SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-026-4419-1
Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) fed with reformate hydrogen suffer severe anode poisoning by trace CO, necessitating high CO electrooxidation potentials that degrade performance and durability. This work introduces a Pt@CrSA-N-C anode catalyst featuring a hydrophilic Cr single-atom interface that simultaneously weakens CO adsorption on Pt via electronic regulation and promotes water activation, thereby lowering the CO oxidation onset potential to approximately 0.13 V vs. RHE. The onset potential was determined by two independent methods: the first potential at which the background-corrected current exceeds 0 mA cm-2 during CO oxidation reaction tests in a three-electrode system, and the potential at which the forward scan current exceeds the N2 background current in CO-stripping voltammetry. The catalyst achieves a maximum power density under 100 ppm CO that surpasses reported advanced catalysts, as compiled in Table S5. Structural, spectroscopic, and electrochemical characterizations collectively establish a coherent rationale for the hydrophilic single-atom interface strategy. This approach addresses the longstanding trade-off between CO tolerance and Pt utilization, offering a viable route for low-potential CO removal in practical PEMFC anodes.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-026-4271-5
Photocatalytic functional coatings are at a pivotal juncture where the primary research focus must transition from intrinsic material activity to a unified framework centered on surface serviceability. Surface serviceability encompasses the ability of a coating to maintain catalytic activity, interfacial integrity, multifunctional performance, safety, and manufacturability under specific service environments over its operational lifetime. Over the past three decades, photocatalytic surfaces have demonstrated potential for degrading organic pollutants, maintaining surface cleanliness, and enabling air purification, with applications in buildings, glass, highways, and infrastructure. However, high intrinsic activity alone does not guarantee stable long-term performance when the photocatalyst is immobilized as a substrate-integrated film. Performance is governed by coupled factors including interfacial adhesion, film structure, environmental aging, and functional durability. Current challenges extend beyond catalytic activity to include long-term deactivation, coating-substrate interfacial stability, trade-offs among multiple functions, adequacy of evaluation methods, and scalability of fabrication. These issues form a progressive service chain: design determines catalyst exposure and adhesion; environmental stresses induce functional or structural failure; multifunctional integration may compromise one function for another. Therefore, application-oriented evaluation is essential. This perspective advocates for a paradigm shift toward service-oriented design, requiring establishment of service-relevant evaluation protocols and development of scalable, repairable fabrication routes. Such efforts will enable photocatalytic coatings to evolve from high-activity laboratory materials into engineering surfaces that are verifiable, comparable, manufacturable, and durable in real-world applications.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-026-4206-6
Precise patterning of highly ordered organic semiconductor (OSC) thin-film arrays is critical for next-generation electronics. We report a ladder-like polysilsesquioxane (LPSQ) strategy to synthesize two functional analogs with tunable surface energies and robust dielectric properties. These LPSQ dielectrics, functionalized with alkyl or fluoroalkyl side chains, serve dual roles as gate insulators and patterning layers to guide blade-coating of 2,7-dioctyl[1]benzothieno[3,2-b][1]benzothiophene (C8-BTBT). This approach yields highly aligned arrays suitable for three-dimensional integration in flexible electronics. Synergistic combination of dense LPSQ dielectric packing and aligned semiconductor domains leads to excellent organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) performance, achieving approximately four-fold improvement in field-effect mobility compared to conventional silicon oxide dielectrics. Patterned LPSQ dielectrics enable high-resolution C8-BTBT patterning on plastic substrates, supporting 4-inch-scale 3D integration of flexible logic circuits, including inverters (voltage gain >100), NOR gates, and NAND gates. This work provides a scalable route to high-performance, large-area flexible organic circuits.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3564-9
