A series of Cu-MCM-41 catalysts were synthesized through in-situ hydrothermal preparation method, calcinated at different temperatures and characterized by thermogravimetric and differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC), N2 adsorption-desorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FI-IR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and hydrogen temperature-programmed (H2-TPR). The effect of calcination temperature on the structural properties and selective oxidation of dimethoxymethane (DMM) to dimethyl carbonate (DMC) were discussed in detail. The results showed that the calcination temperature played important role on the microstructure and catalytic activity of the Cu-MCM-41 catalysts. At the calcination temperature 550 °C, the Cu-MCM-41 catalyst possessed higher surface area, smaller pore diameter, stronger metal-support interaction, and better CuO dispersion compared the other catalysts, and the corresponding catalyst exhibited excellent activity and stability for the DMC synthesis. Under the reaction conditions at 2.0 MPa and 130 °C, the highest DMM conversion was 99.47% with the best DMC selectivity of 85.01%. In addition, the catalyst was reused four times without significant loss of performance.

A simple and easily synthesized fluorescent sensor L, based on condensation reaction of 1-Naphthylamine and terephthalaldehyde, was synthesized and characterized systemically. Both UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopic studies indicated that the sensor L showed good selectivity toward trivalent metal ions (such as Al3+, Fe3+, Cr3+, La3+ and Ce3+) over other monovalent or divalent metal ions. The sensing mechanism was suggested that the trivalent ion promoted the hydrolysis of Schiff base. Meanwhile, took the common trivalent ions Al3+, Fe3+ and Cr3+ as examples, limit of detection (LOD) values of sensor L were calculated to be 1.23, 0.94 and 1.14 nM for Al3+, Cr3+ and Fe3+, respectively, suggesting very high sensitivity towards the cations which could make it attractive in trivalent metal ions detection.