Global transitions toward battery and hydrogen circular economies are key pieces of sustainable development goals (SDGs). As driving forces for SDGs, battery and hydrogen technologies have been globally studied and applied, but basic indicators on life-cycle carbon intensity and operating carbon emissions have not been consistently provided. This leads to (1) unclear carbon emission and decarbonization quantifications, (2) unknown differences in technology development maturity and technical readiness levels across regions, and (3) disparities in carbon intensity mapping for battery and hydrogen circular economies. To this end, this paper systematically summarizes and analyzes battery and hydrogen circular economies, emphasizing (1) life-cycle carbon intensity models, (2) the impact of advanced battery and hydrogen technology innovations on multicountry decarbonization estimates, and (3) the application prospects indicated by carbon intensity. This perspective provides researchers with a route toward a carbon intensity database and dynamic carbon intensity accounting, with the aim to provide a quantifiable core method to guide the verifiable carbon neutrality transition of batteries and hydrogen circular economies.
Biomolecular crystals have emerged as next-generation sustainable piezoelectric materials owing to their economical, biocompatibility, biodegradability, and energy-harvesting attributes versus commercially used ceramics. However, their natural self-assembly from saturated solutions results in non-uniform piezoelectric device layers with weak electromechanical output, both within individual samples and across multiple batches, which is limiting their acceleration into mainstream technological applications. Here, we report sublimation-driven crystallization as an effective fabrication technique yielding consistent and highly repeatable vertically aligned films of monoclinic amino acids crystallizing in the non-centrosymmetric monoclinic P21 space group (L-methionine [d33max = 6.57 ± 0.66 pC/N], L-leucine [d33max = 9.15 ± 0.09 pC/N], and L-valine [d33max = 9.61 ± 0.27 pC/N]) with reliable homogeneity in their piezoelectric performance. This solvent-free processing highlights a robust and standardized fabrication route for manipulating electromechanical properties across any number of amino acid piezoelectric device layers grown under identical conditions without relying on any post-processing methods.
Soft actuators are often restricted to unidirectional motion from their initial state and fixed structural/drive configurations, limiting their motion range, scalability, and reprogrammability. Here, we present reconfigurable soft actuators based on multi-angle star-shaped retractable pneumatic skeleton units (MRPSUs). A hierarchical reconfiguration strategy enables rapid switching across element, module, and reconstruction layers, allowing actuator functions and configurations to be reprogrammed. Inspired by multi-angle star-shaped structures in nature, the MRPSU provides bidirectional motion capability and high twisting characteristics from the initial state. When integrated at the module layer, these units expand the actuator motion space and compensate for performance loss under high loads. Through reconfiguration, the actuator can be assembled into soft continuum robots, peristaltic robots, and soft grippers, each exhibiting programmable locomotion or manipulation. This work provides a hierarchical design strategy for soft actuators with enhanced motion potential, adaptability, and functional scalability.
Multiferroics that combine ferroelectricity and magnetic order are attractive for electronic and spintronic technologies, yet chemical disorder that promotes relaxor ferroelectricity usually suppresses long-range magnetic order. Here, we report entropy-stabilized relaxor multiferroicity in epitaxial hexagonal (Tb0.2Dy0.2Ho0.2Lu0.2Yb0.2)FeO3 thin films. Structural, magnetic, dielectric, and synchrotron spectroscopic measurements show the coexistence of relaxor ferroelectricity and long-range ferromagnetic order. We find that improper ferroelectricity remains robust against A-site configurational disorder, while the Fe sublattice preserves magnetic exchange. This separation of the microscopic origins of the polar and magnetic responses enables chemically disordered multiferroicity. Our results establish entropy engineering in hexagonal ferrites as a route toward multifunctional oxide thin films and provide a general design strategy for high-entropy multiferroics.
