Newswise — In a study published in Bioresource Technology Journal, scientists from the universities of Portsmouth and Manchester report that a specially engineered enzyme can significantly speed up the breakdown of PET – the plastic used in water bottles, food packaging and polyester clothing – when it is processed at high concentrations similar to those used in industry. 

PET, short for poly (ethylene terephthalate), is cheap, durable, and widely used. But those same qualities mean it builds up in vast quantities once thrown away. 

Polyester textiles are notoriously difficult to recycle. Their fibres are tightly packed and highly ordered into a structure created during manufacturing, which makes them resistant to biological breakdown. 

Enzymes are natural proteins that can speed up chemical reactions. The team combined two different components into one fusion enzyme. The first was a heat-tolerant cutinase; a natural enzyme that normally breaks down a protective polyester found on plant surfaces called cutin. The second was a binding module designed to help the enzyme to attach more tightly to plastic. 

The two components were carefully matched, so they work best at the same temperature and are suited to the same kinds of plastic structure. The aim was to make the enzyme stick to PET and ensure it could continue breaking it down efficiently under realistic recycling conditions. 

While the modified enzyme did attach more strongly to highly crystalline PET – the tough, tightly packed form found in many plastics – did not automatically lead to faster breakdown. In fact, when the plastic structure remained highly ordered, there was limited gain. 

The real progress came when the plastic was less crystalline and as a result more accessible to the enzyme. Under controlled conditions that mimic industrial recycling – including carefully managed pH and plastic concentrations of 20 per cent by weight – the fused enzyme broke down less-ordered PET much more quickly. 

The biggest improvement was seen in a pre-consumer polyester textile that had been specially treated to make it less crystalline and finely ground. In that case, the amount of useful breakdown products doubled. 

“By matching the enzyme with the right binding module and preparing the plastic in the right way, we can overcome a major bottleneck in plastic recycling,” said Professor Andrew Pickford, Director of the University of Portsmouth’s Centre for Enzyme Innovation (CEI). “This isn’t just about helping the enzyme stick to the surface – it’s about making sure the chemical reaction can run efficiently at the high plastic concentrations used in industry.” 

The findings also help explain why earlier studies of similar enzyme combinations have produced mixed results. If an enzyme binds too tightly to the surface, it can slow the reaction – a well-established concept in chemistry known as the Sabatier principle. 

The study suggests that enzyme-based recycling of PET – a promising but technically challenging solution – could become more practical at scale but success, depends on getting three factors right: the enzyme, any helper module that guides it to the plastic, and the structure of the material itself. 

Newswise — Scientists discovered how tiny changes in superhydride structure enable superconductivity at near room temperatures but extreme pressure — offering clues for designing more practical superconductors.

Superconductors allow electricity to flow without resistance, meaning no energy is lost as heat. This property makes them useful for technologies such as MRI scanners, particle accelerators, magnetic-levitation trains and some power-transmission systems. Most superconductors, however, only work at extremely low temperatures — often hundreds of degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Keeping materials that cold requires complex and costly cooling systems, which limits where the superconductors can be used.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have helped take a step toward easing that limitation. They have gained new insight into a class of materials called superhydrides that can become superconducting at much higher temperatures — around 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

The research was carried out with collaborators from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), the University of Chicago and DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. A key tool was the upgraded Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne.

“These experiments show what the upgraded APS can do. We can now study atomic-level structures with unprecedented detail in materials under extreme pressure.” — Maddury Somayazulu, Argonne physicist

Superhydrides are made mostly of hydrogen, held together in an ordered structure (crystal) by a small number of metal atoms. When subjected to extremely high pressures, these materials can carry electric current with no resistance. In a landmark 2018 study, researchers led by UIC professor Russell Hemley showed that a lanthanum-based superhydride could superconduct near 8 degrees Fahrenheit. The drawback was that it only worked at pressures equivalent to those deep within the Earth (1.88 million atmospheres), making it impractical outside the lab.

In the new study, Hemley and his fellow researchers explored whether changing the material’s chemistry could lower the pressure needed for superconductivity. They added a small amount of yttrium to the lanthanum superhydride to make it more stable and reduce the pressure required.

“To reach these extreme pressures, we squeezed a tiny sample between two diamonds,” said Maddury Somayazulu, a physicist at the APS. The team’s diamond-anvil device can generate pressures as high as five million atmospheres.

After forming the superconducting material at high pressure and temperature, the team used high-energy X-rays from the APS to study its structure (at beamlines 16-ID-B and 13-ID-D). ​“We focused an intense X-ray beam onto a sample only a few micrometers thick and about ten to twenty micrometers across,” said Vitali Prakapenka, a beamline scientist and research professor at the University of Chicago. One micrometer is about 1/70^th the width of a human hair.

The recent APS upgrade made these measurements possible. Its brighter, more tightly focused X-ray beam allowed researchers to study extremely small samples while changing the pressure. ​“That beam allowed us to separate signals coming from the tiny sample itself as opposed to those coming from the surrounding materials and diamond anvils,” Prakapenka said.

