The study reported the development of a transparent mesoporous tungsten trioxide (WO₃) film that achieved efficient and durable solar-driven water splitting. A unique in situ template-carbonization strategy, the material maintains crystallinity, optical transparency, and stability under neutral conditions were optimized. This enhances photocurrent generation, oxygen evolution efficiency, and long-term performance, offering a scalable route for tandem photoelectrochemical devices and advancing the prospects of sustainable hydrogen production from sunlight.

Recently, the team of Academician Xiaojun Peng from Dalian University of Technology, Associate Professor Haidong Li, and the team of Professor Juyoung Yoon from Ewha Womans University, South Korea cooperated to develop a series of near-infrared (NIR) dyes with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics, based on an electron-acceptor engineering strategy to regulate the excited-state dynamic processes of dyes. By introducing diphenylamine into the xanthene structural unit, due to the increase in freely rotatable single bonds and asymmetric structures, the dyes exhibited enhanced AIE characteristics as well as potential for photodynamic therapy (PDT), photothermal therapy (PTT), and photoacoustic imaging (PAI). Variation in the number of cyano groups within the dyes could regulate their excitation wavelength, PDT efficacy, and PTT capability. Experimental results showed that Hcy-ON displayed high ROS production and heat-generating capacity under 760 nm laser irradiation. Molecular theoretical calculations indicated that Hcy-ON exhibited a significant spin–orbit coupling matrix element (SOCME) value <S₁|SOC|T₃>, with the minimum energy gap between S₁ and T₁ energy levels being 0.678 eV, which is related to its strongest ROS generation capability. In addition, analyses of the singlet–triplet (S–T) energy gap, electron transition mechanism, root-mean-square displacement (RMSD) value, and Huang–Rhys factor confirmed the excellent photothermal performance of Hcy-ON. This strategy provides a new paradigm for constructing multimodal light-driven tumor therapies. This research work was published in CCS Chemistry.

Injecting carbon-rich bio-oil into the deep shafts of abandoned crude oil wells could be an economically feasible system of removing carbon dioxide from the air for long-term storage.

Engineers were able to develop materials with fine control over material properties like stiffness. For example, a prosthetic leg built with this system can stiffen to provide support while walking on a flat surface but reconfigure into a more flexible state for climbing stairs. The designers could also create adjustable metasurfaces that are used in antennas and optics.

Researchers have developed a method to preserve AI safeguards even when open-source AI models are stripped down to run on lower-power devices.