Galvanic replacement reaction (GRR) is a versatile electrochemical strategy for constructing complex heterostructures. However, achieving controlled synthesis of noble-metal nanoparticles with defined morphologies and spatial distributions on an unconventional gallium-based liquid-metal (LM) surface remains highly challenging and largely unexplored. In this work, we systematically investigated the GRR between LM droplets and Pt precursors with different chloride coordination: K2PtCl4 ([PtCl4]2-, tetra-coordinated) and K2PtCl6/(NH4)2PtCl6 ([PtCl6]2-, hexa-coordinated). By deliberately exploiting the differences in thermodynamic driving forces and kinetic pathways associated with these ligand configurations, we demonstrate that the coordination environment of Pt complexes serves as an effective handle to regulate Pt nucleation and growth. Consequently, the [PtCl4]2- complex yields uniformly distributed, satellite-like Pt domains, whereas the [PtCl6]2- complex produces sparsely localized, patch-like Pt deposits. These distinct morphologies and deposition modes of Pt particles modulate interfacial stress, driving LM droplet evolution and divergent macroscopic transformations. In particular, the oxide layer formed on LM surfaces, together with Pt-catalyzed hydrogen evolution, was confirmed as a primary factor governing LM transformations across multiscale. Overall, this study deepens the fundamental understanding of LM-based GRR mechanisms and demonstrates a coordination-tuning strategy for designing noble-metal-coated LM heterostructures with tailored morphologies and spatial distributions, which could enable their use as reconfigurable functional materials in a broad range of applications.
Nature Communications, Published online: 06 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41467-025-67176-8
Precisely controlling the configuration of oxygen-binding intermediates is crucial for selective CO2-to-ethanol electroreduction. Here, the authors present a subsurface Co-doped CuS catalyst, which transforms key intermediates via surface-O bonds to achieve directional selectivity for ethanol.The shift to a sustainable economy relies heavily on green hydrogen production. The elevated energy barrier of water dissociation precludes hydrogen generation in alkaline medium. To circumvent the inherent limitations of conventional catalysts governed by the Sabatier principle, Reversible Hydrogen Spillover has emerged as a powerful design strategy. This approach spatially decouples catalytic function by allocating water dissociation to a designed support, followed by hydrogen recombination and desorption to a neighboring metallic site, establishing a synergistic pathway that skips traditional kinetic bottleneck. This perspective provides a comprehensive understanding of the material design principles that enable reversible hydrogen spillover. Four key strategies are critically examined: 1) Structurally tuning the support for the intrinsic water dissociation activity, 2) integrating oxophilic species to create dedicated water scissoring hotspots, 3) implanting single‐atomic metal sites to suppress the interfacial transfer barriers, 4) leveraging interatomic interaction in multi‐metallic systems to synergistically boost both water dissociation and H 2 evolution. The operando spectroscopic and electrochemical techniques (CO‐stripping, scanning electrochemical microscopy, in situ Raman/infra‐red) are further discussed for the molecular‐level understanding of the spillover pathways. The study establishes a systematic framework that emphasizes reversible hydrogen spillover as a pivotal idea capable advancing the development of high‐performance electrocatalyst.
Photo‐induced damage impairs protein activity and leads to functional deterioration in organisms and tissues. In situ studies of peptide motifs oxidation are pivotal for elucidating molecular mechanisms of photodamage and identifying therapeutic targets. Although nanopores for analyzing peptides and amino acids are well established, no platform generates reactive oxygen species (ROS) in situ and delivers real‐time readouts of oxidative events. Here, a novel in situ oxidation detection platform combines a photocatalytically active TiO 2 nanopipette with a mesoporous MIL‐125(Ti) nanosheet, integrating a photocatalytic nanoreactor and solid‐state nanopore sensing. The MIL‐125/TiO 2 heterojunction produces abundant high‐valent ROS under light irradiation, while the MIL‐125(Ti) nanosheet at the nanopipette tip serves as a solid‐state nanopore, whose ionic current signatures reveal surface charge and conformational dynamics of peptides before and after oxidation. Using the Ω‐loop D motif of cytochrome c as a model, transient current measurements and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that ROS oxidation markedly increases peptide surface charge and induces a folded‐to‐extended transition. Methionine and tyrosine residues within Ω‐loop D are identified as key antioxidants, while exogenous antioxidants preserve their conformation in real time. This work establishes a novel in situ molecular‐level method for studying oxidative modification, photocatalyst evaluation, and antioxidant drug screening.
