The development of efficient electrocatalysts for the nitrate reduction reaction (NO3RR) to ammonia is crucial for sustainable nitrogen management, but remains challenging due to its intricate multi-step mechanism and competing side reactions. A key bottleneck is the severe imbalance between the generation and consumption of H*, which critically constrains ammonia selectivity and yield. Herein, a molecular engineering strategy was developed through the incorporation of Pd-porphyrin to promote the generation of H*, while grafting ethoxyphenyl groups to create a hydrophobic microenvironment and inhibit the hydrogen evolution reaction. The covalent organic framework of Pd-PCOF-2(Cu3), which was prepared from the reaction of Pd(ii) diaminoporphyrin and trinuclear copper cluster aldehyde, achieved a high NH3 faradaic efficiency of 94.7% and a production rate of 15.09 mg h-1 cm-2. A rechargeable Zn-NO3 - battery with Pd-PCOF-2(Cu3) as the cathode was further constructed, which served as a dual-function system for both power output and ammonia production.

Unstable solid-solid interfaces present a major challenge for all-solid-state lithium batteries. Poly (ethylene oxide)-based electrolytes offer good processability and intrinsic compatibility with electrodes. However, their narrow electrochemical stability window and low room-temperature ionic conductivity limit practical application. Recent work reveals a transition in interfacial engineering. The field is moving from passive physical barriers to ultrathin, actively regulated multifunctional interfacial layers. This review summarizes recent advances in PEO-based ultrathin interfacial modification layers. These layers are fabricated by in situ polymerization, atomic layer deposition, and self-assembly. The discussion focuses on three core interfacial regulation mechanisms. The first mechanism is the controlled formation and compositional tuning of solid electrolyte interphase and cathode electrolyte interphase layers. The second mechanism is viscoelastic mechanical adaptation. This adaptation suppresses stress accumulation and lithium dendrite penetration. The third mechanism is homogenized lithium-ion transport. It enhances interfacial charge-transfer kinetics. The synergistic integration of these functions effectively stabilizes the lithium metal anode and high-voltage cathode interfaces. Emerging strategies involving smart-responsive interfaces and bio-inspired multilayer architectures are also discussed. This review provides a concise and mechanism-oriented framework. It guides the rational design of PEO-based interfacial layers and supports the development of high-energy-density, high-safety all-solid-state lithium batteries.

Single-atom alloy (SAA) catalysts have exhibited great potential in modulating CO2 reduction performance. However, there still exist huge challenges in the precise construction of SAA on a support. Herein, the precise immobilization of M1 M2-SAA (M1 M2 = Pt1Ni, Pd1Ni, Pd1Co) onto the Zr6O8 cluster of a 2D porphyrinic metal-organic framework (2D-Ni-PCN-222) was reported through a guest-metal barrier strategy. The resultant Pt1Ni-SAA/2D-Ni-PCN-222 displayed high reaction efficiency in photothermal catalytic CO2 hydrogenation under atmospheric pressure (1 atm CO2/H2) at 150 °C, giving rise to a CH4 production rate of 1206.5 μmol·gcat-1·h-1 (287 mmol·gPt-1·h-1) with larger than 99% selectivity. Mechanism studies revealed a synergistic catalysis between the 2D-Ni-PCN-222 and Pt1Ni-SAA in CH4 production, where the Zr6O8 cluster in 2D-Ni-PCN-222 was responsible for CO2 adsorption and reduction to CO, while Pt1Ni-SAA promoted the sequential hydrogenation of CO to CH4. Ab initio molecular dynamic simulations further demonstrated the hydrogen spillover from Pt1Ni-SAA to the adjacent Zr6O8 cluster, which simultaneously enhanced the kinetics of CO2 reduction to CO at Zr6O8 cluster sites and the overall CH4 production efficiency.

