Newswise — As renewable energy deployment accelerates worldwide, large-scale energy storage technologies must become more affordable, safer, and resource-efficient. Sodium-ion batteries stand out because sodium is abundant and inexpensive, yet their commercialization is hindered by the lack of high-performance anode materials. Hard carbon is widely regarded as the most promising anode candidate, but its performance strongly depends on poorly controlled internal pores and defect structures. Excessive open pores often trigger electrolyte decomposition, unstable interfacial layers, and severe initial capacity loss. Based on these challenges, it is necessary to conduct in-depth research on how molecular-level precursor design and interfacial regulation can jointly enhance hard carbon anodes.

Researchers from Jiangxi Normal University and Gannan Normal University report a new strategy to stabilize hard carbon anodes for sodium-ion batteries, published (DOI: 10.1007/s10118-025-3461-0) online on November 19, 2025, in Chinese Journal of Polymer Science. The study introduces intramolecular heteroatom doping within polymer precursors, followed by controlled chemical presodiation, to engineer closed-pore structures and robust interfacial layers. This synergistic design significantly improves reversible capacity, initial Coulombic efficiency, and long-term cycling stability, addressing key bottlenecks that have constrained sodium-ion battery development.

The research begins by designing polymer precursors with specific functional groups—such as sulfonyl, ether, and carbonyl units—embedded directly within aromatic backbones. During carbonization, these intramolecular dopants decompose in a controlled manner, generating abundant closed nanopores while avoiding excessive surface area. Structural analyses, including X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and small-angle X-ray scattering, reveal that the optimized hard carbon contains a high volume of closed pores that favor low-voltage sodium storage.

Electrochemical tests demonstrate that the optimized material delivers a reversible capacity of 307.9 mAh g⁻¹, with strong rate capability and minimal structural degradation. However, the researchers identified that irreversible sodium loss during initial cycling still limited practical efficiency. To address this, a brief chemical presodiation step was introduced, supplying sodium in advance and pre-forming a stable interfacial layer. As a result, the initial Coulombic efficiency increased dramatically to 94.4%.

Long-term tests further show that the presodiated hard carbon retains 93.6% of its capacity after 3,000 charge–discharge cycles. Microscopic and spectroscopic analyses confirm the formation of a thin, dense, and sodium-fluoride-rich interphase, which enhances ion transport while suppressing electrolyte decomposition.

“This work shows that the performance limits of hard carbon are not fixed but can be fundamentally reshaped through molecular design,” said one of the study’s corresponding authors. “By controlling how heteroatoms are incorporated within polymer precursors, we can regulate pore formation from the inside out. When combined with presodiation, this strategy not only boosts efficiency but also stabilizes the electrode–electrolyte interface over thousands of cycles. The results suggest a scalable and versatile route for building next-generation sodium-ion battery anodes.”

The findings offer important implications for the future of large-scale energy storage, particularly in grid applications where cost, safety, and durability are critical. The molecular-level engineering strategy demonstrated in this study can be extended to other polymer-derived carbons and potentially adapted for potassium-ion or multivalent battery systems. By simultaneously improving capacity, efficiency, and lifespan, the approach brings sodium-ion batteries closer to commercial viability. More broadly, the work highlights how precursor chemistry and interfacial control can be integrated to overcome long-standing materials challenges in electrochemical energy storage.

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References

DOI

10.1007/s10118-025-3461-0

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-025-3461-0

Funding information

This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52403263), Technology Research Project of Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education (No. GJJ2200385), and Jiangxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Nos. 20244BCE52213, 20242BAB23031 and 20232BAB204006).

About Chinese Journal of Polymer Science

Chinese Journal of Polymer Science is a monthly journal published in English and sponsored by the Chinese Chemical Society and the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. CJPS is edited by a distinguished Editorial Board headed by Professor Qi-Feng Zhou and supported by an International Advisory Board in which many famous active polymer scientists all over the world are included. Manuscript types include Editorials, Rapid Communications, Perspectives, Tutorials, Feature Articles, Reviews and Research Articles. According to the Journal Citation Reports, 2024 Impact Factor (IF) of CJPS is 4.0.

Newswise — Two researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have been named recipients of 2025 Early Career Research Program awards from the DOE Office of Science. David Kaphan and Yong Zhao will each receive $550,000 per year for five years to further their research.

This DOE Office of Science program seeks to strengthen the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to outstanding researchers early in their careers, when many scientists make formative contributions. Awardees were selected from a large pool of applicants from universities and national labs based on peer review by scientific experts.