Solid oxide fuel cells are promising technologies for renewable energy conversion, yet their practical deployment requires oxygen electrodes that simultaneously support rapid oxygen‐ion transport and sustained high‐activity oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysis. However, constructing such a microchemical environment remains a persistent challenge for perovskite oxides. Here, it is demonstrated that Cl − incorporation into PrBaCo 2 O 5+δ partially replaces lattice oxygen, inducing localized metal–oxygen electronic states, enhanced lattice distortion, and Pr 3+ intermixing into BaO layers, collectively generating 3D fast pathways for oxygen‐ion diffusion. More significantly, it is revealed for the first time that Cl − preferentially segregates at the surface, forming an amorphous layer that creates an adaptive ORR interface and effectively overcomes the long‐standing issue of surface passivation. As a result, Cl − ‐engineered PrBaCo 2 O 5+δ achieves a 3–5‐fold increase in ORR activity relative to the parent oxide and exhibits outstanding durability at 750 °C, transforming ≈15.1% degradation over 100 h into a ≈2.7% performance gain. This work establishes a halogen‐mediated mechanism for tailoring perovskite microchemistry, challenges the prevailing view that halogens merely stabilize oxide lattices, demonstrates one of the most pronounced catalytic enhancements reported to date, and offers a broadly applicable strategy for designing advanced oxygen electrodes.
The application of lithium–sulfur (Li‐S) batteries is severely limited by the shuttle effect and sluggish sulfur conversion at the cathode, as well as the instability of the Li anode interface. Catalyst design and the construction of a stable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) are key strategies to overcome these challenges. Herein, a bifunctional catalyst is reported prepared by incorporating atomically dispersed chromium (Cr) sites into lithiated zeolites. This approach not only accelerates the conversion of sulfur species and effectively suppresses the shuttle effect, but also leverages residual sodium (Na) ions from the Na‐exchanged zeolite to form a robust fluorinated Li/Na hybrid SEI on the Li anode, thereby enhancing specific capacity and cycling stability. As a result, the Li─S battery employing this catalyst delivers an initial capacity of 1130.3 mAh g −1 at 0.5C and maintains 957.4 mAh g −1 after 100 cycles, and demonstrates impressive rate performance with a capacity of 701.3 mAh g −1 at 5C. Moreover, the pouch cell achieves an energy density of 366 Wh kg −1 , underscoring its exceptional potential for practical applications.
Advanced Materials, EarlyView.
DOI: 10.1039/D5EE06001J, Paper
Aqueous zinc-ion batteries are promising for grid-scale energy storage due to inherent safety and low cost. However, their practical application under high current densities is severely limited by the hydrogen...
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Nature Communications, Published online: 06 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41467-025-66973-5
The electrooxidation of ethylene to ethylene glycol (EG) offers a sustainable pathway for chemical manufacturing, but demands selective non-precious-metal electrocatalysts. Here, the authors report a class of (111)-rich Mn2O3 nanoarray electrode, which achieves a high selectivity of 52.6% for for ethylene-to-EG conversion in aqueous electrolytes.
Advanced Functional Materials, EarlyView.
Advanced Functional Materials, EarlyView.
Advanced Functional Materials, EarlyView.
Advanced Functional Materials, EarlyView.
Advanced Functional Materials, EarlyView.
Nature Communications, Published online: 06 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41467-025-66855-w
Researchers present SlingBAG, an iterative reconstruction algorithm for large-scale 3D photoacoustic imaging. It uses an adaptive point cloud model to achieve high-quality imaging from sparse data, notably cutting cost in both memory and time.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 122, Issue 49, December 2025.
SignificanceThe difficulties of algorithmic dynamics in highly nonconvex landscapes are central in several research areas, from hard combinatorial optimization to machine learning. However, it is unclear why and how some particular algorithms find ...
Advanced Science, EarlyView.
Author(s): Youngmin Kim, Enhyeok Jang, Hyungseok Kim, Seungwoo Choi, Changheon Lee, Donghwi Kim, Woomin Kyoung, Kyujin Shin, and Won Woo Ro
Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) have attracted remarkable interest over the past few years because of their potential computational advantages on near-term quantum devices. They leverage a hybrid approach that integrates classical and quantum computing resources to solve high-dimensional probl…
[Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043253] Published Fri Dec 05, 2025
Author(s): Maxime Lucas, Damien Francois, Laurent Mombaerts, Cristina Donato, Alexander Skupin, and Daniele Proverbio
Epilepsy is known to drastically alter brain dynamics during seizures (ictal periods), but its effects on background (nonictal) brain dynamics remain poorly understood. To investigate this, we analyzed an in-house dataset of brain activity recordings from epileptic zebrafish, focusing on two control…
[Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043259] Published Fri Dec 05, 2025
Author(s): Vahe Galstyan, Age Tjalma, and Pieter Rein ten Wolde
Efficient signal representation is essential for the functioning of living and artificial systems operating under resource constraints. A widely recognized framework for deriving such representations is the information bottleneck method, which yields the optimal strategy for encoding a random variab…
[Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043261] Published Fri Dec 05, 2025
Nature Communications, Published online: 06 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41467-025-66839-w
Climate models cannot match long-term observed changes in the tropical Pacific zonal sea surface temperature gradient, implying that model responses to increasing radiative forcing from atmospheric greenhouse gases are diverging from the real world.Advanced Materials, EarlyView.