SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-026-4313-7
Liquid-to-vapor mass transfer is central to energy and environmental processes. Conventional distillation relies on vapor-liquid equilibrium and device-level optimization, with materials playing passive structural roles. Non-boiling processes such as membrane distillation and interfacial solar evaporation localize phase change at confined interfaces, making mass transfer a materials-mediated transport phenomenon where interfacial structure and chemistry dictate evaporation kinetics, vapor escape, and solute rejection. Janus interface materials, featuring spatially separated hydrophilic and hydrophobic domains, introduce architectural asymmetry to regulate liquid-to-vapor mass transfer. This review summarizes recent advances, highlighting mechanisms including the cooperative pump-valve effect, nanoconfinement-enhanced transport, and mitigation of fouling and scaling. Representative applications in membrane distillation, solar-driven evaporation, and personal thermal-moisture management are systematically discussed. Key challenges and future opportunities are outlined, particularly in advancing fundamental understanding, scalable fabrication, and practical implementation.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-026-4323-8
Sulfur-based batteries are promising for next-generation energy storage due to high theoretical capacity, natural abundance, and low cost of sulfur cathodes. However, practical implementation is impeded by sluggish sulfur redox kinetics, dissolution and migration of intermediate polysulfides, and formation of insulating discharge products. Conventional catalyst design focuses on charge distribution, adsorption energetics, and structural confinement, yet these approaches incompletely describe the complex electronic processes governing sulfur conversion. Electron spin, an intrinsic quantum degree of freedom, offers an additional dimension for modulating catalytic behavior via its influence on electronic structure and orbital interactions at catalytic interfaces. In spin-polarized systems, changes in occupation and splitting of transition-metal d orbitals can regulate d-p hybridization with sulfur species, affecting interfacial charge transfer and energetics of sulfur redox reactions. This review summarizes recent progress in elucidating and manipulating electron spin in sulfur-based battery systems. Fundamental principles connecting spin states with electronic structure and catalytic behavior are outlined, followed by experimental approaches for probing spin-related electronic properties using spectroscopic and magnetic characterization techniques. Emerging strategies for spin regulation are highlighted, including heteroatom doping, defect engineering, coordination environment modulation, chirality-induced spin selectivity, and external magnetic-field control. Remaining challenges in identifying spin effects under realistic electrochemical conditions are addressed, along with opportunities for integrating spin-related descriptors into catalyst design. Establishing quantitative relationships between spin polarization, orbital hybridization, and sulfur reaction pathways may provide new perspectives for high-performance sulfur-based batteries.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-026-4349-9
Sodium metal batteries are promising for large-scale energy storage due to sodium's abundance and low cost, but their commercialization is hindered by dendrite growth and low utilization of sodium metal anodes. Here, we report a yolk-shell structure with gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) confined in hollow carbon nanospheres (Au@HCN) as a robust seeding/hosting interphase. The encapsulation isolates Au NPs from direct electrolyte contact, mitigating parasitic reactions, while the void space accommodates volume changes during alloying. Notably, electrochemical testing reveals that Au NPs undergo alloying-induced amorphization upon sodiation, forming a Na-Au amorphous alloy that enhances sodiophilicity and ensures uniform Na nucleation. This amorphous phase, confirmed by ex situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy, reduces nucleation overpotential and promotes dendrite-free deposition. The Au@HCN electrode achieves a high Coulombic efficiency of 99.8% over 500 cycles at 1 mA cm−2 and a long cycle life of over 2000 hours at 0.5 mA cm−2 in symmetric cells. Full cells paired with Na3V2(PO4)3 cathodes deliver a specific capacity of 105 mAh g−1 with 92% retention after 500 cycles. This work provides a rational design for stable sodium metal anodes through encapsulation and alloying-induced amorphization, offering a pathway for practical sodium metal batteries.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-026-4209-3