The team found that small differences in how atoms are arranged in a crystalline lattice can strongly affect superconductivity. They identified two different crystal structures, each becoming superconducting at a slightly different temperature.

“These experiments show what the upgraded APS can do,” Somayazulu said. ​“We can now study atomic-level structures with unprecedented detail in materials under extreme pressure.”

Although the pressures used in the experiments are still very high — about 1.4 million times atmospheric pressure — the researchers see this as part of a longer path forward. They are adding more elements to lower the pressure further with the goal of making these materials practical.

Diamonds provide a useful comparison, Somayazulu explained. Natural diamonds form deep inside the Earth under extreme pressure and temperature. Scientists later learned how to synthesize them in the lab, and eventually how to produce them without such intense conditions. Researchers believe superhydrides could follow a similar path.

“If we understand the physics well enough, we may be able to stabilize these structures at much lower pressures but still attain superconductivity close to room temperature,” Prakapenka said.

Experimental data from the APS will help guide theoretical models and AI tools in that search for new materials. Instead of testing only a few combinations at quite-challenging-to-reach extreme conditions, scientists can use AI to explore many possible multi-element compositions. They can then focus experiments on the most promising ones.

“The calculations are very demanding,” Prakapenka said. ​“Theorists rely on high-quality experimental data to make their predictions more accurate.”

Finding a material that superconducts at near room temperature and normal pressure could reshape the nation’s electrical infrastructure.

The research was supported by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences, DOE National Nuclear Security Administration and the National Science Foundation. Contributors include Maddury Somayazulu, Russell Hemley, Vitali Prakapenka, Abdul Haseeb Manayil-Marathamkottil, Kui Wang, Nilesh Salke, Muhtar Ahart, Alexander Mark, Rostislav Hrubiak, Stella Chariton, Dean Smith and Nenad Velisavljevic.

This article was adapted from the UIC release.

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 — Micro- and nanofluidic systems are increasingly important in biology, medicine, chemistry, and materials science because they allow researchers to study reactions, transport, and molecular behavior in spaces that approach the dimensions of living capillaries or engineered nanosystems. Yet as chips become more integrated and more powerful, a bottleneck has emerged: the surrounding interface hardware often cannot match the chip’s sophistication. Researchers need systems that can simultaneously deliver multiple liquids, maintain stable seals, control heat and cooling, impose electric fields, and support in situ optical observation. Based on these challenges, deeper research was needed into multifunctional chip interfaces for highly integrated nanofluidic systems.

On January 19, 2026, a team from the Department of Physics at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden reported (DOI: 10.1038/s41378-025-01125-9) in Microsystems & Nanoengineering a temperature-controlled nanofluidic chip holder with integrated electrodes for real-time optical analysis. The system was designed for 1 cm² silicon-based chips with up to 12 fluidic connection points. By combining heating, cooling, electrical control, and nanofluidic scattering spectroscopy in one platform, the researchers created a versatile interface for studying nanoscale transport and reaction processes directly on-chip.

The holder pairs a transparent acrylic channel plate with a thermally connected chip stage and four Peltier elements, allowing both heating and cooling while keeping the chip accessible to dark-field microscopy and spectroscopy. It can host miniature chips only 10 mm wide, yet each chip supports up to 12 independently addressable inlets or outlets, and 52 such chips can be produced from a single 4-inch wafer. In performance tests, the platform maintained stable cooling down to 12 °C at an optimized current and reached 112 °C in heating mode; under short high-current operation, the chip briefly dropped as low as 4 °C. The team then used Brilliant Blue and Fluorescein as model molecules to demonstrate three functions: on-chip solution switching and mixing, temperature-dependent diffusion inside a single nanochannel, and electrically modulated diffusion. Higher temperatures accelerated Fluorescein transport, while stronger applied voltages suppressed or slowed entry into the channel. At higher fields, the optical spectra also shifted toward longer wavelengths, suggesting field-induced changes in the dye’s electronic behavior.

“This work addresses a practical but often overlooked problem in nanofluidics: not just how to fabricate advanced chips, but how to operate them with precision once they are made. By integrating temperature control, electrical actuation, pressure handling, and optical readout into a single compact holder, the study turns the chip interface itself into an enabling technology. That matters because many important nanoscale processes—from molecular transport to catalytic reactions—depend on tightly controlled conditions that must be adjusted and observed in real time.”

The new platform could expand the experimental reach of nanofluidics across several fields. In chemistry, it may support studies of nanoscale mixing, diffusion, and catalytic reactions under controlled thermal and electrical conditions. In biology and biophysics, it could help researchers examine processes such as protein aggregation, folding, or transport in confined environments. Because the design is compact, modular, and compatible with optical readout, it also offers a practical route toward more scalable lab-on-a-chip and organ-on-a-chip research tools. More broadly, the work highlights that the future of highly integrated fluidics will depend not only on smarter chips, but also on smarter interfaces that make those chips truly usable.