Developing efficient non-noble electrocatalysts with high activity and selectivity for ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) across a wide potential range remains a significant challenge in hybrid energy systems. Herein, hollow Fe2O3/CoSe2 heterostructures (H-Fe2O3/CoSe2@C) via interface engineering are reported as highly effective EOR promising electrocatalysts. Characterizations reveal that Fe2O3 functions as a dynamic electron spring to tune the electronic structure of Co sites, accelerating the formation of the Fe2O3/CoOOH heterostructure while suppressing Fe2O3/CoO2 evolution. In situ Raman spectroscopy and theoretical calculation confirm that the Fe2O3/CoOOH heterostructure enhances EOR kinetics and lowers the energy barrier of the potential-determining step. Quasi in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy further demonstrates that Fe2O3 stabilizes Co(3+)against overoxidation, expanding the operational potential window. Consequently, H-Fe2O3/CoSe2@C achieves outstanding EOR performance, exhibiting 10 mA cm(-2) @1.30 V vs. RHE with a high faradaic efficiency of 99% at 1.30 V. Ethanol-assisted Zn-Air battery/water splitting devices based on H-Fe2O3/CoSe2@C demonstrate enhanced energy conversion efficiency, with voltage reduced by 210 and 180 mV at 10 mA cm(-2), respectively. This work provides critical insights for designing heterostructure electrocatalysts and advancing the utilization of biomass energy.

Pore structure and specific surface area are important performance parameters of carbon-based capacitive materials. However, the complexity of the pores and the infiltration rate of the electrolyte can suppress the actual utilization rate of the materials specific surface area, hindering the occurrence of double-layer capacitance behavior. This work uses traditional Chinese medicine waste as raw material to obtain porous carbon materials (NC) through immersion-crystallization of activator. This preparation strategy has high universality, transforming various traditional Chinese medicines with complex original structures into high specific surface area carbon materials with unified nano structures. The internally and externally synergistic activation method generates a large number of interconnected pore structures, enhancing the spatial complexity of the material across dimensions. In order to improve the actual surface utilization and ion accessibility, amino acid functional groups (arginine) are introduced into the material interface (Arg-NC). Meanwhile, the intervention of amino acid functional groups will also inhibit side reactions such as co-ion repulsion effect and oxidative corrosion. The amino acids functional groups enhance the wettability of the pore structure and increase the actual effective specific surface area, promoting the occurrence of double-layer capacitance behavior. The pore channel structure, in turn, provides a confinement protection effect for the amino acid functional groups, mitigating the issue of fracture and detachment. By combining structural design and interface control, Arg-NC exhibits excellent capacitance performance and shows promising application potential in supercapacitors and capacitive desalination.

Transition metal sulfides (TMSs) are recognized as promising materials for supercapacitor electrodes, primarily attributed to their exceptional theoretical charge storage capacity and tunable electronic structures. However, their real-world applications are hindered by critical challenges including inadequate charge transport properties and progressive structural degradation during cyclic loading. Addressing these issues, structural engineering approaches, including the design of porous architectures and hetero-interfaces, have demonstrated considerable efficacy in boosting pseudocapacitive performance and extending long-term stability. In this work, we report the successful fabrication of hollow NiS/MnS nanospheres with precisely controlled compositions via a solvothermal method assisted by a metal-organic framework (MOF) precursor. The material achieves a specific capacitance of 1276.8 F g- 1 under a current load of 1 A g-1. Furthermore, when configured into an hybrid supercapacitor (NiS/ MnS//activated carbon), the device delivers an energy density of 27.48 Wh kg- 1 (at a power density of 400 W kg- 1) within a 1.6 V operating window. This research not only presents a novel approach for fabricating highperformance supercapacitor electrodes but also offers valuable insights into the advantages of hollow heterostructures for energy storage applications, providing critical design parameters for the systematic optimization of advanced functional materials.

Visible light-driven photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to value-added fuels and chemicals has attracted extensive interest for decades. However, the emerging photocatalysis paradigm through an interband transition in non-plasmonic metals remains challenging. Herein, a new strategy, namely hot carrier exploitation is demonstrated, for highly efficient CO2 reduction through the interband transition in non-plasmonic Ru nanoparticles (NPs). The Ru NPs are integrated with a metal-organic framework (MOF) to construct a Schottky junction of Ru@MOF-808, which features a directed injection of hot interband electrons from Ru NPs to adsorbed substrates, and localized enrichment and activation of substrates around Ru catalytic centers, due to its high Schottky barrier, superior gas adsorption capacity, and excellent hydrogen spillover capability. Hot interband holes in Ru NPs can also be promptly quenched by enriched active H species, ensuring sustainable hot electron generation and producing abundant protons for CO2 methanation. Such catalyst design enables highly efficient utilization of hot interband carriers, and in turn, substantially accelerates the kinetically challenging CO2 methanation involving 8 electrons and 8 protons. Consequently, Ru@MOF-808 delivers a record-high apparent quantum yield of 17.16% under visible light and ambient conditions. The finding provides new insights into heterogeneous photocatalysis, and opens up a new avenue to efficient CO2 utilization.