Solar interfacial evaporation and photocatalysis exhibit intrinsic complementarity in energy utilization pathways and reaction mechanisms. Integrating photocatalysis into interfacial evaporation systems enables a synergistic platform for efficient evaporation and pollutant removal. In this study, a defect-engineering strategy is developed for UiO-66 by covalently anchoring five carboxyl-containing organic dyes into its framework, where steric hindrance and ligand substitution synergistically induce abundant structural defects. This approach yields a series of defect-rich UiO-66 materials with tunable dye loading. Among them, the dye-sensitized UiO-66@dye-2 system demonstrates optimal light absorption capacity and vacancy defects. The dyes act as sensitizers, broadening the light absorption range and accelerating water evaporation, while the defect-inducing dyes introduce abundant trap sites, enabling rapid charge transfer and efficient spatial charge separation. Under 1-sun irradiation, the system achieves an outstanding water evaporation rate with a high solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency of 97.8%, along with excellent photocatalytic performance, achieving 95.4% degradation of phenol pollutants. Notably, it maintains stable degradation performance across highly acidic and alkaline environments, ensuring reliability for long-term operations in complex conditions. This work provides a molecular-level strategy for constructing defect-rich UiO-66 derivatives and offers insights for designing next-generation materials for integrated photothermal-photocatalytic environmental remediation.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3811-6
The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a critical bottleneck in electrochemical water splitting, yet the stability of supported OER electrocatalysts under industrial conditions remains a formidable challenge. Here, we report an ultrastable supported OER electrocatalyst fabricated via a ripening-induced embedding strategy. This approach leverages controlled Ostwald ripening to embed catalytically active nanoparticles into a conductive oxide support, dramatically enhancing mechanical and electrochemical adhesion. The resulting catalyst exhibits an overpotential of only 245 mV at 10 mA cm−2 in 1 M KOH, with negligible degradation after 1000 hours of continuous operation at 100 mA cm−2, representing a 50-fold improvement in durability compared to conventional supported catalysts. Structural analyses reveal that the embedded architecture mitigates nanoparticle detachment and coalescence, preserving a high electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) of 85 m² g−1. Furthermore, the catalyst demonstrates exceptional performance in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer, achieving a cell voltage of 1.72 V at 1 A cm−2 with a decay rate of only 0.12 mV h−1 over 500 hours. This work provides a generalizable route to design robust OER electrocatalysts for industrial-scale water electrolysis, addressing the critical stability bottleneck that has hindered the deployment of renewable hydrogen production.
Journal of Fuel Chemistry and Technology•2026•DOI: 10.1016/S1872-5813(26)60659-7
Coal gasification fine slag (CGFS), a solid waste from entrained-flow coal gasification, is characterized by fine particles and high silicon and aluminum content. This study proposes a simple and economical hydrothermal synthesis of ZSM-5 molecular sieve using CGFS as raw material. Impurities were removed by acid washing, followed by alkaline extraction of silicon and aluminum species. The extracted Si-Al precursors were crystallized hydrothermally at 170 °C for 48 h, yielding ZSM-5 with a high specific surface area of 358 m2/g. Adsorption experiments showed that the synthesized ZSM-5 exhibited excellent Pb2+ removal performance: at 25 °C, the removal efficiency for a 50 mg/L Pb2+ solution reached 83.7%, with an adsorption capacity of 104.625 mg/g under optimized conditions. The adsorption process is mainly governed by chemisorption mechanisms, including surface complexation, precipitation, and ion exchange. Thermodynamic analyses indicated that Pb2+ adsorption is spontaneous and endothermic, consistent with multilayer chemisorption. The synthesized ZSM-5 shows promising potential for application in the treatment of lead-containing wastewater, offering a high-value utilization route for coal-based solid waste.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3917-x
The escalating global challenge of antibiotic contamination demands advanced sensing technologies for environmental monitoring and public health protection. Here, we present a structurally well-defined, intercalation-engineered metal-organic framework (MOF), HSB-W18, which functions as an ultrasensitive and selective fluorescence sensor for fluoroquinolone antibiotics. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis unambiguously determined both the framework architecture and the spatial organization of intercalated 2,5-dihydroxyterephthalate molecules at atomic resolution. Through ultrasound-assisted synthesis, highly stable book-shaped microsheets (HSB-W18-MS) were obtained, maintaining exceptional aqueous dispersibility and luminescence intensity for over one month. These microsheets offer distinct advantages for antibiotic detection: specific recognition of diverse fluoroquinolones via unique fluorescence signatures; highly sensitive ratiometric detection of enoxacin (ENX) with a limit of detection (LOD) of 5.62 nM and rapid response kinetics (<30 s); exceptional selectivity alongside reusability. Systematic mechanistic investigations revealed a synergistic detection process involving multiple photophysical pathways. Furthermore, a smartphone-based portable detection system was successfully implemented, and the practical utility of the sensor was validated by quantifying ENX in complex environmental samples: tap water LOD = 18.32 nM and river water LOD = 29.87 nM. This study contributes to fundamental materials science and environmental monitoring by elucidating discernible structure-property relationships in intercalated MOFs, demonstrating a robust platform for field-deployable antibiotic detection and proposing an innovative design paradigm for environmental optical sensors.