###

References

DOI

10.1038/s41378-025-01125-9

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41378-025-01125-9

Funding information

Open access funding provided by Chalmers University of Technology.

About Microsystems & Nanoengineering

Microsystems & Nanoengineering is an online-only, open access international journal devoted to publishing original research results and reviews on all aspects of Micro and Nano Electro Mechanical Systems from fundamental to applied research. The journal is published by Springer Nature in partnership with the Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, supported by the State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology.

Journal Link: Physical Review Letters, 135 091401 (2025)

Newswise — Marine mud is generated in large quantities during dredging, coastal development, land reclamation, and marine construction. In fast-growing urban regions, this sediment can become a major waste-management burden because it is wet, sticky, difficult to handle, and often contaminated with heavy metals. Conventional stabilization methods usually rely heavily on Portland cement, which is effective but energy-intensive and carbon-heavy. Alternative geopolymer approaches are promising, yet many still depend on corrosive or costly activators and do not always immobilize contaminants well enough. Based on these challenges, there is a pressing need to carry out in-depth research on low-carbon, practical, and safe strategies for the remediation and in-situ reuse of contaminated marine mud.

A team from Harbin Institute of Technology, Tsinghua University Shenzhen International Graduate School, the University of Abomey-Calavi, and the Beninese Office for Geological and Mining Research reported (DOI: 10.1007/s11783-026-2122-z) online on January 10, 2026, in  ENGINEERING Environment that contaminated marine mud can be remediated and recycled in situ into engineered backfill materials using low-carbon formulations built around aluminosilicate raw materials.

To build a treatment route that was both effective and realistic, the researchers designed the work in stages. They collected marine mud from a construction site in Macao, then tested blends containing Portland cement, fly ash, slag, river sand, water, and low-concentration NaOH. The goal was not simply to harden the mud, but to find a mix that could improve strength, suppress heavy-metal release, and remain practical for large-scale site use. After preparing and curing the samples, the team evaluated compressive strength, unconfined compressive strength, leaching toxicity, and microstructural characteristics through XRF, XRD, SEM, and TEM analyses. The strongest optimized mixtures achieved unconfined compressive strengths (UCS) values of 7.75 MPa with 25% OPC, 4.24 MPa with fly ash, 8.69 MPa with slag, and 3.15 MPa with a river-sand formulation—each above the 1 MPa benchmark for backfill application. At the same time, the treatment sharply reduced the leaching of As, Ba, Cd, Cr, and Pb, with Pb completely removed in all mixtures. XRD and morphological analyses further showed that the stabilized mud developed mineral and gel phases dominated by SiO₂, Ca(CO₃), Mn_1.7Fe₁.₃O₄, and complex silicate structures, which helped explain the improved strength and contaminant immobilization.

“This work shows that contaminated marine mud does not have to remain an environmental liability,” the study suggests in essence. By replacing more carbon-intensive treatment approaches with lower-carbon mineral formulations, the research reframes marine sediment as a reusable resource rather than a disposal problem. Just as importantly, the team designed the system with real construction conditions in mind, including the use of locally available river sand and simplified activation chemistry. That practical orientation makes the study especially valuable for coastal cities facing both land scarcity and mounting waste-treatment costs.

The implications extend beyond one sediment stream. This research offers a route toward cleaner coastal engineering, lower landfill dependence, and more circular use of waste materials in infrastructure projects. For regions where marine mud accounts for a large share of construction waste, in-situ recycling could ease pressure on disposal sites while cutting transport and treatment expenses. The study also aligns with wider carbon-reduction goals by reducing reliance on traditional cement-heavy stabilization. In the longer term, such low-carbon remediation systems could help cities manage contaminated sediments more safely while turning them into useful materials for backfilling, site restoration, and future sustainable construction applications.

###

References

DOI

10.1007/s11783-026-2122-z

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-026-2122-z

Funding Information

This work was supported by Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, China (No. 2022B1515130006). Acknowledgements are also given to Shenzhen Science and Technology Program: Sustainable Development Special Project (No.KCXST20221021111408021) and International Collaboration Project (No. GJHZ20220913143007013).

About  ENGINEERING Environment 

ENGINEERING Environment  is an international journal in environmental disciplines, jointly sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Tsinghua University, and Higher Education Press. The journal is dedicated to advancing and disseminating the discoveries of cutting-edge theories, innovations in engineering technology, and practices in technological application within the environmental discipline. Adhering to the principle of integrating scientific theories with engineering technologies, the journal emphasizes the convergence of environmental protection with One Health, climate change response, and sustainable development. It places particular emphasis on the forward-looking nature of novel technologies and emerging challenges, the practicality of solutions, and interdisciplinary innovations.

Newswise — Labeled glass containers full of liquids stirred by spinning magnets are connected to humming machines with neatly organized tubes. Here in this lab space at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), scientists are pioneering ways to extract critical materials from recycled waste products.

Critical materials are essential to modern life because they possess properties that make them difficult to replace. They’re used in smartphones, satellites, computer chips, rechargeable batteries, fighter jets, advanced weapons systems and other technologies. But they can be hard to find; that’s where INL’s research comes in.