David Kaphan is a chemist in Argonne’s Chemical Sciences and Engineering division. His research focuses on designing a new generation of catalysts — materials that speed up chemical reactions — for chemical transformations to overcome key kinetic limitations of today’s catalysts. His project aims to explore the potential of electric field-responsive oxides, such as ferroelectrics, to actively control the surface-level electronic characteristics of catalytic active sites. This approach could enable the development of catalysts that adapt during chemical transformations, optimizing reactivity for different phases of chemical synthesis processes.

Kaphan’s project will study the complex role that external electric fields can play in the modulation of electronic surface properties during catalytic processes. He will use X-ray absorption spectroscopy techniques and other methods at the Advanced Photon Source and the Center for Nanoscale Materials — both DOE Office of Science user facilities at Argonne — to measure properties such as field responsive surface electron density and catalytic reactivity. Additionally, the project will integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning to accelerate the exploration of reaction parameters and electric field conditions. This work has the potential to revolutionize catalyst design for critical processes such as selective methane oxidation and ammonia synthesis.

“Stimulus-responsive, nonequilibrium catalysis represents an exciting opportunity to overcome the classical limitations of static processes and increase efficiency in chemical transformations,” said Kaphan. ​“This support will allow us to explore new frontiers in field-responsive dynamic catalyst design and develop new solutions to address key challenges in energy-related chemistry.”

Yong Zhao is an assistant physicist in the Physics division. His research seeks to address one of the most fundamental questions in nuclear physics: understanding the internal structure of protons and neutrons. These are key objectives of multidimensional proton imaging efforts at DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and the forthcoming Electron-Ion Collider at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Both protons and neutrons consist of different combinations of quarks and gluons. Zhao plans to develop a new theoretical approach and use lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) for precise calculations of the underlying multidimensional quark and gluon structures. This approach will enable high-precision imaging of the proton, as well as reveal the contributions of quark and gluon spin and orbital angular momentum to the proton’s spin.

Using the Aurora and Polaris supercomputers at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science user facility, Zhao’s project aims to reduce systematic uncertainties and improve numerical precision in proton and neutron structural studies. Its insights will provide crucial theoretical guidance for experiments at Jefferson Lab, Brookhaven and other facilities.

“This award is a tremendous opportunity to push the boundaries of our understanding of the strong force and the fundamental building blocks of matter,” said Zhao. ​“I am grateful for the support that will allow us to make significant strides in this area of research.”

“David and Yong exemplify the innovative spirit and scientific excellence that are hallmarks of Argonne’s research community,” said Kawtar Hafidi, associate laboratory director for Argonne’s Physical Sciences and Engineering directorate. ​“Their groundbreaking work has the potential to transform our understanding of fundamental processes in physics and address key challenges in research and development. I look forward to seeing the impact of their efforts in the years to come.”

About Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials

The Center for Nanoscale Materials is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit https://​sci​ence​.osti​.gov/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​-​a​t​-​a​-​G​lance.

The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility provides supercomputing capabilities to the scientific and engineering community to advance fundamental discovery and understanding in a broad range of disciplines. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, the ALCF is one of two DOE Leadership Computing Facilities in the nation dedicated to open science.

About the Advanced Photon Source

The U. S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory is one of the world’s most productive X-ray light source facilities. The APS provides high-brightness X-ray beams to a diverse community of researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. These X-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation’s economic, technological, and physical well-being. Each year, more than 5,000 researchers use the APS to produce over 2,000 publications detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other X-ray light source research facility. APS scientists and engineers innovate technology that is at the heart of advancing accelerator and light-source operations. This includes the insertion devices that produce extreme-brightness X-rays prized by researchers, lenses that focus the X-rays down to a few nanometers, instrumentation that maximizes the way the X-rays interact with samples being studied, and software that gathers and manages the massive quantity of data resulting from discovery research at the APS.

This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.

Newswise — Green hydrogen production technology, which utilizes renewable energy to produce eco-friendly hydrogen without carbon emissions, is gaining attention as a core technology for addressing global warming. Green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis, a process that separates hydrogen and oxygen by applying electrical energy to water, requiring low-cost, high-efficiency, high-performance catalysts.

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Oh Sang-rok) announced that a research team led by Dr. Na Jongbeom and Dr. Kim Jong Min from the Center for Extreme Materials Research has developed next-generation water electrolysis catalyst technology. This technology integrates a single-atom ‘All-in-one’ catalyst precisely controlled down to the atomic level with binder-free electrode technology. A key feature of this technology is its ability to stably perform both hydrogen evolution and oxygen evolution reactions simultaneously on a single electrode.

