Heavy metal ions (HMIs) pose persistent risks to ecosystems and human health owing to their toxicity, environmental persistence, and bioaccumulation. Conventional laboratory techniques provide high sensitivity and accuracy, but their dependence on bulky instruments, skilled operators, and complex pretreatment restricts rapid on-site screening. Portable electrochemical systems offer a complementary strategy by integrating sensing electrodes, potentiostatic control, weak-current readout, and software-based signal processing to convert interfacial redox reactions into measurable electrical signals. This review examines portable electrochemical HMI detection from three perspectives: detection principles, hardware architectures, and field applications. It summarizes redox and stripping mechanisms, baseline correction, limit-of-detection (LOD) estimation, potentiostat evolution, and single- and multi-metal detection in complex matrices. Key bottlenecks include matrix-induced peak drift and fouling, coexisting-ion interference, limitations in weak-current readout, and insufficient field standardization. Future progress will require co-optimized sensing interfaces, low-noise electronics, multichannel and flow-cell formats, field calibration, and data-driven peak analysis.

Conductive microneedles (CMNs) combine the minimally invasive characteristics of microneedles with the electrical functionality required for sensing, recording, stimulation, and controlled drug delivery. By penetrating the stratum corneum with reduced pain and tissue damage, they provide efficient access to the skin microenvironment and have shown strong potential in wearable healthcare, precision diagnostics, and intelligent therapeutics. Despite these advantages, challenges remain in balancing mechanical robustness with electrical functionality, improving fabrication precision and reproducibility, maintaining interfacial stability, and achieving scalable manufacturing. In this review, the major fabrication routes for CMNs are summarized and compared in terms of forming principles, material compatibility, and conductivity-introduction strategies. Secondly, research on the key performances of CMNs is discussed. After that, the applications of CMNs in electrochemical sensing, bioelectrical signal acquisition, electrostimulation therapy, and drug delivery are overviewed, followed by a brief discussion of current challenges and future perspectives.

Friction dampers dissipate seismic energy through sliding but lack self-sensing capability. This study integrates friction dampers with triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), which convert mechanical energy into electrical signals, creating a self-sensing damper. Using friction pairs with large triboelectric differences, the system simultaneously achieves energy dissipation and sensing. During sliding, mechanical energy is partially converted into heat (dissipation) and electricity (sensing). Theoretical models link displacement and velocity to voltage and current, validated through cyclic loading tests varying velocity, displacement, and friction force. Results show stable energy dissipation (300-770 J/cycle) comparable to conventional dampers. Sensing performance is strong: voltage correlates linearly with displacement (0.00526 V/mm, R² = 0.94), and current with velocity (0.01914 μA/(mm/s), R² > 0.99). Unlike conventional TENGs, high friction alters triboelectric behavior via wear and heating, producing a unique voltage-velocity relationship. Scanning electron microscopy analysis confirms maximum wear at 34.2 kN, aligning with inflection points in electrical response. An empirical Q-V-f formula for high-friction conditions enriches triboelectric theory and guides damper design, emphasizing friction optimization for balanced dissipation and sensing stability.

The rapid expansion of wearable electronics and distributed sensing is sharpening the demand for sustainable, maintenance free power sources that can operate quietly over long periods. Thermoelectric conversion is attractive here because it can harvest low grade heat, especially body heat, and translate small temperature differences into usable electrical power. Organic thermoelectric materials have therefore drawn sustained interest. They combine mechanical flexibility, low density, solution processability, and generally favorable biocompatibility, which aligns naturally with soft, skin interfaced devices. Their intrinsically low thermal conductivity, together with charge transport tunability enabled by molecular design and doping control, supports efficient operation under modest temperature gradients and conformal integration with compliant substrates. Recent progress in molecular engineering, secondary doping, microstructural regulation, and flexible device architectures has pushed performance forward, with reported power factors exceeding 1,000 μW m^-1 K^-2 and figure of merit values approaching unity at room temperature in selected systems. However, turning these advances into practical wearable generators remains nontrivial. Key bottlenecks include incomplete decoupling of electrical and thermal transport, limited long term stability under mechanical deformation and environmental exposure, and the persistent gap between laboratory scale demonstrations and scalable fabrication. This review summarizes recent developments in organic thermoelectric materials and wearable devices, and distills design principles aimed at enabling robust, manufacturable, and truly self-powered wearable systems.

