SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-026-4443-5
The accelerating pace of urbanization and rising global temperatures have transformed reliable cooling from a luxury into a fundamental necessity for human health and economic activity. With urban populations projected to reach 66% of the global total by 2050, the energy demand for air conditioning is expected to increase by 750%. Conventional vapor-compression cooling is highly energy-intensive, accounting for approximately 17% of global electricity consumption while contributing to carbon emissions, refrigerant-related environmental concerns, and urban heat accumulation. Passive radiative cooling has emerged as a promising alternative because it dissipates heat to outer space through the atmospheric window (8–13 μm) without electricity or moving parts, offering an energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable cooling strategy. Despite its promise, effective daytime radiative cooling requires maximizing solar reflectance to minimize heat gain from solar absorption. Consequently, most radiative cooling materials appear white or silver. In recent years, researchers have proposed several strategies to overcome this aesthetic limitation. The most straightforward approach is to incorporate dyes or fluorescent pigments. Both mechanisms inevitably rely on optical absorption, resulting in parasitic heat generation that compromises cooling performance. In contrast, structural colors arise from wavelength-selective light interference or scattering by micro- or nanostructures with feature sizes comparable to the wavelength of visible light, enabling vivid coloration with minimal intrinsic absorption. Representative mechanisms include thin-film interference, diffraction gratings, and photonic crystals. Nevertheless, existing structurally colored radiative cooling materials usually require multi-step fabrication processes and specialized instruments, making large-scale production costly and time-consuming. Recently, Liu et al. reported a bilayer, colored ethyl cellulose (BCEC) coating produced in a single casting step, which significantly simplifies the fabrication process and presents a viable strategy for the practical deployment of this technology. The fabrication of BCEC involves the drying of an ethyl cellulose (EC)/N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) solution in a water vapor environment. This induces non-solvent-induced phase separation (NIPS), driven by interactions between solute and solvent molecules. The bilayer structure forms spontaneously in a single step during the drying process: a relatively dense top surface is generated first as the DMF evaporates, after which water vapor diffuses slowly across this skin layer, initiating the NIPS process and producing the porous bottom layer. The dense top layer has a thickness of several hundred nanometers—an ideal scale for generating colors through thin-film interference. More importantly, this thickness can be conveniently and precisely tuned by adjusting the concentration of the precursor solution, making it possible to create various structural colors, including blue, yellow, red, pink, and green. In addition to thickness-dependent color tuning, the BCEC coating also exhibits angle-dependent coloration (iridescence), an intrinsic characteristic of thin-film interference, whereby the reflected peak wavelength shifts with the viewing or illumination angle. The highly porous bottom layer is responsible for the high solar reflectance, resulting from the strong scattering of light by the abundant micro- and nano-pores. The solar reflectance varies slightly with the thickness of the BCEC film; the thickest film (BCEC-5, green film) exhibits the highest solar reflectance of 0.97. Simultaneously, the intrinsic absorption derived from molecular bond vibrations, especially the C–O bond, contributes to the high the
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3711-8
Mechanoluminescent (ML) materials that emit light under mechanical stress are attracting growing attention for their potential in next-generation sensing, display, and energy-harvesting technologies. Among these, Mn/Cu-doped zinc sulfide (ZnS) has emerged as a leading candidate due to its bright emission, low activation threshold, and remarkable self-recovery over thousands of cycles. Despite these advantages, the fundamental mechanisms governing ML remain unresolved, with ongoing debate between two primary models: the piezoelectric effect and the triboelectric effect. The piezoelectric effect is generally associated with scenarios where ML materials emit light directly under external pressure and exhibit self-recoverable performance, whereas the triboelectric effect dominates when emission occurs at the interface of layered materials. Previous research on ZnS-based ML systems has focused on phase transitions from the sphalerite phase to the wurtzite phase, as the latter is widely recognized as critical for ML activity. A recent study published in Advanced Materials introduces a transformative approach that not only enhances ML performance but also provides new insights into its underlying mechanism. The authors demonstrate that controllable phase transitions can be used to tune and optimize ML properties in ZnS. For the first time, they report a gradual and reversible transition between hexagonal wurtzite (wt-ZnS) and cubic sphalerite (sp-ZnS) phases at room temperature using low uniaxial pressure in the range of 0–30 MPa, a striking departure from the extreme conditions traditionally required for such transformations. Applying modest pressure with a standard tableting machine converts wt-ZnS into sp-ZnS without the need for high-temperature or high-pressure environments, while subsequent thermal annealing reverses the process, enabling reversible structural cycling. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy reveals that this phase transition is mediated by dislocations: a 1/3⟨1120⟩ screw dislocation decomposes into two 30° Shockley partial dislocations, 1/3⟨1010⟩ and 1/3⟨0110⟩, whose glide converts portions of the wt-ZnS lattice into the sp-ZnS structure. These dislocation-driven rearrangements introduce stacking faults and localized lattice distortions that exert a profound influence on luminescence behavior. Under dynamic loading, charged dislocations facilitate carrier transport toward Mn2+ luminescent centers by altering the energy transfer pathways. Regions undergoing phase transition exhibit stronger mechanoluminescence due to an enhanced local piezoelectric field compared to areas without phase transition. The study further uncovers strikingly different responses for Mn and Cu dopants under pressure. For Mn-doped ZnS, ML intensity increases by up to 2.7 times at moderate pressures around 10 MPa, an enhancement attributed to stronger local piezoelectric fields and more efficient carrier transport. In contrast, Cu-doped ZnS exhibits pronounced ML quenching under similar conditions, underscoring the fundamentally different energy transfer pathways associated with these dopants. Pressure-thermal cycling enables tunable ML and photoluminescence (PL) properties, opening new opportunities for adaptive optical devices. The manuscript also reports on the ML behavior of Mn, Cu co-doped ZnS, which exhibits similar pressure-responsive characteristics to Cu-doped ZnS, but with the emission predominantly originating from Mn2+ centers. The authors propose a dislocation-mediated ML mechanism in which charged dislocations generate local electric fields that alter carrier migration and complexation. Under dynamic loading, the piezoelectric field in ZnS separates carriers, which become trapped at defect levels and subsequently recombine at luminescent centers, leading to light emission.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3850-3
Chiral nanomaterials have attracted considerable attention for antibacterial applications due to their unique chiroptical properties. Here, we report a novel spatiotemporally precise synergistic photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT) strategy using circularly polarized light (CPL)-activated chiral molybdenum-doped carbon dots (L-Mo-CDs and D-Mo-CDs). These chiral carbon dots were synthesized using chiral tartaric acid as a precursor. Notably, D-Mo-CDs selectively respond to left-handed CPL (LCP), while L-Mo-CDs respond to right-handed CPL (RCP). Under CPL irradiation, D-Mo-CDs exhibit enhanced reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and a higher photothermal conversion efficiency (PCE) compared to L-Mo-CDs. In vitro antibacterial assays demonstrate that D-Mo-CDs possess excellent bactericidal efficacy against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. In vivo wound healing studies in a mouse model reveal remarkable therapeutic efficacy, attributed to reduced inflammation, accelerated angiogenesis, and enhanced collagen deposition. This work introduces a paradigm for utilizing chiral carbon dots in precision antibacterial therapy, addressing the limitations of conventional chiral nanomaterials such as poor biocompatibility and low photothermal conversion. The findings underscore the potential of metal-doped chiral carbon dots for advanced biomedical applications, offering a spatiotemporally controllable approach to combat bacterial infections without promoting resistance.
Journal of Fuel Chemistry and Technology•2026•DOI: 10.1016/S1872-5813(26)60664-0
The selective hydrogenation of biomass-derived furfural (FAL) to high-value chemicals such as furfuryl alcohol (FOL) or tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (HFOL) is pivotal yet challenging due to the need for precise control over reaction pathways. In this study, a Ni2Al-LDO (layered double oxide) catalyst with highly dispersed surface NiO was synthesized via structural topological transformation of layered double hydroxides. The catalyst exhibited excellent performance in furfural hydrogenation, achieving a 91.42% yield of FOL at 160 °C and 1.4 MPa H2. Gradual reduction of Ni2Al-LDO produced Ni/NiO mixtures, enabling a tunable shift from FOL to HFOL as NiO content decreased and metallic Ni content increased. After reduction at 700 °C for 2 hours, the HFOL yield reached 93.95% under identical conditions. CO2-TPD, NH3-TPD, and FT-IR analyses revealed that variations in reduction degree influenced furfural adsorption behavior. NiO species selectively adsorb the C=O group of furfural, with isopropanol serving as the hydrogen source via the Meerwein-Ponndorf-Verley (MPV) pathway, yielding FOL. In contrast, metallic Ni0 surfaces facilitate flat adsorption, enabling simultaneous activation of both the furan ring and carbonyl group, and can activate both H2 and isopropanol, with H2 as the primary hydrogen source, leading to complete hydrogenation to HFOL. This work elucidates a clear structure-activity relationship centered on the metal oxidation state and provides a practical reduction-engineering approach for designing adaptable catalysts in biomass upgrading.