The national challenge

The U.S. has deposits of nearly all critical materials, but mining capabilities cannot meet the nation’s growing demand. Most extraction and processing are done overseas, much of it in China. This reliance on foreign critical materials risks supply disruptions that could affect U.S. national security, economic growth and everyday life. After mining, rocks are crushed and processed to separate valuable materials from waste. This step, called beneficiation, prepares the material for further refining. These materials are then concentrated for easier transport and treated with heat or chemicals to fully extract and purify them. However, modern processing isn’t always sufficient and often produces significant waste.

In copper mines, for example, the ore contains up to 0.2% copper, meaning about 99.8% of the rock is discarded. That waste still contains other metals and critical materials, but most processing facilities are only designed to extract one or two materials.

The critical materials in discarded rocks, e-waste and other sources don’t degrade over time and can be recovered. However, the U.S. lacks the infrastructure to recycle them.

Recycling facilities could tap into these largely untouched sources, helping meet U.S. demand. These facilities could be built far more quickly than new mines, which can take over a decade due to permitting, costs and infrastructure needs.

“The U.S. doesn’t recycle well,” said Bob Fox, a senior manager at INL. “There’s a willingness to recover critical materials from recycled sources, but there’s no infrastructure or market for it. Right now, critical materials recycling doesn’t have the economic incentives to drive infrastructure development.”

INL is working to change that by making recycling more efficient, less energy-intensive and economically viable.

“Recycling represents a crucial pathway for the U.S. to obtain critical materials, including rare earth elements like dysprosium,” said Arindam Mukhopadhyay, a staff scientist at INL. “Even critical materials we mine domestically, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese, can be recovered through recycling.”

INL’s recycling research

Since the early 2010s, INL has developed technologies that reduce chemical use, energy consumption and waste, making recycling more sustainable and cost-effective. These innovations improve recovery from sources such as electronic and agricultural waste, mine tailings and industrial wastewater.

“INL has developed a comprehensive portfolio of critical materials recycling technologies,” said Mukhopadhyay. “We have the expertise and proven processes to help make recycling economically competitive, which is essential for building a reliable domestic supply of the materials our nation depends on.”

One area INL has worked in for many years is biohydrometallurgy, which uses biological systems to dissolve and recover metals. INL’s research examines how microbial populations fed agricultural or municipal waste biomass produce organic acids that break down metals in both metallic and mineral forms. These biologically produced acids dissolve the material and release valuable metals such as rare earth elements, cobalt and lithium. The dissolved metals can then be recovered from the liquid using natural biology-based molecules instead of man-made chemicals. INL’s work is improving the efficiency, effectiveness and affordability of biohydrometallurgy and offers a promising, cost-effective alternative to harsh chemical reagents.

Ether-based Aqueous Separation and Extraction (EASE) uses water-soluble, ether-based chemicals that pull specific materials from mixtures to recover critical materials from industrial wastewater, desalination brines, mine runoff and geothermal fluids. This process uses less energy and fewer chemicals than conventional extraction methods and produces less waste.

Another area of innovation is INL’s electrochemistry work. Electrochemistry uses electricity to trigger chemical reactions that separate and recover critical materials from waste.

Electrons are easier and less expensive to generate than the chemicals required for traditional extraction methods. Electrochemistry can reduce the use of chemicals, some of which can be toxic, by 88% to 90%, and the process uses up to 75% less energy.

Electrochemical Leach (EC-Leach)

EC-Leach uses electricity to cause chemical reactions in liquids to extract critical materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese. The process was originally developed to extract critical materials from used lithium-ion batteries, but INL is adapting it for mining applications.

Pilot systems show EC-Leach can recover more than 95% of these critical materials. INL researchers are working to scale this technology for commercial deployment.

Electrochemical Recycling of Electronic Constituents of Value (E-RECOV)

E-RECOV uses an electrochemical cell to recover critical materials from electronic scrap. Electrochemical cells use chemical reactions to produce electricity used in electrochemistry. E-RECOV operates at room temperature, uses up to 75% fewer chemicals than traditional processes and doesn’t produce toxic emissions.

The technology has received a TechConnect National Innovation Award and was a finalist for an R&D 100 Award. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Institute supports the development of TechConnect.

Free Flowing Electrophoretic System (FFES)

The FFE unit uses an electric field with tailored ligand systems (small molecules that bind to metal ions) to separate critical materials from complex mixtures into distinct, isolated streams. The device can be moved closer to, or into, mines to separate critical materials from metal-rich liquids.

Electrochemical Membrane Reactor

Researchers at INL developed an electrochemical membrane reactor that removes contaminants from spent lithium-ion battery leachates, the mineral-rich liquids produced during recycling. The reactor recovers more than 95% of valuable metals such as nickel and cobalt using only water, air and electricity. It also produces acid that can be reused in the extraction process. The system has the potential to serve as a cost-effective closed-loop solution for recycling critical materials from batteries.