Sluggish water dissociation kinetics in the alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) hamper its practical production. Here, a heterojunction electrocatalyst featuring Ru-Ni(OH)2 interfaces on nickel foam (NF) with self-engineered built-in electric fields (BIEF) was synthesized via a simple in situ galvanic replacement reaction. The hierarchical Ru-Ni(OH)2/NF exhibits a record overpotential of 9.6 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for alkaline HER, surpassing most reported catalysts and commercial Pt/C. It also shows exceptional activity for hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) at 100 mA cm−2 with a remarkably low potential of ca. 0.015 V vs. RHE. The assembled overall hydrazine splitting (OHzS) system integrating HER and HzOR requires a cell voltage of about 0.09 V to reach 50 mA cm−2, which is 1.637 V lower than the corresponding overall water splitting (OWS) device. Systematic analysis and calculation reveal that the BIEF induces redistribution of interfacial electrons for Ru, facilitating H2O dissociation and intermediate conversion, delivering ultra-high electrocatalytic performance. This work provides an avenue for design and preparation of electric field-mediated catalysts towards sustainable energy conversion.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3708-y
Polar two-dimensional (2D) perovskites, with their excellent semiconductor properties, intrinsic anisotropy, and bulk photovoltaic effect, have emerged as promising candidates for self-driven polarization-sensitive photodetectors. However, these self-driven polarized detectors typically require fabrication along the spontaneous polarization direction to maintain device operation in the self-driven mode, which imposes additional limitations. Herein, we demonstrate multidirectional self-driven polarization-sensitive photodetection by constructing 2D perovskite-based asymmetric contact devices, Ag/2D perovskite/C. The built-in electric field, originating from the difference in work functions, acts as the driving force for the separation and transport of photogenerated carriers. Notably, this approach does not necessitate a specific direction, thereby enabling multidirectional self-driven photodetection. Under excitation by linearly polarized light, our devices exhibit impressive polarization-sensitive discrimination in multiple directions, achieving polarization ratios of 3.3 and 3.1 along the a and b-axes, respectively. Our work enriches the approaches enabling self-driven polarization-sensitive photodetection, free from the previous limitations.
The Chinese Journal of Process Engineering•2026•DOI: 10.12034/j.issn.1009-606X.226111
Efficient capture of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) is critical for climate change mitigation and resource recovery. In this study, two guanidinium-based hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs) with pyridyl nitrogen site isomerism, namely G-5,5'-BPyDC and G-4,4'-BPyDC, were constructed using 2,2'-bipyridine-5,5'-dicarboxylic acid and 2,2'-bipyridine-4,4'-dicarboxylic acid as ligands. The effects of ligand structure on hydrogen-bonded network, pore environment, and N2O/N2 adsorption separation performance were systematically investigated via single-crystal X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, Hirshfeld surface analysis, and gas adsorption experiments. Both frameworks are built via N-H...O hydrogen bonds. The asymmetric unit of G-5,5'-BPyDC contains two methanol molecules, resulting in larger free volume and surface area compared to G-4,4'-BPyDC, which exhibits more compact packing. Both materials show decomposition temperatures above 290°C, indicating good thermal stability. Hirshfeld surface analysis reveals that the total contribution of O-H/H-O and N-H/H-N hydrogen bonds in G-5,5'-BPyDC (32.0%) is higher than that in G-4,4'-BPyDC (29.7%). At 25°C and 4.0 MPa, the N2O adsorption capacity of G-5,5'-BPyDC is 2.32 mmol/g, surpassing that of G-4,4'-BPyDC (2.02 mmol/g). IAST calculations show that the selectivities of G-5,5'-BPyDC for N2O/N2 (50:50 and 10:90) mixtures reach 29.26 and 111.32, respectively, significantly superior to those of G-4,4'-BPyDC (6.61 and 17.03). Pyridyl nitrogen site isomerism effectively optimizes N2O/N2 adsorption and separation by modulating pore polarity and hydrogen-bonded network, offering a new strategy for isomer design.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3931-6