Existing electrolysis systems had limitations requiring different catalysts and electrode structures for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), necessitating the use of large quantities of expensive precious metals. Additionally, the binder used to fix the catalyst to the electrode posed problems, including reduced electrical conductivity and catalyst detachment during long-term operation.

KIST researchers utilized atomic-level precision control technology to uniformly disperse iridium (Ir) atoms across the surface of a manganese (Mn)-nickel (Ni)-based layered double hydroxide (LDH) support incorporating phytic acid. This strategy replaced the conventional use of bulk iridium precious metal. By maximizing the number of active sites for water-splitting reactions with minimal iridium, this approach is analogous to evenly spreading fine grains of sand over a large surface rather than relying on a single large rock.

In particular, the iridium single atom acts as a direct active site for the hydrogen evolution reaction through its strong interaction with the support, while simultaneously enhancing the catalytic performance of the nickel-based active site where the oxygen evolution reaction occurs. Thus, a single-atom catalyst has realized bifunctional catalytic characteristics, exhibiting suitable reactivity for both reactions. Furthermore, the research team applied a method of directly growing the catalyst on the electrode surface, achieving an electrode structure that does not require a separate binder. This significantly improved electrical conductivity and ensured excellent durability even during long-term operation.

This technology significantly reduces precious metal usage to within 1.5% compared to existing precious metal catalysts while achieving outstanding performance in both hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions. In addition, it demonstrates high stability with minimal performance degradation even after continuous operation for over 300 hours in an anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysis system. This research outcome demonstrates the technical feasibility of simultaneously enhancing the economic viability and durability of electrolysis systems by minimizing precious metal usage and simplifying electrode structures. It is expected to significantly contribute to the commercialization of green hydrogen production and the reduction of hydrogen production costs in the future.

Dr. Na Jongbeom of KIST stated, “This work is highly significant as it resolves the two essential reactions for hydrogen production using a single catalyst while reducing precious metal consumption.” He added, “This technology will accelerate the commercialization of water electrolysis devices and provide substantial support for expanding hydrogen energy.”

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KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea. KIST now strives to solve national and social challenges and secure growth engines through leading and innovative research. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://kist.re.kr//eng/index.do

This research was conducted with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Bae Kyung-hoon) through KIST’s Institutional Program and Excellent New Researcher Program (RS-2024-00350423), the DACU Core Technology Development Project (RS-2023-00259920), and the Korea-US-Japan International Joint Research Project (Global-24-003). The research results were published in the latest issue of the international journal Advanced Energy Materials (IF: 26.0, JCR (%): 2.5%).

Newswise — Illinois Grainger engineers have identified a fundamental deformation mechanism that can be leveraged to greatly enhance the fatigue properties of metals, opening the door to a new strategy for designing fatigue-resistant alloys.

Metal alloys crack and fail through a mechanism called “fatigue” when repeatedly loaded and strained. While it is well known how to design alloys to withstand static loads and pressures, it is very difficult to design resistance to fatigue because it is difficult to predict how the underlying cause manifests at the atomic scale.

Researchers in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated that fatigue resistance can be greatly enhanced by controlling how metal plasticity, or irreversible deformation, localizes at small scales. It represents a new design strategy for engineering metallic alloys that are resistant to fatigue by leveraging unique deformation processes at the atomic scale.

“Transportation, space and energy all create environments where there is risk for fatigue, presenting a challenge to both safety and sustainability,” said materials science and engineering professor and project lead Jean-Charles Stinville. “Structural applications that involve high temperatures or radiation need materials resistant to fatigue, and our work shows how to design metal alloys that achieve this.”

These results were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

Fatigue is governed by how a material accommodates plastic deformation, the irreversible rearrangement of its internal structure under repeated loading. As a material is cyclically loaded and unloaded, localized plastic deformation accumulates eventually leading to crack initiation. Paradoxically, materials engineered to withstand very high static loads often suffer from reduced fatigue resistance because their microstructure promotes strong localization of plastic deformation, accelerating damage accumulation.

“In alloys, plastic deformation tends to localize into discrete regions, which ultimately become preferential sites for fatigue crack initiation,” Stinville explained. “Because this localization emerges from complex microstructural and deformation processes interactions, it is difficult to predict where and how it will occur, making it challenging to account for during the engineering design stage.” 

Stinville and his collaborators examined whether fatigue resistance can be drastically improved by designing alloys in which plastic deformation is engineered to remain small and uniformly distributed rather than intense and highly localized.

“It makes sense intuitively, that spreading out the plastic deformation homogeneously makes reduces the impact of localized deformation, but experimentally demonstrating it was another matter,” Stinville said. “It required new technology capable of scanning large regions at very high resolution combined with theoretical support from density functional theory and ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations.”

