Ag-modified In₂O₃ (Ag-3/In₂O₃) catalyst converts methane to methanol and formaldehyde with 100% liquid-product selectivity under mild photo–thermal conditions (150°C, Xe lamp irradiation). Producing 6544 μmol·g⁻¹·h⁻¹, it outperforms pure photocatalysis by 2.6 times. The catalyst’s unique band structure prevents formation of over-oxidizing hydroxyl radicals, while weak product adsorption avoids deep oxidation. This design eliminates CO₂ emission—a breakthrough for sustainable natural gas utilization.

Titanium is widely used in marine engineering and biomedical implants because of its excellent corrosion resistance. Researchers have discovered that marine electroactive bacteria can weaken titanium’s protective oxide layer through flavin-mediated extracellular electron transfer. The findings reveal a previously unknown bioelectrochemical corrosion pathway and provide new insights for designing titanium materials with improved resistance to microbiologically influenced corrosion.

Hydrogels have become essential to modern biomedicine, enabling advances in drug delivery, tissue engineering and wearable healthcare. Researchers have proposed an architecture-based framework for designing high-performance hydrogels beyond conventional, randomly crosslinked networks. Their review defines hydrogels with high-order structures, outlines four construction routes, including phase separation, molecular self-assembly, nanocomposite integration and polymer crystallization, and links multiscale organization to mechanical robustness, transport control and integrated biomedical functions.

This review assesses the state-of-the-art of functional liquid crystals with nanomaterials, including self-organized alignment enabled by nanotechnology, diverse properties of nanoparticle-doped systems, soft actuators and tunable structural color in nanohybrid elastomers, and provides critical perspectives on comparative advantages and remaining challenges.

This article collection features papers published in Environmental Surfaces and Interfaces since 2023 on the theme of materials‑driven environmental pollutant removal. It focuses on the development of novel materials and their practical applications in environmental pollutant remediation. All articles are freely available for reading.

Instead of being discarded after seawater desalination, concentrated brine can gain a second life as a chemical feedstock. Researchers have developed a solar-driven offshore continuous-flow platform that couples freshwater production with selective methane conversion by directly reusing desalination brine as the chlorine source. The integrated system simultaneously produces freshwater and chloromethane, offering a strategy for the in situ utilization of offshore natural gas resources and introducing a new approach to solar-driven offshore chemical manufacturing.

This new review interrogates how bacterial persisters survive antibiotic exposure and drive the development of chronic, recurrent, and difficult-to-treat infections. The work distinguishes the difference among persistence, tolerance and resistance. It further synthesizes current understanding of persister pathobiology, as well as interactions between persister populations, the host, and co-occurring pathogens. Additionally, this review outlines emerging persister detection methods and promising therapeutic strategies to eradicate persister cells, including combination antibiotic therapies, metabolic targeting interventions, and host-directed anti-persister approaches.