Comprehensive acquisition of multidimensional vascular information is essential for intelligent assessment and early intervention of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), yet wearable systems capable of continuous and robust monitoring remain limited. Here, we report a self-powered triboelectric pulse sensor integrated with lightweight signal processing and physiological parameter extraction. The system captures detailed pulse waveforms and enables real-time monitoring of heart rate (HR), augmentation index (AIx), pulse transit time (PTT), pulse wave velocity (PWV), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). Human-subject evaluations demonstrate strong agreement between the extracted parameters and clinical references. By comparing sensor-derived brachial-ankle PWV (baPWV) to age-dependent reference trends, the system further supports arterial stiffness assessment. Continuous waveform tracking also supports the identification of premature beats. This wearable platform combines self-powered operation, multifunctional monitoring, and robustness against environmental interference, offering a practical strategy for continuous cardiovascular health monitoring and early risk evaluation.
Low-energy (1.8 ± 0.5 eV) electrons are injected from vacuum into 2.5-nm-thick films of oligonucleotides (ODNs) composed of one to three sequences of the four DNA bases 5′-GCTA-3′ and 5′-CGTA-3′. The products induced by dissociative electron attachment are measured by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. They consist of base release and single-strand breaks (SSBs). Combined with previous results from four similar sequences, yields of SSBs are found to decrease exponentially with chain length. Whereas thermal conduction in DNA occurs between the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals of the bases, the present results indicate that conduction via π stacking of bases is also accessible at vertical energies by injection of electrons from vacuum into conduction bands composed of these and higher-energy orbitals. Both base and SSB yields strongly depend on electron conduction and transfer within ODNs. This new concept enhances our comprehension of electron-mediated interactions in radiobiology.
During iron stress, cyanobacteria produce iron-stress-inducible protein A (IsiA), which associates with photosystem I (PSI) to support cell growth. In most cyanobacteria, the stress induces formation of large IsiA18-PSI3 complexes. However, some species, including Anabaena sp. PCC 7120, studied in this work, form an unusual, smaller PSI-monomer-based IsiA-PSI supercomplex containing a unique fusion of IsiA with the PSI subunit PsaL, IsiA-PsaL. In this study, genetically tagged IsiA-PsaL was used to isolate several IsiA-PsaL-containing supercomplexes composed of multiple IsiA homologs. A combination of static and time-resolved optical spectroscopies was used to evaluate the energetic properties of gel-embedded supercomplexes, including the excitation energy transfer efficiency from IsiA-PsaL to PSI. These analyses demonstrated that excitation energy transfer in the IsiA-PsaL complex is highly efficient. Enhanced efficiency may be a key factor underlying the downsizing of the IsiA-PSI assembly, which could compensate for the smaller size of the complex.
The HOX [NiFe]-hydrogenase of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 is composed of large (HoxH) and small (HoxY) subunits that catalyze H2 activation and HoxE, HoxF, and HoxU subunits that catalyze reactions with NAD(H), ferredoxins, or flavodoxin. Here, we report single-particle cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy for kinetic modeling of electron transfer in the HoxEFU subcomplex. Cryo-EM of resting-state HoxEFU yielded a low-resolution map with space for a dimer of HoxEFU monomers. An AlphaFold model of the dimer identified inter-cofactor distances and was used with cofactor Em values determined here to calculate electron transfer rate constants, kET, for individual steps. We used these values to model electron transfer kinetics for HoxEFU NADH oxidation, which reproduced the equilibrium populations of reduced cofactors observed in EPR spectra. Overall, the results are interpreted in terms of how HoxEFU functions to coordinate electron transfer in reactions with NADH and ferredoxin.
Coordinated cellular function depends on reliable communication between transcription factors (TFs) and their target genes (TGs), but this fidelity has been hard to quantify from high-dimensional single-cell data. We develop a conditional maximum entropy model that casts the regulatory network as a communication channel and estimates the mutual information (MI) between TFs and their targets. Because MI depends on two factors, the channel and the input distribution of TF activities, any change in fidelity acts through one of them, which our model can quantify separately. Applying the framework to cellular aging, we find that MI declines with age across mouse tissues, driven predominantly by input mismatch rather than channel corruption. This coincides with network centralization and loss of stabilizing motifs. In silico upregulation of a few TFs restores much of the youthful information transfer and gene expression. The framework dissects how regulatory communication is organized and breaks down across contexts.