The researchers used high-throughput automated high-resolution digital image correlation, a technique developed in Stinville’s laboratory, to map plastic deformation with unprecedented spatial resolution across large material regions. Unlike conventional methods, which must trade field of view for resolution, this approach captures fine-scale deformation over wide areas. These measurements revealed a delocalized mode of plastic deformation involving deformation processes called “dynamic plastic delocalization.” Mechanical testing showed to be directly associated with greatly enhanced fatigue resistance.

To make sense of the observed structural features, Stinville’s group collaborated with mechanical science and engineering researchers within the group of mechanical science and engineering professor Huseyin Sehitoglu, an expert in the theory and modeling of metal deformation. Computational modeling clarified the roles of chemistry and ordering on the observed delocalized plasticity in the tested materials.

Now that it has been confirmed that metal chemistry and structure can be used to generate homogeneous plasticity during deformation and therefore greatly improved fatigue resistance, the next step is exploring the potential of this result in material design strategies.

“Now that the fundamental mechanism has been identified, we can design new alloys chemistry that activates it to produce fatigue resistant alloys,” Stinville said. 

This study’s other contributors are Dhruv Anjaria, Mathieu Calvat, Shuchi Sanandiya, and Daegun You of Illinois Grainger Engineering; Milan Heczko of the Czech Academy of Arts and Sciences; and Maik Rajkowski, Aditya Srinivasan Tirunilai and Guillaume Laplanche of Ruhr Universität Bochum.

Newswise — Woods Hole, Mass. (February 4, 2026) – Alan Seltzer, an affiliated scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), assistant professor at University College Dublin, and former WHOI postdoctoral scholar, has been named the 2026 recipient of the F.G. Houtermans Award by the European Association of Geochemistry (EAG). The award is among the highest international honors recognizing early-career scientists in geochemistry.

Seltzer is being recognized for pioneering the use of dissolved gas isotopes to quantify physical and biogeochemical processes across the Earth system, including exploring the sensitivity of groundwater systems to climate and the dynamics of atmosphere-ocean gas exchange. Much of the work cited by the award committee was conducted at WHOI, where Seltzer was a postdoctoral scholar from 2019 to 2021 and later a member of the scientific staff in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department, where he established a gas isotope tracer laboratory and developed several new analytical techniques.

His research helped open new pathways for using noble gas and nitrogen isotopes to investigate groundwater, seawater, air, and volcanic gases. Seltzer also helped extend high-precision noble gas isotope techniques to volcanic systems in collaboration with WHOI associate scientist Peter Barry to better understand the origins and transport pathways of volatiles from Earth’s deep interior. He also expanded oceanic applications of noble gas tracers for air-sea interaction and glacial meltwater circulation with WHOI scientists Bill Jenkins and Roo Nicholson, and more recently advanced high-precision tools for quantifying nitrogen cycling in aquatic environments in collaboration with MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Katelyn McPaul and WHOI associate scientist Scott Wankel.

“It is an honor to be recognized with the F.G. Houtermans Award,” Seltzer said. “WHOI has a special culture in which collaboration and high-risk science are celebrated, and without the encouragement and freedom at WHOI to take risks, push analytical limits, and fail a lot along the way, much of my work would not have been possible. I’m deeply grateful for all the support I’ve received from the WHOI community over my career so far.”

Seltzer’s selection continues a notable streak for WHOI’s Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department. Former WHOI postdoctoral scholar David Bekaert received the Houtermans Award in 2025, marking back-to-back years in which the honor has gone to WHOI-trained scientists—a rare distinction that highlights the strength and impact of the Institution’s postdoctoral program.

The 2026 F.G. Houtermans Award will be formally presented at the Goldschmidt Conference in July.

About Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate an understanding of the ocean’s role in the changing global environment. Top scientists, engineers, and students collaborate on more than 800 concurrent projects worldwide—both above and below the waves—pushing the boundaries of knowledge and possibility. 

Newswise — Lithium-ion batteries serve as the core energy storage devices in various industries and everyday products, including smartphones, electric vehicles, and ESS (energy storage systems). However, conventional lithium-ion batteries use liquid electrolytes, posing a risk of fire or explosion when subjected to external impact or overheating. Recent electric vehicle fire incidents have heightened concerns about their safety. As an alternative to overcome these limitations, ‘all-solid-state batteries’-which use non-flammable solid materials as electrolytes-are gaining attention as next-generation battery technology.