Improving purity

Most modern applications need critical materials to be at 99.999% purity or higher, but most conventional separation processing can only achieve 85% to 95% purity unless the process is run over weeks or months. INL’s electrochemical work can achieve 99.9999% purity in fewer cycles, dramatically reducing processing time and costs.

Rare Earth Element-Metal (RE-Metal)

RE-Metal is a process that recovers rare earth elements from waste materials using electricity. First, the elements are dissolved using nontoxic solutions. Then an electric current is applied to turn the dissolved materials into solid metal on an electrode.

Other projects include generating hydrogen peroxide from air to help dissolve minerals and separating graphite, copper and arsenic while immobilizing toxic chemicals.

Real-world impact

“Our goal is to make recycling economically viable,” said Mukhopadhyay. “To do that, we’ve focused on reducing chemical use, energy consumption and waste generation while maximizing recovery rates.”

INL’s technologies offer cost-effective options to secure the domestic critical materials supply chain and meet the nation’s growing demand. By advancing recycling and recovery methods, INL helps ensure the U.S. has the materials it needs to overcome current and future challenges.

About Idaho National Laboratory

Battelle Energy Alliance manages INL for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. INL is the nation’s center for nuclear energy research and development, and also performs research in each of DOE’s strategic goal areas: energy, national security, science and the environment. For more information, visit www.inl.gov.

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Newswise — UPTON, N.Y. — Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory developed a new machine learning framework that can accelerate the search for better catalysts  — the materials that speed up chemical reactions — and offer more reliable results.

Finding high-performing catalysts, which are used to accelerate processes from chemical manufacturing to energy production, can be a slow, expensive process, often relying on years of trial-and-error or massive computational resources. To add to the difficulty, ideal catalyst candidates are rare.

“Imagine driving somewhere new without using GPS,” said Brookhaven Lab chemist Wenjie Liao. “You’ll probably get there eventually, but you’ll take long detours and waste time. The discovery of catalysts can be like that.”

Researchers in the Catalysis Reactivity and Structure group in Brookhaven Lab’s Chemistry Division tackled those discovery challenges with a new multi-layer machine learning approach that screens catalysts step by step, mimicking how scientists evaluate performance in real experiments.

The team successfully used the chemical conversion of carbon dioxide (CO₂) to methanol — a type of alcohol that can be used as fuel — as a case study for the new approach, which outperformed conventional models. The study also shed new light on how scientists can control key chemical reactions steps that tune two important features that make for an effective catalyst in that process: activity and selectivity.

A paper describing their work was recently published in Chem Catalysis.

The best catalysts must be active enough to drive reactions efficiently, but selective enough to favor the desired product over unwanted byproducts.

“Highly active and selective catalysts save energy and costs,” said Brookhaven Lab chemist Ping Liu, who is also an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University. “An active catalyst means it doesn’t require high pressure or high temperatures to speed up a reaction, and a selective catalyst means it doesn’t require purification, which can be costly, to get the product you want.”

Machine learning models promise faster catalyst discovery, but they face hurdles that the Brookhaven scientists set out to overcome in their study. Existing single-layer models have been limited by high costs to generate large databases needed for analysis, low data quality and uneven spread of data, the researchers said. Additionally, conventional models have not been trained with a chemical understanding to make accurate predictions about catalysts.

“Simpler one-layer models overlook the domain expertise need to reliably predict a good catalyst,” Liu said. “Based on all these limitations, we developed a multi-layer binary machine learning approach that targets complex reaction networks for real catalysis, which has never been considered before in this kind of model.”

Case study: turning CO₂ into methanol

Instead of asking a single model to predict catalyst performance all at once, the Brookhaven team’s method breaks the problem into a series of simpler decisions. To test their approach, the researchers studied the performance of copper-based catalysts used to convert CO₂ into methanol.

The researchers trained multiple models using synthetic datasets generated from kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, which meant for a low computational cost, according to the study. These simulations capture how chemical reactions unfold over time, including competition between multiple reaction pathways — an important feature often missing from simpler models.

“This helps improve the accuracy and reliability of the model,” said An Nguyen, a visiting graduate student from Stony Brook University. “Each layer is related to how we think about catalysts as chemists, how we break it in down into different categories with chemical or catalysis understanding.”

In their case study, the researchers’ multi-layer approach asked whether a catalyst could drive the reaction to convert CO₂ to methanol, a desired product, and if it performed as well as — or even better than — the copper-based catalyst widely used in industrial and academic applications.

Applying the new framework, the team successfully screened catalyst designs that were both more active and more selective than copper catalysts. The method consistently outperformed conventional single-layer machine learning models, which struggled to find rare, high-performing candidates.

The framework also revealed which reaction steps mattered most. The analysis showed that transitions between competing reaction pathways — rather than individual steps alone — play a critical role in controlling both activity and selectivity.

“The multilayer approach allows us to dig deeper into the understanding between what we identified as key features and reaction behaviors,” Liu said. “We identified key steps that control both the activity and selectivity for CO₂ to methanol, providing new insight into this process.”

