Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are widely used in consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and renewable energy systems, making efficient recycling crucial for sustainability. A research team led by Prof. Dan TSANG, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has revealed a previously unrecognized atomic-scale mechanism that obstructs efficient LIB recycling. This breakthrough challenges long-standing assumptions and sets the stage for cleaner, high-yield recovery of critical metals used in LIBs.

Hybrid water electrolysis (HWE) is an emerging field that aims to overcome some of the limitations of conventional water electrolysis (CWE) for the production of green hydrogen. In CWE, two reactions take place at each of the electrodes (anode and cathode): one reaction produces hydrogen at the cathode (the hydrogen evolution reaction) and the other produces oxygen at the anode (the oxygen evolution reaction, OER). The concept of hybrid water electrolysis revolves around replacing the anode reaction of CWE (the OER), which is inefficient and requires a large amount of energy, with an alternative anode reaction that is more efficient. In this review, the team focuses on the electrooxidation of alcohols as an alternative anode reaction. Replacing the OER offers three advantages: (1) reducing the energy costs and increasing the efficiency for hydrogen production, (2) making use of abundant resources such as alcohols derived from biomass (like ethanol or glycerol), and (3) converting these resources into valuable products (for example, converting glycerol to lactic acid). This work is published in Industrial Chemistry & Materials on 03 July 2025.

Though scientists have long understood how lightning strikes, the precise atmospheric events that trigger it within thunderclouds remained a perplexing mystery. The mystery may be solved, thanks to a team of researchers led by Victor Pasko, professor of electrical engineering in the Penn State School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, that has revealed the powerful chain reaction that triggers lightning.

Light-on-light scattering is an exotic process with surprising significance for particle physics. Researchers at TU Wien have shown that a previously underestimated effect plays an important role in this process.

Template-assisted synthesis dramatically improves the yield of functionalized oligophenylene cages, report researchers from Japan. By using covalent templates to guide a six-fold Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction, the researchers achieved significantly higher yields of around 68% in comparison to conventional methods, which struggle to exceed a 10% yield. The resulting molecular cages feature tailored cavities with inward-facing OH and NH₂ groups for selective molecular encapsulation—opening new avenues for host-guest chemistry and catalysis.

In IJEM, a new method for the production of high specific strength SiC-based ceramics at a relatively low sintering temperature (1100 °C) is proposed. Low-temperature sintering of SiC-based ceramics can be achieved by introducing a high content of polysiloxane (PSO) solution (75% by weight). At the same time, the introduction of silicon oxidized carbon (SiOC) phase greatly reduces the anisotropy in the mechanical properties of SiC ceramics. This method provides insights for forming SiC-based ceramics by low-temperature primary sintering and provides a new reference for controlling the anisotropy of vat polymerization ceramic parts.

A team of researchers at the Max Born Institute and collaborating institutions has developed a reliable method to create complex magnetic textures, known as skyrmion bags, in thin ferromagnetic films. Skyrmion bags are donut-like, topologically rich spin textures that go beyond the widely studied single skyrmions.