Detection of circularly polarized light (CPL) is crucial for advancing next-generation chiral optoelectronic applications, where a large photocurrent dissymmetry factor (g_Iph) is essential for accurate polarization discrimination. Chiral hybrid perovskites (CHPs) have emerged as promising CPL-active materials owing to their intrinsic spin-orbit coupling and chiroptical properties. However, an intrinsic conflict between g_Iph and photocurrent response remains a major bottleneck in current CHP-based devices. Low-dimensional CHPs typically suffer from limited carrier mobility, while multilayered structures improve carrier transport but generally reduce the chiral component, thereby reducing chiroptical activity and g_Iph. Herein, we report a Cs-based multilayered chiral-polar perovskite, (R-β-MPA)PACsPb2Br7 (1R, MPA=methylphenethylammonium, PA=propylammonium). The distinctive chiral-polar photovoltaic effect in 1R benefits spin-selective carrier separation and collection, and the resulting device achieves self-powered CPL detection with a high g_Iph of 0.5 and maintains excellent polarization selectivity even at ultralow light intensities of 62 nW cm−2. Meanwhile, the multilayered framework enables high responsivity of 71 mA W−1 and detectivity of 6×10^12 Jones (1 Jones = 1 cm Hz^(1/2) W−1) even at zero bias. This work provides a rational design strategy to achieve chiral optoelectronic materials with a high dissymmetry factor and photocurrent response.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3897-6
Decoding the nature of catalytically active sites is an essential prerequisite for the rational design of catalysts for electrochemical H2O2 synthesis, but faces significant challenges, particularly for controversial cobalt single-atom catalysts (Co SACs). Herein, we report trace Co single-atom sites embedded within pyridinic N-rich carbon nanospheres (Co1-NNH3-C), synthesized via a self-assembly coupled surface-coating strategy. The Co1-NNH3-C catalyst demonstrates remarkable H2O2 selectivity (99%) and activity at current density of −3.5 mA cm−2 in 0.1 M H2SO4. Through a combined approach of molecular probe experiments, surface modification, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we disclose that pyridinic N, rather than Co single atoms, serves as the direct active site for 2e− oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The trace Co (0.05 wt%) indirectly facilitated pyridinic N formation during pyrolysis but exhibits negligible direct catalytic involvement. DFT reveals pyridinic N sites optimize OOH intermediate adsorption (ΔG*OOH = 4.0 eV) and minimize reaction overpotential of 0.20 V, enabling scalable H2O2 production (907.5 mmol gcat−1 h−1). This work redefines the role of trace metal in SACs, providing a paradigm for designing metal-induced carbon catalysts for sustainable electrosynthesis for H2O2.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3763-9
Developing near-infrared (NIR) organic phototheranostic agents with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) is crucial for precise diagnosis and synchronous cancer treatment by regulating excited-state energy dissipation. However, the distorted molecular configuration of AIE systems poses a challenge to achieving both high fluorescence quantum yield (QY) and large molar extinction coefficient (ε). Herein, a series of donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) AIE small molecules with bright NIR emission and high photothermal conversion efficiency (PCE) were developed through an acceptor planarization and donor rotation molecular engineering strategy. Upon encapsulation into water-dispersible nanoparticles (NPs), SVD NPs exhibited strong molar absorptivity (ε = 3.92 × 10^4 M^-1 cm^-1), high QY of 4%, and improved photothermal performance (PCE × ε = 2.2 × 10^4), enabling effective NIR fluorescence imaging-guided phototherapy for successful ablation of subcutaneous tumors. This study offers valuable insights into the simultaneous enhancement of bright NIR luminescence and exceptional photothermal performance in AIE phototheranostic agents, propelling advancements in tumor diagnosis and treatment.
Chinese Journal of Environmental Engineering•2026•DOI: 10.12030/j.cjee.202508101
The emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) from fossil fuel combustion and metal smelting industries poses severe risks to environmental and human health. This study utilized depleted lead-zinc molten slag as a desulfurizer for wet flue gas desulfurization, and the resulting desulfurization slurry was further employed for NOx removal, achieving resource utilization. The desulfurization efficiency of the slag was determined, and NaClO2 was identified as the most effective oxidant when combined with the slag slurry for NOx removal. The effects of NaClO2 concentration, reaction temperature, flue gas flow rate, oxygen concentration, NOx concentration, and pH on removal efficiency were investigated. Optimal conditions were found at NaClO2 concentration of 2.5 mmol·L−1, temperature 45 °C, flue gas flow 200 mL·min−1, O2 volume fraction 10%, NOx volume fraction 0.03%, and pH 6, achieving a NOx removal efficiency of 97.24%. Metal ion experiments revealed that Fe3+, Zn2+, Mn2+, and K+ exhibited synergistic effects with NaClO2, with Fe3+ showing the most significant enhancement. Fe3+ promoted the decomposition of NaClO2 to generate stronger oxidants such as ClO2, thereby enhancing NOx oxidation and absorption. This approach offers a cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional selective catalytic reduction, avoiding ammonia slip and secondary pollution.