The process of converting CO₂ into methanol, known as hydrogenation, is already a commercial process. This work could be a step towards improving the workflow for industry partners, the researchers said. The framework can be adapted to other processes.

To develop the new framework, the researchers used computational resources from the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, a DOE Office of Science user facility at Brookhaven; the Scientific Computing and Data Facilities at Brookhaven; and SeaWulf, a high-performance computing cluster at Stony Brook University.

The research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The 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 science.energy.gov.

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# A novel catalyst design enables simultaneous control of lattice structure and oxygen vacancies in molybdenum oxide through iron (Fe) substitution, with the study selected as a cover article in a leading international journal.

# Achieves high water electrolysis performance using low-cost, non-precious metal-based catalysts, with strong potential for applications in eco-friendly hydrogen production and the hydrogen economy.

 Newswise — CHANGWON, South Korea — Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), led by President Chuljin Choi, announced that a research team led by Dr. Dahee Park at the Hydrogen Energy Materials Research Center has successfully developed a high-performance catalyst that significantly enhances the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), a key process in alkaline water electrolysis. The team achieved this by partially substituting molybdenum oxide (MoOx) with iron (Fe), enabling simultaneous control of lattice structure and oxygen vacancies. The study presents a new catalyst design strategy that delivers performance and stability comparable to precious metal catalysts while utilizing low-cost materials.

Hydrogen is widely regarded as a clean energy source with zero carbon emissions, and water electrolysis is considered a next-generation technology for eco-friendly hydrogen production. However, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) remains a major bottleneck due to its slow kinetics and high energy requirements, which reduce overall efficiency. Although precious metal catalysts offer high performance, their high cost and limited availability have driven the need for alternative non-precious metal catalysts. Molybdenum-based oxides have attracted attention as promising alternatives due to their ability to finely tune electronic properties. However, their relatively low electrical conductivity and limited number of active sites have restricted their practical performance.

To address these challenges, the KIMS research team introduced a novel design approach by incorporating iron (Fe) into the MoOx structure, enabling simultaneous control of atomic arrangement and oxygen vacancies. This approach improves electron transport and increases the number of active sites where reactions occur. Using an aerosol-assisted spray pyrolysis process, the team successfully synthesized Fe-substituted MoOx catalysts through a single-step process. The formation of Fe–O–Mo heterostructures enhances structural stability, allowing the catalyst to maintain performance over extended operation.

Furthermore, by precisely controlling heat-treatment conditions, the researchers engineered lattice distortion and oxygen vacancies within the catalyst, forming unique core–shell and yolk–shell structures with internal voids. These structures increase the surface area in contact with water and improve electrical conductivity. Notably, the activation of the lattice oxygen mechanism (LOM), in which lattice oxygen directly participates in the reaction, was found to significantly enhance OER efficiency. As a result, the catalyst demonstrated outstanding performance, achieving a low overpotential of approximately 294 mV at a high current density of 100 mA/cm² and maintaining stable operation for over 100 hours.

This technology has strong potential for commercialization as a key catalyst for eco-friendly hydrogen production in the carbon-neutral era. In particular, it is expected to play a critical role in improving the efficiency of large-scale hydrogen production when applied to alkaline water electrolysis systems. By offering a viable alternative to expensive precious metal catalysts, the technology is also anticipated to reduce hydrogen production costs and contribute to the expansion of clean energy infrastructure.

“This study demonstrates a strategy to maximize catalytic performance by simultaneously controlling atomic structure and defects in low-cost metals,” said Dr. Dahee Park, the senior researcher at KIMS. “We plan to extend this catalyst design approach to various electrochemical energy conversion reactions and further develop next-generation eco-friendly energy technologies.”

The research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea under the Ministry of Science and ICT and by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The findings were published online on February 12, 2026, in the international journal ChemSusChem (Impact Factor: 6.6) and selected as a cover article for its March 2026 issue.

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About Korea Institute of Materials Science(KIMS)

KIMS is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT of the Republic of Korea. As the only institute specializing in comprehensive materials technologies in Korea, KIMS has contributed to Korean industry by carrying out a wide range of activities related to materials science including R&D, inspection, testing&evaluation, and technology support.

Newswise — ATLANTA, March 22, 2026 — Hawaii has a plastic problem. The island state faces economic and logistical challenges in recycling plastic waste, including marine debris that lingers in its ocean waters. Researchers in Hawaii are pioneering a method to recycle the islands’ derelict fishing nets and residential plastic trash into asphalt roads. Early demonstrations show that these recycled materials may provide a viable end-of-life fate for the region’s garbage.

Jeremy Axworthy, a researcher at the Center for Marine Debris Research (CMDR) at Hawaiʻi Pacific University, will present the team’s results at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring 2026 is being held March 22-26; it features nearly 11,000 presentations on a range of science topics.

“This work investigates whether it’s responsible to use recycled plastics in Hawaii’s roads,” shares Axworthy. “By reusing plastic waste that is already in Hawaii, we can reduce the environmental and economic impacts of transporting waste plastics from the islands, incinerating it or dumping it in Hawaii’s overflowing landfills.”

