Air pollution is a major environmental challenge of this century. In a recent Journal of Environmental Sciences review paper, scientists from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have highlighted potential technologies for direct purification of air pollutants in the environment, including photocatalysis and ambient non-photocatalytic approaches. They also propose the novel concept of an ‘Environmental Catalytic City.’

In an effort to create simpler next-generation lighting solutions, researchers from the University of Turku in Finland have developed a colour-tunable white OLED. It is a top light-emitting device that produces white light from a single organic layer and two standard aluminum electrodes, eliminating the need for scarce indium tin oxide. This streamlined design replaces the need for complex organic stacks with smart optics, which promises to lower manufacturing costs and reduce reliance on scarce materials.

A team of researchers from the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) and Tokyo Metropolitan University has developed a protein-based gel that replicates the softness and fibrous structure of native skeletal muscle tissue. This innovation enables the cultivation of muscle cells with slow-twitch characteristics, offering new possibilities for treating muscle loss, enhancing metabolic function, and developing next-generation biomedical devices.