TiH 2 -supported Ru catalysts are developed for CO 2 methanation, in which the usual support-to-metal electron transfer behaviour and hydrogen spillover effect are regulated to balance CO intermediate activation, H 2 activation and catalyst hydration.

The large-scale hydrogen production and application through electrocatalytic water splitting depends crucially on the development of highly efficient, cost-effective electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which, however, remains challenging. Here, a new electrocatalyst of trimetallic Fe-Co-Ni hydroxide (denoted as FeCoNiOxHy) with a nanotubular structure is developed through an enhanced Kirkendall process under applied potential. The FeCoNiOxHy features synergistic electronic interaction between Fe, Co, and Ni, which not only notably increases the intrinsic OER activity of FeCoNiOxHy by facilitating the formation of *OOH intermediate, but also substantially improves the intrinsic conductivity of FeCoNiOxHy to facilitate charge transfer and activate catalytic sites through electrocatalyst by promoting the formation of abundant Co3+. Therefore, FeCoNiOxHy delivers remarkably accelerated OER kinetics and superior apparent activity, indicated by an ultra-low overpotential potential of 257 mV at a high current density of 200 mA cm(-2). This work is of fundamental and practical significance for synergistic catalysis related to advanced energy conversion materials and technologies.

We develop an optical injection locking (OIL) based local oscillator (LO) regeneration for continuous variable quantum key distribution (CVQKD) by sending a weak polarization multiplexed pilot carrier from the transmitter. The OIL at the receiver has superior performance in terms of minimum input power and noise level at offset frequencies to the erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)-based scheme. The weak pilot carrier is recovered both in power and phase via the OIL while incurring little excess noise to the CVQKD system. The phase-locked LO enables heterodyne detection of a Gaussian modulated quantum signal with a simple data-aided phase recovery without pilot tone. The obtained parameters are compatible with a raw key rate of 0.83 Mbit/s in the asymptotic regime over a 22-km fiber transmission. The technique is expected to be used in more phase-sensitive quantum optical applications.

In this paper, we present a field-trial C-band 72Gbit/s optical on-off keying (OOK) system over 18.8 km dispersion-uncompensated submarine optical cable in the South China Sea. Chromatic dispersion (CD) of 18.8 km submarine optical cable causes four spectral nulls on the 36 GHz bandwidth of 72Gbit/s OOK signal, which is the main obstacle for achieving an acceptable bit-error-rate (BER) performance. Decision feedback equalizer (DFE) is effective to compensate for the spectral nulls. However, DFE has a serious defect of burst-error propagation when the burst errors emerge due to the unstable submarine environment. Weighted DFE (WDFE) can be used to mitigate the burst-error propagation, but it cannot fully compensate for the spectral nulls because only a part of feedback symbols is directly decided. Fortunately, maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) can be added after the WDFE to simultaneously eliminate the residual spectral distortions and implement optimal detection. Compared to the joint DFE and MLSE algorithm, the joint WDFE and MLSE algorithm can effectively suppress the burst-error propagation to obtain a maximum 2.9 dB improvement of $\boldsymbol{Q}$ factor and eliminate the phenomenon of BER floor. In conclusion, the joint WDFE and MLSE algorithm can solve the burst-error propagation for the field-trial fiber-optic communications.

Clock recovery plays an important role in the digital signal processing (DSP) chain of modern coherent optical receivers. It references the local sampling clock with the signal baudrate and finds the optimal sampling instances by performing endless timing error corrections. At the core of clock recovery, a timing error detector (TED) is used to provide instantaneous error tracking. However, usual TEDs suffer from effects such as chromatic dispersion (CD) and polarization rotation, thus requiring additional efforts to remove those effects before TED. Here we propose a modified square TED based on the signal's cyclic autocorrelation function (CAF), which generalizes its classical counterpart and exhibits a much larger CD tolerance. It provides a time-domain solution of the CD-tolerant TED. The previously analyzed equivalence among the time-domain and the frequency-domain TEDs is reestablished in the framework of spectral correlation. The modified square TED demands a minimum extra complexity. Both numerical simulation and experiments are performed to study the performance of the proposed TED.