Since 2020, Hawaii’s roads have predominantly been paved with polymer-modified asphalt (PMA) to increase pavement strength and durability. Compared to standard asphalt pavement, PMA pavement is more elastic and more resistant to cracking, rutting and water damage — qualities that are especially important for the state’s tropical climate. PMA pavement is made by first melting pellets of styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS; a type of copolymer) into a sticky, petroleum-based asphalt binder. Then, the PMA binder is tumbled with heated aggregates (rocks and sand) in a mixing drum, causing the PMA binder to fully coat the aggregates.

But why not see if discarded plastics could be incorporated into asphalt pavements as an environmentally friendly disposal option? How would modified pavements made with recycled plastics perform, and would they release microplastics or associated chemicals into the environment? These are the questions the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) aimed to answer when they reached out to environmental chemist Jennifer Lynch, CMDR director and team lead.

HDOT asked Lynch’s team for two things. The first was to provide derelict fishing nets removed from Hawaii’s marine environment for the creation of recycled plastic-modified asphalt pavements. “Foreign plastic derelict fishing gear is the largest contributor of Hawaii’s marine debris problem,” shares Lynch. “To date, CMDR’s Bounty Project, which pays a financial reward to licensed commercial fishers for marine debris removal, has removed 84 tons of large, derelict fishing gear from the Pacific Ocean.”

HDOT’s second request was to measure possible microplastic shedding from pavements made with plastic waste versus that from standard SBS-modified pavement. “CMDR’s laboratory is equipped with state-of-the-art chemical instrumentation for quantifying and characterizing microplastics in environmental samples,” explains Lynch. “This capability is incredibly unique and impactful, especially when coupled to our marine debris-removal project and our mission to recycle the debris into long-term, locally necessary infrastructure products.”

Once a U.S.-based company converted the waste into products that could be incorporated into asphalt, HDOT took the experimental asphalt mixes to Hawaii’s streets. A local paving company laid down sections of a residential road on the island of Oahu with asphalt pavement containing standard SBS, repurposed polyethylene from Honolulu’s recycling containers and polyethylene from fishing nets. After about 11 months of regular traffic usage, Lynch’s team stepped in to collect road dust samples from each section of pavement to test for microplastic shedding, which could contaminate the surrounding soil.

The researchers processed the road dust using a method that separates different types of polymers from other materials in the dust, including microplastics, larger chunks of plastic and tire rubber. Using pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS), they identified and measured the source of the polymers: styrene and butadiene from the standard PMA, polyethylene from the plastic-waste and fishing-net PMA, and isoprene and butadiene rubber from tires.

Initial tests showed that pavements made with recycled polyethylene did not release more polymers than the control pavement made with SBS. Lynch’s team showed this was true during mechanical performance tests with pavement samples as well as in simulated stormwater collected from the experimental road sections. Microplastic-sized particles were detected, but very few of these were identified as polyethylene regardless of the pavement type tested. This is likely because the polymers are melted into the asphalt binder, meaning particles that break off are not plastic alone; they are a mixture of rock, binder and melted polymer chains.

The CMDR team is also comparing the amount of polymers shed from the pavement to the amount of polymers shed by tires in the road dust. “In our initial Py-GC-MS data,” continues Lynch, “we saw tire wear swamps the signal of polyethylene by orders of magnitude, like gigantic peaks! We had to search the weeds of the chromatogram to find signs of polyethylene.”

Additional research is needed to assess pavement durability. But the researchers are hopeful that someday, repurposing used plastics into pavement could help reduce landfill and marine debris in Hawaii.

“Some people think plastic recycling is a hoax — that it doesn’t work; it’s too challenging,” Lynch shares. “But this work demonstrates that recycling can work when society prioritizes sustainability.”

The research was funded by the Hawaii Department of Transportation.

Visit the ACS Spring 2026 program to learn more about this presentation, “Harvesting ocean plastics to pave hawaiian roads: Evaluation of microplastic and plastic additive release from asphalt incorporating recycled plastic from various waste streams,” and other science presentations.

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Title
Harvesting ocean plastics to pave hawaiian roads: Evaluation of microplastic and plastic additive release from asphalt incorporating recycled plastic from various waste streams

