A century of fire suppression, climate change, and drought has worsened wildfires in the Western U.S. While prescribed burns help reduce fuel, a “fire deficit” increases wildfire risks, with significant health and environmental impacts. Deforestation and pests further limit carbon storage. Emulating Indigenous practices, a new study shows that combining physical harvesting of dead wood with thinning reduces wildfire risks, lowers carbon emissions, and boosts carbon storage through products like biochar.

The electrochemical reduction of CO₂ has been recognized as a promising strategy to convert ambient atmospheric CO₂ into valuable products. Bismuth-based catalysts have garnered the widespread attention of researchers due to their cost-effectiveness, low toxicity, and high natural abundance. Significant progress has been made toward enhancing the reactivity of catalyst structureons through innovative synthesis techniques and engineering. Advances include the use of flow cells and membrane electrode assembly (MEA) cells to attain high cathodic current densities of over 200 mA cm^-2 with superior selectivity that approaches over 90%.

Though technologies for the highly selective reduction of CO₂ to formate have been realized for bismuth-based catalysts, several challenges remain that hinder their commercialization. Further advancements are essential for improving the stability of Bi-based catalysts for industrial applications. The development of in situ characterization techniques is required to be compatible with high current densities, which would provide insights into the kinetics of the CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) to facilitate the identification of key intermediates for real-world applications. Economic evaluations are vital for assessing the CO₂RR in terms of the cost and efficacy of the CO₂ reduction process. A research team has highlighted recent developments and proposed viable future directions, with their work being published in the journal Industrial Chemistry & Materials recently. The main goal of this feature article is to provide readers with the latest research progress and current challenges of CO₂RR using Bi-based catalysts.

For decades researchers have been exploring how to store data in glass because of its potential to hold information for a long time — eons — without applying power. A special type of glass that changes color in different wavelengths of light, called photochromic glass, holds promise for stable, reusable data storage. Now, researchers have developed a doped photochromic glass that has the potential to store rewritable data indefinitely, according to research published in ACS Energy Letters.

Electrons possess electrical charge but also magnetic spin and orbital angular momentum. While charge and spin currents have driven advancements in electronics and spintronics, respectively, generating “orbital currents” has remained a challenge. An international research team has now successfully observed “orbital pumping,” a new phenomenon in which orbital currents are generated from the precession of magnetization in magnetic materials. The discovery could provide the foundation for “orbitronic” technologies based on orbital currents.