On 8:00 PM (EST) November 6, 2025, leading scientists from across the globe will gather online for the Extreme Manufacturing Webinar Series: “Additive Manufacturing and the 21st Century Industrial Revolution.” The event brings together four pioneering researchers whose work is pushing the boundaries of what can be made—and how fast, sustainable, and intelligent manufacturing can become.

Research teams from Lanzhou University, Shandong University of Technology, University of California, Irvine, and Hanyang University have published a comprehensive review on solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) for next-generation solid-state batteries. Their study, recently accepted in Materials Futures, explores the safety, flexibility, and scalable processability of SPEs, and illustrates how molecular design enables tunable ion-conduction pathways, stable electrode contact, and large-scale manufacturability. Key topics covered include ion-transport mechanisms, polymer chemistry strategies, inorganic filler engineering, and future research directions.

Rechargeable aqueous metal-ion batteries are promising alternative energy storage devices in the post-lithium-ion era due to their inherent safety and environmental compatibility. Among them, aqueous zinc ion batteries (AZIBs) stand out as next-generation energy storage systems, offering low cost, high safety, and eco-friendliness. Nevertheless, the instability of Zn metal anodes, manifested as Zn dendrite growth, interfacial side reactions, and hydrogen (H2) evolution, remains a major obstacle to commercialization. To address these challenges, extensive research has been conducted to understand and mitigate these issues. This review comprehensively summarizes recent advances in Zn anode stabilization strategies, including artificial solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layers, structural optimization, electrolyte modification, and bioinspired designs. These approaches collectively aim to achieve uniform Zn deposition, suppress parasitic reactions, and enhance cycling stability. Furthermore, it critically evaluates the advantages and feasibility of different strategies, discuss potential synergistic effects of multi-strategy integration, and provide perspectives for future research directions.

The presence of alkaline earth metal ions in biodiesel can exacerbate engine wear, impair fuel oxidation stability, and substantially reduce combustion efficiency. Improving the quality of biodiesel is therefore crucial for promoting its adoption as a viable alternative to conventional fossil fuels. This study investigates the removal of alkaline earth metal calcium (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+) from Jatropha biodiesel using four amino polycarboxylate chelating agents: ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA), 1,2-cyclohexanediaminetetraacetic acid (CDTA), and N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-ethylenediaminetriacetic acid (HEDTA). The results showed that CDTA demonstrated the highest removal efficiency and selectivity for Ca2+ and Mg2+ among the four chelating agents, resulting in removal rates of 98.6% and 94.3%, respectively. Furthermore, the oxidative stability of biodiesel, measured as induction period, increased from 3.38 to 8.31 h after treatment with EDTA solution and reached a maximum of 8.68 h after treatment with CDTA. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed to analyze Mulliken charges, electrostatic potential, frontier molecular orbitals, and interaction energies. The results indicate that the four chelating agents form cyclic structure complexes by simultaneously coordinating with a metal ion through multiple coordination atoms (N atom in amino group and O atom in carboxyl group). CDTA has the strongest interaction energies with Ca2+ and Mg2+, calculated at −826 and −915 kcal/mol, respectively, corroborating its superior chelation performance.

This study presents a specialized Electronic Probe Computer (EPC60) designed to efficiently address NP-complete problems—computational challenges that become increasingly complex as their size grows. The EPC60 system, constructed with 60 fully customized FPGA-based probe computing cards, utilizes a hybrid serial-parallel computational model along with seven fully parallel probe operators. In tests conducted on large-scale 3-coloring problems, the EPC60 achieved 100% accuracy on 2000-vertex graphs in under one hour, significantly surpassing the state-of-the-art solver Gurobi, which attained only 6% accuracy. Given the theoretical mutual reducibility of NP-complete problems in polynomial time, the EPC60 emerges as a universal solver for this class of problems. Additionally, the system's modular design facilitates scalable expansion, presenting a promising hardware solution for addressing real-world optimization challenges in logistics, telecommunications, and manufacturing.

This study presents a bio-inspired linear-to-torsion vibration isolator mimicking the square tail exoskeleton of seahorses. The seahorse-exoskeleton-inspired structure (SES) uses two oblique rods, two springs, and a rotational disc to convert incoming linear motion into disc torsion, creating tunable nonlinear stiffness, equivalent mass, and damping. A full geometric and dynamic model (via Lagrange formulation and harmonic balance) guides design across devices and loading conditions. Experimental validation showed that the SES achieved a peak frequency as low as 1.48 Hz and exhibited anti-resonance due to torsional inertia; its nonlinear damping increases with input amplitude, yielding stronger isolation under larger excitations. Together these results point to compact, adjustable isolators for precision machines and other low-frequency environments.

With the miniaturization and high-frequency evolution of antennas in 5G/6G communications, aerospace, and transportation, polymer composite papers integrating superior wave-transparent performance and thermal conductivity for radar antenna systems are urgently needed. Herein, a down-top strategy was employed to synthesize poly(p-phenylene benzobisoxazole) precursor nanofibers (prePNF). The prePNF was then uniformly mixed with fluorinated graphene (FG) to fabricate FG/PNF composite papers through consecutively suction filtration, hot-pressing, and thermal annealing. The hydroxyl and amino groups in prePNF enhanced the stability of FG/prePNF dispersion, while the increased π-π interactions between PNF and FG after annealing improved their compatibility. The preparation time and cost of PNF paper was significantly reduced when applying this strategy, which enabled its large-scale production. Furthermore, the prepared FG/PNF composite papers exhibited excellent wave-transparent performance and thermal conductivity. When the mass fraction of FG was 40 wt%, the FG/PNF composite paper prepared via the down-top strategy achieved the wave-transparent coefficient (|T|²) of 96.3% under 10 GHz, in-plane thermal conductivity (λ_∥) of 7.13 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, and through-plane thermal conductivity (λ_⊥) of 0.67 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, outperforming FG/PNF composite paper prepared by the top-down strategy (|T|² = 95.9%, λ_∥ = 5.52 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, λ_⊥ = 0.52 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹) and pure PNF paper (|T|² = 94.7%, λ_∥ = 3.04 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, λ_⊥ = 0.24 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹). Meanwhile, FG/PNF composite paper (with 40 wt% FG) through the down-top strategy also demonstrated outstanding mechanical properties with tensile strength and toughness reaching 197.4 MPa and 11.6 MJ m⁻³, respectively.