However, amorphous solid electrolytes-the core material for all-solid-state batteries-have faced limitations in analyzing lithium-ion transport mechanisms due to the irregularity of their internal structure. Consequently, performance improvements have been achieved empirically by altering electrolyte composition or compression conditions, making it difficult to systematically explain the causes of performance differences.

A research team led by Dr. Byungju, Lee at the Computational Science Research Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Sang-Rok Oh) has identified key factors governing lithium ion movement in amorphous solid electrolytes through AI-based atomic simulations. The team analyzed lithium-ion movement by distinguishing it into ‘ease of movement between sites’ and ‘connectivity of movement paths’. They confirmed that overall performance is more significantly influenced by the difficulty of ions moving from one site to the next than by path connectivity.

In fact, while ion conductivity performance varied by up to fivefold depending on lithium ion mobility, the effect of pathway connectivity was limited to approximately a twofold difference. This provides a quantitative basis for interpreting performance variations that were previously difficult to explain due to the amorphous structure. Furthermore, the research team identified specific structural conditions that enhance lithium ion mobility. The higher the proportion of structures where four sulfur atoms surrounded a lithium ion, the faster the ion migration became. Optimal performance was achieved when the size of the internal void space fell within an appropriate range. Notably, excessively large voids actually hindered ion migration and degraded performance. This finding overturns the conventional wisdom that ‘lower density leads to higher conductivity’.

The results of this study can be directly applied to the design and manufacturing process of solid electrolytes for all-solid-state batteries. Simply controlling the internal structure by adjusting the electrolyte composition ratio or compression/molding conditions can improve ionic conductivity performance without requiring additional material changes, making it highly applicable in industrial settings. Furthermore, the analytical method proposed in this study can be extended to the development of various solid electrolyte materials. By pre-selecting high-performance candidate materials, it can dramatically enhance performance prediction and accelerate material development speed. This is expected to advance the commercialization of all-solid-state batteries in fields where safety and energy density are critical, such as electric vehicles and energy storage devices.

Dr. Byungju, Lee of KIST stated, “This research is significant in that it clearly identifies the key factors determining the performance of amorphous solid electrolytes.” He added, “As it presents design criteria enabling systematic improvement of material performance, we expect it to contribute to accelerating the commercialization of all-solid-state batteries.”

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KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea. KIST now strives to solve national and social challenges and secure growth engines through leading and innovative research. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://kist.re.kr//eng/index.do

This research was conducted as part of KIST’s major projects and the Materials Global Young Connect Project (RS-2024-00407995), supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Bae Kyung-hoon). The research findings were published in the latest issue of the international journal Advanced Energy Materials (IF 26.0, JCR field 2.5%).

Newswise — Environmental pollutant analysis typically requires complex sample pretreatment steps such as filtration, separation, and preconcentration. When solid materials such as sand, soil, or food residues are present in water samples, analytical accuracy often decreases, and filtration can unintentionally remove trace-level target pollutants along with the solids.

To address this challenge, a joint research team led by Dr. Ju Hyeon Kim at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), in collaboration with Professor Jae Bem You’s group at Chungnam National University, has developed a microfluidic-based analytical device that enables direct extraction and analysis of pollutants from solid-containing samples without any pretreatment.

Water, food, and environmental samples encountered in daily life may contain trace amounts of hazardous contaminants that are invisible to the naked eye. Accurate detection requires selective extraction and concentration of target analytes, a process traditionally achieved using liquid–liquid extraction (LLE). However, conventional LLE requires large volumes of solvents and is difficult to automate. Although liquid–liquid microextraction (LLME) has been introduced to overcome these limitations, its practical application has remained limited because samples containing solid particles still require a filtration step prior to extraction.

Existing analytical approaches typically follow a multistep workflow—solid removal, extraction, and analysis—which increases time and cost while reducing analytical reliability. These limitations pose significant challenges in fields closely related to public health, including environmental monitoring, drinking water safety, and pharmaceutical residue analysis.

The research team overcame these issues by designing a trap-based microfluidic device that confines a small volume of extractant droplet inside a microchamber while allowing the sample solution to flow continuously through an adjacent microchannel. This configuration enables rapid and selective mass transfer of target analytes into the extractant, while solid particles pass through the channel without interference. After extraction, the extractant droplet can be retrieved for downstream analysis.

Using this device, the researchers successfully detected perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a representative per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) increasingly regulated due to environmental and health concerns, as well as carbamazepine (CBZ), an anticonvulsant pharmaceutical compound. Notably, CBZ was extracted directly from sand-containing slurry samples without filtration. PFOA signals were detected within five minutes, and CBZ extracted from slurry samples was clearly identified using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

The results demonstrate that the proposed microfluidic platform significantly reduces analytical steps while maintaining high reliability, highlighting its potential as a compact and automatable solution for environmental pollution monitoring, food safety inspection, and pharmaceutical and bioanalytical applications.

