohol species, benzaldehyde, acetophenone, and carboxylate species along with the resistance change of the Gd-doped mesoporous WO₃ based sensor. Moreover, a portable smart gas sensing module was fabricated and demonstrated for real-time detecting ethylbenzene, which provided new ideas to design heteroatom doped mesoporous materials for intelligent sensors.

Magnetic assembly at the nanoscale level brings potential possibilities in obtaining novel delicate nanostructures with unique physical, photonic or electronic properties. Interface surfactant micelle-directed assembly strategy holds great promising in fabricating ordered mesoporous materials with multifunctionality and pore parameter tunability. Combing these, herein, one-dimensional (1D) nanochains with well-aligned silica-coated magnetic particles as core and mesoporous aluminosilicate as shell are rational fabricated for the first time through magnetic field induced interface coassembly in biliquid system followed by the incorporation of Al species via in-situ chemical modification and transformation strategy. The obtained magnetic mesoporous aluminosilicate nanochains (MMAS-NCs) possess well-defined core–shell–shell sandwich nanostructure, tunable perpendicular mesopore channels in the shell (2.7–7.6 nm), high surface area (359 m²·g^-1), abundant acidic sites, and superparamagnetism with a magnetization saturation of 13.8 emu·g^-1. Thanks to the unique properties, the MMAS-NCs exhibit excellent performance in acting as magnetically recyclable superior solid acid catalysts and nanostirrers with high conversion of over 96.8%, selectivity of 95.0% in the deprotection reaction of benzaldehyde dimethylacetal to benzaldehyde. Moreover, MMAS-NCs exhibit an interesting pore size effect on the catalytic activity, namely, in the pore size range of 2–8 nm, the catalysts with larger pores show significantly enhanced catalytic activity due to the balanced mass transport and density of surface active sites.

Hollow TiO_2–X porous microspheres consisted of numerous well-crystalline nanocrystals with superior structural integrity and robust hollow interior were synthesized by a facile sol-gel template-assisted approach and two-step carbonprotected calcination method, together with hydrogenation treatment. They exhibit a uniform diameter of ~470 nm with a thin porous wall shell of ~50 nm in thickness. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area and pore volume are ~19 m²/g and 0.07 cm³/g, respectively. These hollow TiO_2–X porous microspheres demonstrated excellent lithium storage performance with stable capacity retention for over 300 cycles (a high capacity of 151 mAh/g can be obtained up to 300 cycles at 1 C, retaining 81.6% of the initial capacity of 185 mAh/g) and enhanced rate capability even up to 10 C (222, 192, 121, and 92.1 mAh/g at current rates of 0.5, 1, 5, and 10 C, respectively). The intrinsic increased conductivity of the hydrogenated TiO₂ microspheres and their robust hollow structure beneficial for lithium ion-electron diffusion and mitigating the structural strain synergistically contribute to the remarkable improvements in their cycling stability and rate performance.

Magnetic yolk-shell structured anatase-based microspheres were fabricated through successive and facile sol-gel coating on magnetite particles, followed by annealing treatments. Upon loading with gold nanoparticles, the obtained functional magnetic microspheres as heterogeneous catalysts showed superior performance in catalyzing the epoxidation of styrene with extraordinary high conversion (89.5%) and selectivity (90.8%) towards styrene oxide. It is believed that the construction process of these fascinating materials features many implications for creating other functional nanocomposites.