Abstract
Polymer modified asphalt (PMA) is used to increase strength and durability of roads. In Hawaii, PMA is typically produced using the virgin co-polymer styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS). Recycled plastics, such as high-density polyethylene (HDPE), may also be added to asphalt serving to sequester plastic waste. In the state of Hawaii, derelict fishing gear (DFG) is a significant problem, yet it is also a source of HDPE that can be used in recycling. However, asphalt performance and the consequences of adding recycled polymers to asphalt are not well understood. In collaboration with the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) and the University of Hawaii (UH), the Center for Marine Debris Research (CMDR) are testing the feasibility of using recycled HDPE in asphalt by quantifying microplastics and plastic additives release from roads paved with asphalts made from different combinations of virgin and recycled polymers. The specific asphalt combinations being tested are: SBS (Control-PMA), DFG with and without SBS (DFG-PMA and DFG-neat), Local Waste recycled HDPE with and without SBS (LW-PMA and LW-neat), and Commercially Available, post-industrial recycled HDPE with and without SBS (CA-PMA and CA-neat). Microplastic and plastic additive release under laboratory conditions were performed using a Hamburg Wheel Tracker Test (HWTT) with water sample analyses. Field trials were conducted on a residential road on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Road dust was swept and analyzed for microplastics by direct analysis and solvent extraction to separate bound plastic from asphalt and plastic additives by water extraction. Microplastic samples utilized pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry for analysis. Plastic additives are subjected to solid phase extraction with analysis by gas chromatography mass spectrometry. Results produced using these novel analytical methods provide guidance on the use of recycled plastics over virgin plastics in roadways. Moreover, results of this study may provide a viable end of life fate for plastic marine debris, leading to cleaner and healthier oceans.

Newswise — Liquid electrolytes enable fast ion transport but can raise safety concerns, and lithium metal anodes—despite their high capacity—can grow dendrites that trigger short circuits and rapid failure. Solid polymer electrolytes are attractive because they are processable and potentially compatible with lithium metal, yet many polymer systems (especially PEO-based) become highly crystalline at room temperature, restricting Li⁺ mobility. Adding plasticizers can improve conductivity, but excessive softening may weaken mechanical protection and destabilize interfaces. Meanwhile, strengthening the polymer often worsens ionic transport, leaving researchers stuck between conductivity and robustness. Based on these challenges, deeper research is needed to develop solid polymer electrolytes that simultaneously deliver high ionic conductivity and high mechanical strength.

Researchers at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University report a fiber-reinforced composite solid polymer electrolyte designed to overcome the long-standing “conductivity–strength” dilemma in polymer-based solid-state batteries. In a study published (DOI: 10.1007/s10118-025-3515-3) online on January 19, 2026 in the Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, the team shows that combining a porous PTFE fibrous membrane (as a reinforcing framework) with the plastic-crystal additive succinonitrile yields an electrolyte that is both mechanically robust and electrochemically effective for lithium metal battery operation.

The team’s concept borrows from structural engineering: a lightweight porous framework provides mechanical reinforcement, while the polymer phase supplies ion transport. They infiltrated a PEO/PVDF-HFP/LiTFSI matrix containing succinonitrile into a porous PTFE fibrous membrane via solution casting, aiming for uniform filling and intimate interfacial contact. Microscopy suggests the PTFE scaffold helps “hold” the electrolyte in a continuous network, while the succinonitrile component improves wetting and reduces PEO crystallinity—two factors expected to open faster Li⁺ pathways.

Material optimization mattered. At an optimized 20 wt% succinonitrile, the electrolyte achieved an ionic conductivity of 7.6×10⁻⁴ S·cm⁻¹ at 60 °C while retaining strong mechanical performance, reaching 3.31 MPa tensile strength with 352% elongation—a combination intended to resist dendrite penetration without sacrificing flexibility. Electrochemically, the composite sustained lithium symmetric-cell cycling for about 2,500 hours at 0.15 mA·cm⁻², indicating stable interfacial behavior during repeated plating/stripping. In Li//LiFePO₄ full cells, the electrolyte delivered durable cycling with 91.6% capacity retention after 300 cycles at 0.5C and coulombic efficiency consistently above 99.9%, supporting the claim that the composite design improves both stability and longevity.

According to the authors, the performance comes from a deliberate “division of labor” inside the composite. The PTFE fibrous membrane acts as a thermally stable, mechanically strong backbone that helps maintain structural integrity under cycling stress. Succinonitrile suppresses polymer crystallinity and promotes faster Li⁺ transport, while PVDF-HFP improves salt dissolution and contributes to electrochemical stability. Together, these components create a reinforced yet conductive electrolyte architecture that can be fabricated by straightforward casting and still deliver long-duration symmetric-cell stability and reliable full-cell cycling.

For solid-state lithium metal batteries to become practical, electrolytes must be manufacturable at scale, mechanically resilient, and consistently conductive—especially under conditions where dendrites are likely. This work points to a pragmatic materials strategy: instead of chasing a single “perfect” polymer, build composites in which a porous fiber scaffold provides structural protection and a carefully tuned additive accelerates ion transport. The demonstrated thousands-hour lithium cycling stability and strong capacity retention in LiFePO₄ full cells suggest potential for safer, longer-lived energy storage. If the approach translates to broader cathode chemistries and lower-temperature operation, it could help move polymer-based solid-state batteries closer to real-world deployment.

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References

DOI

10.1007/s10118-025-3515-3

Original Souce URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-025-3515-3

Funding information

This research was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2021YFB3801500) and Fundamental Research Funds of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University (No. 24202105-Y).

About Chinese Journal of Polymer Science (CJPS)

Chinese Journal of Polymer Science (CJPS) 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.