Dr. Kim noted that “integrating multiple pretreatment steps into a single process offers substantial advantages for on-site analysis and automated systems,” while KRICT President Young-Kuk Lee emphasized that “this technology can enhance the reliability of environmental and food safety analyses that directly impact public health.”

The study was published as a cover article in ACS Sensors (Impact Factor: 9.1; top 3.2% in JCR Analytical Chemistry) in December 2025. Dr. Ju Hyeon Kim (KRICT) and Professor Jae Bem You (Chungnam National University) served as corresponding authors, with Sung Wook Choi as the first author.

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KRICT is a non-profit research institute funded by the Korean government. Since its foundation in 1976, KRICT has played a leading role in advancing national chemical technologies in the fields of chemistry, material science, environmental science, and chemical engineering. Now, KRICT is moving forward to become a globally leading research institute tackling the most challenging issues in the field of Chemistry and Engineering and will continue to fulfill its role in developing chemical technologies that benefit the entire world and contribute to maintaining a healthy planet. More detailed information on KRICT can be found at https://www.krict.re.kr/eng/

The research was supported by the KRICT Core Research Program, the National Research Foundation of Korea, and the Korea–Switzerland Innovation Program.

Newswise — Each year, the Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE) directorate at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory recognizes exceptional early-career researchers breaking into their fields with the PSE Early Investigator Named Awards. In 2025, the lab announced that six awardees would be receiving support in the form of funding and mentorship to conduct groundbreaking research aligned with Argonne’s strategic mission.

One member of the 2025 cohort is Maria Żurek, an assistant physicist in Argonne’s Physics (PHY) division, who studies the fundamental structure of protons and neutrons using the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at the DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. For the PSE Early Investigator Named Award, Żurek will work under the guidance of Sylvester Joosten, interim leader of the Medium Energy group at Argonne, on a proposal titled, ​“Seeing the Unseen: Precision Calorimetry for 3D Nucleon Imaging.” In particle physics experiments, calorimetry refers to detection and analysis methods used to calculate particle energy.

“The national lab environment allows me to lead large projects and collaborate with fantastic scientists and engineers across divisions and institutions.” — Maria Żurek, Argonne assistant physicist

Here, Żurek discusses her research and other work she supports at Argonne.

Q: What role do you play at the lab?
A: I am an experimental nuclear physicist in the Physics division’s Medium Energy group, and I am working to understand the fundamental structure of the visible matter that makes up our world.

Q: What initiatives or projects are you most excited about being involved in at Argonne?
A: The national lab environment allows me to lead large projects and collaborate with fantastic scientists and engineers across divisions and institutions. I have the opportunity to work with talented postdocs on uncovering the inner workings of protons and neutrons using data from the CLAS12 experiment at Jefferson Lab, and I co-lead the development of electromagnetic calorimetry for the ePIC detector at the future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at the DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. I am a team player, and doing great science with great people is the best job in the world.

Q: Can you talk a bit about the research you’re conducting for your proposal for which you received the 2025 PSE Early Investigator Named Award?
A: My PSE Early Investigator Named Award project tackles a hard problem: improving calorimetry for hadrons — protons, neutrons and other similar subatomic particles — in the medium-energy range typical of experiments at Jefferson Lab. Neutral particles, like neutrons, and another subatomic particle called muons are notoriously difficult to measure in this range. I will run preliminary simulations to test a practical dual-readout approach that separates light generated by different types of subatomic interactions, with the aim of getting cleaner, more precise energy and position measurements. The goal is to open new opportunities for 3D studies of proton and neutron structure and to provide evidence that can guide the next generation of detector designs.

Q: What do you like most about your job?
A: The people I work with, the diversity of problems I get to solve and the fact that I am always learning something new.

Q: How does your work support the lab’s mission? 
A: In my work I analyze data from world-class DOE user facilities, using measurements to sharpen our most fundamental understanding of how the universe is put together. I design and test modern detector technologies that let us see proton and neutron structure with greater clarity. This work uses Argonne’s strengths in hands-on experimentation and computation, and it delivers practical capability, validated hardware, documented procedures and reconstruction tools, for national research facilities today and for the EIC tomorrow. I work with engineers, scientists and trainees across Argonne to get from concept to instrument to reliable results. That is my piece of the mission.

