A research team has developed an iron-modified titanium dioxide electrode that substantially improves the breakdown of nitrobenzene, a persistent wastewater pollutant. In a laboratory reactor combining electrical treatment, heat and ultraviolet light, the system removed 92.1% of nitrobenzene within two hours.

A research team has found that advanced wastewater treatments designed to improve water quality can also intensify certain endocrine-disrupting effects. 

A research team has revealed that different surface oxygen species determine how effectively platinum-based catalysts release hydrogen from aqueous methanol.

Plasmonics promises photonic devices far smaller than the diffraction limit, but optical losses have long limited real applications. Scientists in China and the United States now show that potassium can serve as an ultralow-loss plasmonic metal. Using an ultrafast slipping-assisted oxide-free crystallization process, they made smooth potassium films with a damping rate of 2.27 meV and demonstrated deep subwavelength light confinement, opening a path to next-generation nanophotonic devices.

Controlled rotation of single cells is essential for three-dimensional imaging and mechanobiology studies. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed an opto-thermo-osmotic platform that enables programmable rotation of both spherical particles and living cells along arbitrary axes. By dynamically reconfiguring laser patterns, the system achieves real-time switching between major-axis and minor-axis rotation modes, providing a versatile tool for label-free cellular imaging and manipulation.