Rising temperatures and more frequent heat extremes reduce the efficiency and power output of solar photovoltaics, creating an urgent need for scalable passive cooling. Here, we report an assessment of three hydrogel-based passive cooling configurations across 2,539 utility-scale photovoltaic sites in China under diverse climatic conditions. The hydrogel cooling with water supply configuration delivers the greatest benefits, yielding an average annual module temperature reduction of up to 7.28°C in hot arid-steppe regions. Across all sites, it provides an average equivalent capacity gain of 26.83 GW, mitigates 32.80 Mt CO2, and increases electricity yield by up to 7.26% while achieving the shortest payback period of 3.16 years. Passive cooling also maintains its effectiveness under future climate scenarios despite changing irradiance patterns. These findings identify passive cooling as a practical strategy to improve photovoltaic resilience and support climate mitigation and adaptation in a warming world.
Surface wrinkle instabilities in bilayer soft materials underpin a wide range of applications, from tunable optics to metrology and mechanobiology. We present a novel technique for dynamic, reconfigurable wrinkle patterns: exposing a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) cylindrical block to infrared laser creates a micrometer-thick, highly cross-linked rigid layer. Subsequent uniaxial compression generates sinusoidal wrinkles oriented perpendicular to the compression direction. Dynamic reconfiguration via a custom rotation device involves wrinkle rotation, fragmentation, and reassociation, exhibiting S-like bending, defect nucleation, propagation, and annihilation. These dynamics are qualitatively captured by the anisotropic Swift-Hohenberg equation. The experimental setup is compatible with upright confocal microscopy, enabling real-time visualization of cellular interactions with evolving wrinkle topography. Living cells attach, migrate, and align/coordinate with traveling waves. This work opens new avenues for investigating cell migration guided by dynamic substrate curvature and introduces a versatile platform for dynamic surface control and studying topological defect physics.
Organic fluorescent solids are highly demanded for applications such as sensing and bioimaging, yet most of these systems require co-crystallization with additional components to avoid aggregation-caused quenching. Here, the intermolecular assembly and resulting photophysical properties of a series of indolenine-based dyes are described. These dipolar donor-π-acceptor (D-π-A) structures are composed to favor head-to-tail interactions, rendering most of them with an exceptional ability for J-aggregate formation. Due to their tailored molecular architecture, J-aggregation features pair with unusually large Stokes shifts in both concentrated solutions and solid state (up to 3,272 cm−1 in aggregates and 6,135 cm−1 in solid state), enabling two-photon excited fluorescence (2PEF). Unlike most 2PEF-active condensed organic systems, these dyes spontaneously form single-component fluorescent crystals upon solvent evaporation, i.e., without requiring co-crystallization with additional components. The resulting crystals exhibit a pronounced and fully reversible vapochromic response, readily allowing the development of simple and robust sensing devices.
Passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC) provides sustainable sub-ambient cooling, yet most PDRC designs reject incident sunlight that could otherwise be harvested. Here, we introduce hybrid PDRC-solar technologies that co-harvest universe coldness and solar energy to deliver cooling, electricity, and heating from the same area at the same time. The system combines a transparent PDRC emitter, which permits solar transmission, with a tandem concentrated photovoltaic-thermal collector on a two-axis solar tracker. The transparent PDRC emitter achieves cooling of 6.5°C below ambient, while the photovoltaic-thermal collector produces 60.6 W/m2 of electricity and stores heat reaching 110.8°C. Replacing the photovoltaic-thermal collector with a spectrally selective solar-thermal absorber increases the stored temperature to 266.8°C, while the emitter maintains cooling of 2.4°C below ambient. This simultaneous harvesting is enabled by decoupling light intensity and limiting thermal exchange between the colder PDRC emitter and the hotter solar collector.