Q: What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
A: I love hunting for hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Chicago’s neighborhoods and suburbs with my husband, and I never tire of admiring the city’s architecture, always walking with my head up. I love going to ballet, opera, musicals, sports games and concerts. A year ago, I started aerial gymnastics, and I even appreciate the bruises because they mean I am getting better. I enjoy leaf peeping in local parks and running our annual ​“fat squirrel contest” with friends. As someone who moved here, I still carry a newcomer’s curiosity — and ope! — I’m always ready to explore one more corner of American and Midwestern culture.

Q: What other sorts of career or professional development opportunities has Argonne provided?
A: I’ve gotten a lot from Argonne’s Mentorship Program, on both sides. As a mentee, the conversations with my mentors pushed me to set clear goals and get honest feedback; they also gave me a better view of how the lab works across divisions. As a mentor, I’ve learned to give useful feedback and to connect postdocs with the right people and resources. It’s simple, but it works because it creates time for focused conversations. Beyond mentoring, I’ve benefited from proposal workshops, science communication sessions and serving on several internal review committees.

Q: What encouraged you to get involved in the scientific discipline you are in?
A: I have always been drawn to big questions. In school I loved math, physics and chemistry, but I also loved literature for the way a good story pulls you in. A great high school physics teacher showed me that science can do the same thing: It tells a story about how the world works. I thought I might become a teacher, but during university I spent undergraduate internships at Fermilab (another DOE national laboratory), where I saw how national labs ​“zoom in” on particles to understand the building blocks of matter. That experience shifted my path. I wanted to be part of that discovery process.

Since then, I have followed the thread from curiosity to experiment — first, learning how to measure, then learning how to ask better questions, until it became a career in nuclear physics.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.

Newswise — With the global shift toward renewable energy, solid oxide–based electrochemical devices have become essential for hydrogen production, energy storage, and fuel-to-electricity conversion. Traditional oxygen-ion–conducting cells require high operating temperatures, creating cost, durability, and material compatibility challenges. Protonic ceramic cells (PCCs) offer an alternative, operating efficiently at 300–600 °C and allowing the use of cheaper components, improved thermal cycling, and enhanced stability. Despite rapid progress in materials engineering, the fundamental mechanisms governing hydration, proton conduction, and electrode reactions remain insufficiently understood. These gaps hinder rational catalyst design and slow the translation of new materials into practical PCC devices. Based on these challenges, there is a critical need to deeply investigate proton behavior, interfacial chemistry, and catalytic mechanisms.

Researchers from Idaho National Laboratory and collaborating universities published (DOI: 10.1016/j.esci.2025.100437) a comprehensive review on August 2025, in eScience, detailing how diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) is transforming protonic ceramic cell research. The article summarizes recent breakthroughs in applying DRIFTS to oxygen electrodes, proton-conducting electrolytes, and hydrogen electrodes under realistic operating conditions. By capturing surface intermediates and hydration signatures, the review highlights DRIFTS as an essential technique for understanding reaction pathways, improving proton uptake, and guiding next-generation materials design for high-performance PCC systems. This platform was recently reported in a research article by the same group in Energy Environmental Science, providing the substantial evidence on how it is powerful in electrochemical system at elevated temperatures, specifically for PCC.

The review outlines how DRIFTS enables direct observation of surface species and dynamic reactions across PCC components. For oxygen electrodes, DRIFTS detects hydroxyl stretching bands associated with proton uptake, providing insights into triple-conducting materials such as PrNi₀.₅Co₀.₅O₃–δ, PrBaCo₂O₅+δ, and high-entropy perovskites. Doping-induced enhancements—such as Zn-stabilized hydration sites or Cs-driven oxygen vacancy formation—are revealed through stronger –OH peaks and temperature-dependent hydration behavior. DRIFTS also verifies steam-induced structural transformations, including monoclinic-to-cubic transitions and the emergence of multi-phase composites that improve catalytic performance.

For protonic electrolytes, DRIFTS distinguishes Zr–OH–Zr and Zr–OH–X environments, enabling researchers to identify proton trapping, dehydration kinetics, and dopant-dependent hydrogen-bonding effects in materials like Sc- and Y-doped BaZrO₃. The technique further detects carbonate residues that impair sintering, guiding optimized fabrication routes.

In catalytic applications, DRIFTS captures intermediates during CO₂ hydrogenation, methane reforming, and chemical-fuel co-conversion, identifying formates, carbonates, and CO adsorption species crucial to mechanistic understanding. Emerging operando DRIFTS configurations with applied voltage demonstrate the movement of surface protons during real electrochemical reactions, validating proton migration and reaction coupling at electrode interfaces. Collectively, the review shows how DRIFTS bridges fundamental chemistry with practical PCC engineering.

