Against the backdrop of global food security facing the dual pressures of population growth and climate warming, the search for green, low-cost agricultural yield-enhancing technologies has become increasingly urgent. As a frontier technology in agricultural physical engineering, high-voltage electrostatic field (HVEF) has attracted considerable attention for its potential to regulate plant growth and development in a non-chemical manner.

By giving a maple-seed-inspired robot the ability to plan ahead, researchers improved its flight accuracy without adding motors or mechanical complexity.

Researchers at Soochow University have demonstrated a perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell with a lab efficiency of 34.0%. An independently certified device achieved a steady-state efficiency of 33.5% and an open-circuit voltage of 2.014 V. Discrete zirconia nanoparticles at the buried interface promoted uniform, void-free perovskite growth and suppressed non-radiative recombination through field-effect passivation without hindering charge extraction. The encapsulated device retained 84% of its initial efficiency after 2000 h of continuous operation.

Solar-driven water splitting offers a carbon-neutral path to green hydrogen, but its reliance on freshwater has long raised sustainability concerns. Seawater — covering 97% of Earth’s water — presents an abundant alternative, yet its chloride ions have traditionally been seen as a major obstacle, causing corrosive side reactions and sluggish kinetics. Now, a team led by researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University has turned this challenge into an opportunity. They developed a noble-metal-free photocatalyst — MnOₓ(OH)_y/GaN nanowires supported by a silicon wafer — that splits natural seawater efficiently under sunlight, achieving a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 6.15% without any sacrificial agents. The catalyst delivers a hydrogen production rate of 15.2 mol g⁻¹ h⁻¹ in natural seawater and operates stably for over 360 min. Surprisingly, the team discovered that chloride ions in seawater are not detrimental but actively beneficial: they reduce the Coulomb attraction energy between photogenerated electrons and holes, and simultaneously lower the energy barrier for water oxidation. Meanwhile, the hydroxyl groups inherent to the manganese oxyhydroxide cocatalyst undergo dynamic exchange with water molecules, further accelerating the formation of key reaction intermediates. Outdoor tests under concentrated natural sunlight confirmed the system’s practical feasibility.

Korean researchers have developed to strengthen biodegradable plastics using hemp hurd, an agricultural by-product. The approach is expected to be applicable to other large-volume agricultural residues, including soybean stalks and rice straw. A research team led by Dr. Hoyong Kim of the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), headed by President Suk-Min Shin, extracted cellulose from discarded stalks of industrial hemp, which is used to produce traditional hemp textiles. The team then applied a drying process that preserves the microfibrillar structure of the cellulose, enabling it to serve as a reinforcing biofiller for biodegradable plastics.

Researchers led by Prof. DENG Dehui and Associate Prof. LIU Yanting from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) proposed a "seawater to hydrogen and fresh water (STHW)" route that couples alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) with low-temperature vacuum distillation desalination.

A research team from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed a new modeling and optimization framework that helps researchers design modularized autonomous experimentation (MAE) platforms for new materials by determining the optimal combination of equipment before construction begins, thereby reducing both time and cost before the platform is physically built.

- Professor Sang Ouk Kim’s team in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering highlights advances in high-performance graphene fibers based on graphene oxide liquid crystals and their significance in a News & Views commentary in Nature Materials

- Graphene oxide liquid crystals, first discovered by the team in 2011, have provided a foundation for 15 years of research worldwide into graphene fibers with high strength and thermal conductivity

- With applications already commercialized in antibacterial toothbrushes and functional sportswear, the technology is advancing into materials with potential uses in electronics, electric vehicles, aerospace, and wearable