Stress granules are biomolecular condensates composed of RNA and proteins that form in response to stress; their dysregulation is implicated in neurodegenerative diseases. In this study, we develop a minimal stress granule model, composed of RNA and six key proteins associated with neurodegenerative conditions, and study its characteristics using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. We find that RNA is essential to form stable condensates in these biopolymer mixtures, while underlying protein-protein interactions result in heterogeneous, multiphasic architectures. Inspired by therapeutic applications, we then challenge the stability of these condensates in the presence of twenty distinct small molecules. Simulation-derived properties classify compounds as “dissolving” or “non-dissolving” with 85% agreement with experimental findings. Further analysis suggests that dissolving compounds disrupt stress granule structure by preferentially associating with RNA and stripping the scaffold that maintains its multiphasic architecture. These insights advance understanding of stress granule stability and demonstrate modeling strategies for screening of therapeutic candidates.
Hydrogen is widely considered a key energy carrier for net-zero targets, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors, yet its small size and high diffusivity make it prone to leakage across the value chain, raising safety, energy-loss, and climate concerns. This review treats hydrogen leakage as an infrastructure-management problem linking leak pathways, detection capability, climate-relevant accounting, and mitigation. Rather than treating reported values as directly comparable leakage rates, we classify the evidence by system boundary and measurement basis, distinguishing physical leakage from broader operational losses. We synthesize advances in acoustic, optical, and catalytic detection, some reaching parts-per-billion sensitivity; atmospheric-chemistry ensembles assess hydrogen’s indirect global warming potential and its dependence on leakage rate, production pathway, and time horizon. We assess mitigation through barrier coatings, sealing materials, and modular design and identify key gaps in leakage quantification, soil-sink uncertainty, long-term material performance, and leakage-specific regulation.
Accurate prediction of phonon scattering is crucial for understanding thermal transport properties. However, the computational cost of such calculations, especially for four-phonon scattering, becomes prohibitive as the number of phonon branches and scattering processes increases. Here, we report FourPhonon_GPU, a GPU-accelerated framework for phonon scattering and thermal conductivity calculations. Leveraging OpenACC and a heterogeneous CPU-GPU computing strategy, we offload massive parallelizable tasks to the GPU while using the CPU for process enumeration and control-heavy operations. Under the relaxation-time approximation (RTA), our approach achieves up to 26× acceleration without sacrificing physical accuracy. Benchmarking on various GPU architectures confirms the method’s scalability and highlights the importance of aligning parallelization strategies with hardware capabilities. This work provides an efficient and accurate computational tool for phonon transport modeling and opens pathways for accelerated materials discovery.
Low-quality brines containing dilute lithium collectively represent an enormous untapped resource for this critical element. Effective extraction technologies must process large brine volumes with high selectivity while minimizing the need for downstream purification. Targeting these requirements, we developed a scalable stirred tank electrochemical reactor for direct electrosynthesis of lithium iron phosphate from low-grade brine. The reactor employs a slurry of iron phosphate and carbon black particles suspended in brine within a cathode tank. Active stirring drives particle collisions with a solid cathode electrode, promoting Li intercalation into iron phosphate with a Li/Na selectivity of 280 and a maximum current density of 1 mA/cm2. Anodic current is supplied by oxidation of ferrocyanide redox molecules in brine solution circulated through a Nafion membrane tube. This stirred tank architecture using slurry-phase intercalation hosts offers a potentially scalable pathway for lithium recovery from low-quality brines, with the produced lithium iron phosphate serving as a potential feedstock for battery manufacturing.
Monitoring exercise intensity is essential in avoiding overtraining syndrome, which leads to fatigue, performance decline, and psychological issues. Here, we introduce an alternative method to assess exertion and metabolic activity through tracking exhaled CO2 levels. By integrating plasma ionization with electrochemical gas-sensing techniques, we efficiently convert inert CO2 into reactive CO while eliminating interference from potentially exhaled volatile organic compounds. A miniaturized gas sensor, leveraging NiFe2O4 plates’ high affinity and excellent electrocatalytic properties for CO, enables more accurate CO2 detection during breath analysis. Moreover, we develop a handheld device to visualize exercise intensity in real time, showing clear CO2 fluctuations with varying exertion levels. Our results confirm that this non-invasive tool offers users a reliable, immediate way to optimize training and prevent overtraining. Our findings mark a significant leap in fitness technology, providing athletes and fitness enthusiasts with a powerful approach to enhancing performance while avoiding the risks of overtraining.