According to the authors, DRIFTS provides a uniquely powerful lens for understanding how PCC materials behave under realistic conditions. They emphasize that the ability to monitor hydration, proton uptake, and catalytic intermediates in real time offers insights unavailable from traditional characterization tools. The authors note that integrating DRIFTS with complementary methods—such as synchrotron-based IR, X-ray spectroscopy, and computational modeling—will further expand its impact. They conclude that establishing operando DRIFTS systems capable of applying electrical load represents a critical next step for unraveling the complex, surface-driven processes that dictate PCC performance.

The review underscores that advancing DRIFTS techniques will accelerate the rational design of PCC materials for clean-energy technologies. Improved understanding of hydration behavior and proton migration can guide the development of durable oxygen electrodes, CO₂-tolerant electrolytes, and carbon-resistant hydrogen electrodes. Insights into reaction intermediates also support catalyst optimization for hydrogen production, CO₂ reduction, methane reforming, and value-added chemical synthesis. As energy systems evolve toward efficiency and sustainability, DRIFTS-enabled mechanistic knowledge will help bridge laboratory discoveries and scalable PCC devices. Ultimately, the authors note that expanding operando DRIFTS capabilities will be essential for building the next generation of robust, high-performance ceramic energy systems.

###

References

DOI

10.1016/j.esci.2025.100437

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esci.2025.100437

Funding information

This work is supported by the HydroGEN Advanced Water Splitting Materials Consortium, established as part of the Energy Materials Network under the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE); the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE); and the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO), under DOE Idaho Operations Office, under contract no. DE-AC07-05ID14517.

About eScience

eScience – a Diamond Open Access journal cooperated with KeAi and published online at ScienceDirect. eScience is founded by Nankai University (China) in 2021 and aims to publish high quality academic papers on the latest and finest scientific and technological research in interdisciplinary fields related to energy, electrochemistry, electronics, and environment. eScience provides insights, innovation and imagination for these fields by built consecutive discovery and invention. Now eScience has been indexed by SCIE, CAS, Scopus and DOAJ. Its impact factor is 36.6, which is ranked first in the field of electrochemistry.

BYLINE: Melody Warnick

Newswise — Racing through the air at Olympic speeds, athletes at the Winter Olympics in Milan will need more than strength and skill—they’ll need science. In sports like ski jumping, skeleton, and speed skating, aerodynamics can make the difference between getting the gold or going home empty-handed.

And athletes know it. A scandal erupted at the Nordic World Ski Championships recently when Norwegian team coaches illegally enlarged ski jumpers’ suits to enhance aerodynamics, in the hopes the skiers would fly a few extra meters. One former champion called it “doping, just with a different needle.”

Virginia Tech aerodynamics expert Chris Roy explained what athletes are doing to take advantage of the science of aerodynamics. 

Why did Norwegian coaches alter ski jumpers’ suits?

“When trying to fly without propulsion, it comes down to maximizing your lift while minimizing your drag,” Roy said. “One way to do that is by increasing your surface area, which is what the Norwegian coaches were trying to do.”

But that’s not the only way, Roy said. “You can also get higher lift by curving your shape, called camber, or by changing your angle relative to the oncoming wind. Increasing camber or angle both increase lift, but there’s a limit. Too much camber or angle can lead to stall, where lift drops dramatically and drag increases. You don’t want to hit stall during a ski jump.”

For Olympic athletes, how can aerodynamics shave off time?

“Shape is one of the key aspects of aerodynamics,” Roy said. “Low drag requires an aerodynamic shape.”

“That’s why ski jumpers form a V with their skis, turning their body into efficient lift-generating surfaces. A streamlined wing shape can have 10 times less drag than a circular shape of the same thickness,” Roy said.

Aerodynamics shows up in speed skating too, when skaters “draft” behind others. “By skating behind others, you can drastically reduce your aerodynamic drag, in some cases by up to 40 percent, allowing the skaters in the back to significantly reduce their effort.”

How do athletes use engineering research to train for the Winter Olympics? 

“Lots of Winter Olympic sports use wind tunnel testing to improve aerodynamics, equipment, and apparel, including ski jumping, speed skating, bobsled, skeleton, and luge,” Roy explained. “These sports also use computational fluid dynamics to model these effects on the computer.”  

About Roy

Chris Roy is a professor in the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech, where he’s affiliated with the Center for Research and Engineering in Aero/Hydrodynamic Technologies (CREATe). His research expertise centers around computational fluid dynamics, aerodynamics, and the reliability of computer simulations. Read more about him here.

Schedule an interview

To schedule an interview with Chris Roy, contact Mike Allen at mike.allen@vt.edu or 540-400-1700.