Journal of Environmental Engineering Technology•2026•DOI: 10.13205/j.hjgc.202606015
This study evaluated the sustainability and tissue-specific mechanisms of corn stover as a solid-phase carbon source for nitrate removal from groundwater. Cyclic heterotrophic denitrification experiments were conducted using leaf, stem pith, stem bark, stem node, husk, and mixed tissues as carbon sources. Denitrification efficiency, sustainability, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) release, carbon utilization efficiency, intermediate accumulation, and environmental parameters were systematically assessed. Kinetic modeling, correlation analysis, and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied to elucidate regulatory mechanisms. Results demonstrated that mixed tissues and husk achieved the highest denitrification efficiency, with nitrate removal rates consistently above 98% across four repeated cycles. Total nitrogen removal reached 39.30 mg/g for mixed tissues and 39.95 mg/g for husk, while byproduct concentrations (NO2-N and NH4-N) remained below 2 mg/L. DOC release profiles indicated stable carbon release and high carbon utilization efficiency (203.99 mg TN/g organic carbon for mixed tissues; 182.41 mg/g for husk). Correlation and SEM analyses revealed that carbon source type indirectly governed total nitrogen removal by modulating DOC release, which subsequently influenced pH, electrical conductivity, and nitrogen transformation pathways. Significant differences among tissues were observed in denitrification efficiency, carbon utilization, and micro-environmental regulation. Mixed tissues and husk emerged as superior carbon sources due to their combined efficiency and stability. However, husk released odorous compounds during operation, posing sensory challenges for practical application. The findings support the potential of corn stover tissues as cost-effective carbon sources for in-situ groundwater nitrate remediation, though further optimization is required for field-scale implementation.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3864-4
Organic room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials, particularly those emitting in the near-infrared (NIR) region, hold great promise for bioimaging due to their deep-tissue penetration and minimal autofluorescence interference. However, achieving efficient NIR RTP with long lifetimes remains challenging due to inefficient triplet exciton utilization. Herein, we propose a dark triplet state activation strategy to achieve efficient NIR RTP by leveraging host–guest energy transfer. Using benzophenone derivatives (BP, OBP, MBP, PBP) as rigid host matrices with high intersystem crossing (ISC) efficiency and an NIR fluorophore (MPTCF) as the guest, we achieve efficient Dexter-type triplet-triplet energy transfer (TTET) that converts non-emissive host triplets into guest-centered NIR phosphorescence. Systematic optimization of the host–guest system has shown that PBP/MPTCF exhibits exceptional performance, including long phosphorescence centered at 705 nm, an ultralong phosphorescence lifetime (210.3 ms), and high ISC efficiency (44.4%). When fabricated into nanoparticles (NPs), PBP/MPTCF exhibits superior performance, featuring prolonged phosphorescence signals (>120 s), deep tissue penetration capability (>2 mm), and excellent biocompatibility (cell viability >95% at 300 μM). In addition, this system enables high-contrast subcutaneous imaging with excellent dispersibility and stable in vivo imaging capability. More importantly, PBP/MPTCF NPs demonstrate precise lymph node mapping through time-gated phosphorescence imaging and efficient tumor visualization within 4 h post-injection with a high tumor-to-liver ratio of 2.8. The successful activation of dark triplet states through this host–guest approach provides a general design principle for developing high-performance NIR RTP materials, while the demonstrated biomedical applications highlight their significant potential for advanced bioimaging and precision diagnostics.