University of Houston Huffington-Woestemeyer Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Richard Willson - who turned glow-in-the-dark stars into ways to detect disease - has been elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. 

E. (Sarah) Du, Ph.D., an associate professor in College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University, focuses her research on pioneering engineering solutions, developing single-cell assays and creating advanced in vitro disease models. These efforts span both basic research in cellular biomechanics and biophysics and applied biomedical applications, such as point-of-care diagnostic tools and monitoring systems for diseases such as sickle cell disease and malaria.

High-entropy carbides (HECs) exhibit exceptional mechanical properties and ultrahigh thermal stability, making them promising materials for high-temperature extreme environments, such as hypersonic vehicles and nuclear reactors. The fabrication of complex-shaped components for these applications involves the HECs joints and requires these joints capable of withstanding extreme service temperatures. However, developing such joints presents significant challenges: the stability and sluggish diffusion characteristics of HECs hinder solid-phase diffusion, while using liquid alloys at bonding interfaces typically introduces low-melting-point compounds that compromise thermal durability. Consequently, developing HEC joints with superior high-temperature endurance remains a critical challenge in materials engineering.

MXene, as a rising star among two-dimensional electromagnetic wave materials, faces urgent challenges in addressing its self-stacking issue and regulating its conductivity. Herein, a micro-macro collaborative design strategy was proposed to regulate heterogeneous interface engineering in MXene-based absorbers. Biomass-based cotton was introduced as three-dimensional (3D) framework for constructing a porous structure, TiO₂ was in-situ generated and nitrogen atom was doped on Ti₃C₂T_x MXene to regulate its dielectric properties, a 3D N-doped carbon fiber/MXene/TiO₂ (N-CMT) nano-aerogel was successful constructed. The synergistic effects of diverse components and structural designs, porous frameworks and TiO₂ lattice contraction can significantly adjust the density of the conductive network and create abundant heterogeneous interfaces, as well as the lattice defects induced by nitrogen atom doping can enhance polarization loss, ultimately leading to the excellent microwave absorption performance of 3D N-CMT nano-aerogels. The optimized N-CMT 30% aerogel exhibited a minimum reflection loss of −72.56 dB and an effective absorption bandwidth of 6.92 GHz at 2.23 mm. These results demonstrate that 3D N-CMT nano-aerogel relying on interface engineering design exhibits significant potential in the field of electromagnetic protection, providing an important reference for future efficient absorbers.

Although the Navier-Stokes equations are the foundation of modern hydrodynamics, adopting them to quantum systems has so far been a major challenge. Researchers from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, Maciej Łebek, M.Sc. and Miłosz Panfil, Ph.D., Prof. UW, have shown that these equations can be generalised to quantum systems, specifically quantum liquids in which the motion of particles is restricted to one dimension.  This discovery opens up new avenues for research into transport in one-dimensional quantum systems. The paper, published in the prestigious Physical Review Letters, was awarded an ‘editors’ suggestion'.