Optical performance monitoring (OPM) is an important tool to facilitate the management of future optical fiber communication networks. OPM measures the states of the physical layer and provides feedback to the network controller for performing tasks such as link diagnosis and fault detection. OPM exists either as standalone devices integrated in the intermediate nodes, or it could be a set of algorithms running in devices such as the optical transceivers. A more effective network controller requires OPM to monitor multiple parameters in order to perform better network planning. However, this is considerably challenging for OPM at the intermediate nodes in consideration of cost efficiency, dynamic range, monitoring accuracy, etc. Here we show that, by using a pair of low-bandwidth coherent receivers and two local lasers, a multiparameter OPM at the intermediate nodes can be constructed. It is capable of scanning the optical spectrum, measuring the optical power, wavelength, and the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR). Furthermore, by exploiting the spectral correlation properties of the modern communication signals, it can also monitor chromatic dispersion (CD), polarization-mode dispersion (PMD), baudrate, and timing phase. In more specific scenarios, it can also perform polarization tracking and modulation format identification. We provide the digital signal processing (DSP) details for estimating the optical parameters. Furthermore, we demonstrate the experimental results of a real-time prototype implementing all the essential parts of our proposed OPM.

The geometric phase effect in the optical fiber communication systems with dynamic polarization control is analyzed. Both dynamic and geometric phases cause an increase of the signal phase noise, in proportional to the speed of polarization rotation and restoration.

We successfully demonstrated a real-time 800Gb/s single-carrier SHC-BiDi transmission with the proposed APC solution tracking up to a record 200 krad/s SOP rotation speed without performance penalty. A $\sim$10km transmission without EDFA is achieved via a low cost DFB laser. OCIS codes: (060.1660) Coherent communications; (060.2330) Fiber optics communications

Optical performance monitoring (OPM) plays an essential role in the intelligent optical fiber communication networks, which perform dynamic network planning and service deployment based on the knowledge of the real-time conditions of the optical layer. Common parameters estimated by OPM include optical power, optical signal-to-noise ratio, chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion, and so on. To be cost-effective and integrated, a universal OPM for multiple parameters realized on a single hardware platform is highly desirable. Although the sources of distinct impairments are independent, the induced distortions on the signal are mixed together, thus challenging the realization of universal OPM. In this article, the existing OPM methods are reviewed with a focus on those based on spectral analysis. A viable solution of universal OPM based on a double-homodyne scheme with all low-cost components is presented.

Calix[4]arenes have the ability to encapsulate biomimetic guests, offering interesting opportunities to explore their molecular recognition, very close to biological scenarios. In this study, p-sulfonatocalix[4]arene (C4 A) anions and hydrated alkali cations have been used for the in situ recognition of cationic 1,ω-diammonium-alkanes and 1,ω-amino-acids of variable lengths. NMR spectroscopy illustrates that these systems are stable in aqueous solution and the interaction process involves several binding states or stabilized conformations within the C4 A anion, depending of the nature of the guest. DOSY experiments showed that monomeric 1 : 1 host-guest species are present, while the cation does not influence their self-assembly in solution. The folded conformations observed in the solid-state X-ray single-crystal structures shed light on the constitutional adaptivity of flexible chains to environmental factors. Futhermore, a comprehensive screening of 30 single crystal structures helped to understand the in situ conformational fixation and accurate determination of the folded structures of the confined guest molecules, with a compression up to 40 % compared with their linear conformations.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak that occurred in late 2019 has posed a huge threat to the health of all humans, especially for individuals who already have diabetes mellitus (DM). DM is one of the most serious diseases that affect human health, with high morbidity and rates of complications. Medical scientists worldwide have been working to control blood sugar levels and the complications associated with sugar level alterations, with an aim to reduce the adverse consequences of acute and chronic complications caused by DM. Patients with DM face great challenges during the pandemic owing to not only changes in the allocation of medical resources but also their abnormal autoimmune status, which reduces their resistance to infections. This increases the difficulty in treatment and the risk of mortality. This review presents, from an epidemiological viewpoint, information on the susceptibility of patients with DM to COVID-19 and the related treatment plans and strategies used in this population.

A trifluoromethyl functionalized linker and Cu-O chain composed MOF, LIFM-100, was used as "crystalline sponge" to determine eight hardly crystallized liquids' configurations based on its flexibility conformation, suitable pore size, electron-rich channel environment, and low symmetric space group. The H bond interactions between host-guest and guest-guest were well analyzed.