Solar interfacial evaporation has undergone rapid development in recent years, yet its overall performance has reached a plateau due to limited advances in solar-thermal materials. Herein, we propose a synergistic nano-confinement and physical-field–modulation strategy that enables concurrent acceleration of solar-driven evaporation of water and on-site remediation of organic pollutants. Implemented in hollow mesoporous carbon nanocages integrated with Fe–N₄ catalytic sites and inner wall plasmonic Au nanoparticles, the system couples mesoporous confinement with localized thermal and pressure perturbations to transform bulk water into thermodynamically activated intermediate states and substantially reduce the effective vaporization enthalpy. This integrated framework delivers high evaporation rates of 2.56 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ in planar devices and 6.84 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ in 3D architectures under one-sun irradiation, with a kinetic enhanced Hertz–Knudsen–Schrage–derived evaporation coefficient. Simultaneously, the Fe–N₄ sites enable non-radical peroxymonosulfate activation for ultrafast degradation of bisphenol A, achieving a rate of 182.5 L g⁻¹ min⁻¹. This work establishes an ingenious strategy for coupling water-state regulation and catalytic pollutant degradation to break the performance bottleneck of solar-thermal purification.

Photodynamic therapy is attractive but often compromised by tissue hypoxia. We report a photosensitizer homodimer fission mechanism that produces photosensitizer radical ion pairs without exogenous redox substrates. These pairs enable coupled water oxidation and oxygen reduction, establishing a self-oxygen-supplying reactive oxygen species (ROS) cycle. By sustaining ROS generation under hypoxia, this strategy offers a new route to overcome the longstanding oxygen limitation of conventional photodynamic therapy.

Direct photocatalytic oxidation of methane to methanol under ambient pressure offers an attractive route for C₁ valorization, yet it remains challenged by the competing requirements of activating inert C–H bonds while preventing methanol overoxidation. Here, a WO₃/BN interface is reported that addresses this activity-selectivity trade-off by regulating the balance of reactive oxygen species. Interfacial coupling with BN promotes hole extraction from WO₃ and induces electron accumulation in the WO₃ domains, thereby preferentially enhancing ·OOH generation and increasing the ·OOH/·OH ratio. The elevated ·OOH/·OH ratio balances methane activation and methanol formation. Specifically,·OOH radicals facilitate C–H bond activation in methane, whereas ·OH radicals react with the resulting *CH₃ intermediates to form methanol. The optimized WO₃/BN-1:1 catalyst achieves a CH₃OH production rate of 741.6 µmol/(g·h), nearly twice that of pristine WO₃, with a CH₃OH selectivity of 77.2% under ambient-pressure conditions. This work provides insights into regulating reactive oxygen species through interface engineering for the selective photocatalytic conversion of methane.

As a key strategy for reducing CO2 emissions, carbon capture and utilization (CCU) has gained increasing attention in the global pursuit of carbon neutrality and decarbonization. In particular, using a single material to achieve both efficient CO2 capture and photocatalytic CO2 conversion, thereby converting CO2 into high-value-added products, represents an attractive strategy. Such an integrated design can not only simplify the process flow and reduce energy consumption and costs, but also minimize losses associated with intermediate steps through in situ conversion, significantly improving overall carbon utilization efficiency. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous crystalline materials that can not only serve as physical adsorbents for CO2 capture but also enable chemisorption through the rational design and optimization of secondary building units, organic linkers, and pore environments. Additionally, by engineering their electronic structures to optimize band structures and charge transport pathways, MOFs can serve as highly promising photocatalysts. Considerable progress has been made in the application of MOFs for CO2 capture and conversion. However, significant advances are still needed in the development of integrated MOFs-based systems that combine CO2 capture, enrichment, and in situ photocatalytic conversion. To accelerate progress in this area, a detailed review of recent developments is particularly important. Therefore, this review summarizes recent advances in MOFs-based materials for CCU, with particular emphasis on strategies for enhancing both CO2 capture and photocatalytic CO2 conversion. Finally, it discusses the current challenges and future research directions for developing integrated MOFs-based CCU systems.