The efficient activation of CO₂ molecules is imperative for the development of a high-performance catalyst for the oxidative dehydrogenation of propane with carbon dioxide (CO₂-ODP). To enhance the activation of CO₂ over ceria, in this work, rare earth doped ceria (RE-CeO₂, RE=La, Pr, Nd, and Sm) is comparatively studied as a support for PtSn for CO₂-ODP. Compared with PtSn/CeO₂, Ce_1-xRE_xO₂ solid solution is formed for the RE-doped PtSn/CeO₂ catalysts, which increases the oxygen defect content, promotes the dispersion of Pt, and strengthens the ability of CO₂ to supplement lattice oxygen in the catalyst, thereby enhancing the catalytic performance for CO₂-ODP. Among the investigated catalysts, PtSn/ Nd-CeO₂ shows the best CO₂-ODP performance, with an initial propane conversion and propylene selectivity of 52.7% and 86.1%, respectively. Moreover, the Pt electron density and oxygen-defect content over PtSn/RE-CeO₂ catalysts, which can be regulated to relatively large extents by doping ceria with different RE metals, are key factors in determining the activity of CO₂-ODP. These findings regarding the CeO₂-based binary RE solid solutions with adjustable oxygen defects and the derived impacts on supported Pt provide important references for advancing the design of oxygen-defect involved supported metal catalysts, including Pt-based catalysts, for the oxidative dehydrogenation of light alkanes with carbon dioxide.

Despite rapid progress in health monitoring, many smart wearable devices still function primarily as passive sensing-and-logging platforms. Their performance is constrained by fixed hardware configurations and cloud-centric analytics pipelines. As a result, they often fail to deliver real-time responses to user intent and rarely support closed-loop physical intervention. This perspective argues that enabling embodied intelligence in wearables requires three paradigm shifts. First, wearables should transition from closed, integrated hardware to open, modular computing architectures that can accommodate evolving on-device artificial intelligence (AI) demands. Second, cloud-dependent inference should be replaced, where appropriate, by ultra-low-latency edge intelligence to support millisecond-scale prediction and control. Third, devices should evolve from passive information feedback to active physical intervention supported by human-in-the-loop optimization. Together, these shifts may reshape the human–machine relationship by moving wearables from external tools toward digital partners that operate under explicit user intent and safety constraints.

Radiative thermal management (RTM) smart windows represent an emerging class of adaptive building-envelope technologies that combine dynamic spectral regulation with passive heat dissipation through the atmospheric window. By simultaneously modulating visible light (VIS), near-infrared solar radiation (NIR), and mid-infrared thermal emission (MIR), these systems enable year-round thermal regulation with reduced building energy consumption. This review systematically summarizes recent progress and mechanisms of RTM smart windows. Compared with existing reviews that mainly focus on static radiative cooling materials or single-mode smart windows, this review emphasizes integrated RTM smart windows featuring tri-band (VIS/NIR/MIR) spectral regulation and dual-responsive mechanisms. Firstly, the fundamental principles of radiative thermal management and intelligent response mechanisms are introduced, followed by an overview of key performance. Secondly, the latest progress in electrochromic, thermochromic, and photochromic RTM smart windows is comprehensively reviewed. Particular attention is devoted to dual-responsive mechanism RTM smart windows, which integrate passive and active control to achieve synergistic performance. In summary, this review presents an overview of recent advances and underlying mechanisms in intelligent windows for radiative heat management.

Electrocatalytic water splitting is a key technology for sustainable hydrogen production, but its efficiency is limited by the slow kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Spinel oxides (AB₂O₄) have drawn significant interest due to their electrochemical stability, tunable electronic properties, and low cost. Their catalytic performance is highly influenced by the crystalline phase, which governs charge transport, active site density, and reaction energetics. However, the effects of phase transitions and structural variations on electrocatalysis remain insufficiently explored. This review systematically evaluates the performance of spinel oxides across six primary crystal phases: cubic, hexagonal, tetragonal, orthorhombic, rhombohedral, and monoclinic, discussing how these structural features affect charge transport, intermediate adsorption, and reaction energetics. The review emphasizes the structure-electronic-catalytic performance relationships and covers phase variants, including coordination environment modulation, defect regulation, metastable phase transitions, and strain engineering. It further examines how phase symmetry, oxygen coordination, orbital rearrangement, and interfacial characteristics influence OER and HER kinetics. Challenges in phase engineering, such as controlling phase transitions and stabilizing metastable phases, are also highlighted. This review provides a framework for understanding the electrocatalytic behavior of spinel oxides and offers guidance for designing high-performance catalysts for water splitting.

The aggregation, distribution, spreading, elongation and shrinking, as well as other behaviors of liquids, along with mass transfer and thermal exchange, are ubiquitous in both natural creatures and human daily life. These phenomena greatly inspire the advancement of liquid manipulating interfaces in theoretical models, production processes, and performance optimization. After decades of development, regulating liquid movements through surface chemistry, micro/nano structures, and geometrical gradients is becoming increasingly prevalent but still faces challenges. This review discusses the design principles of liquid manipulating interfaces, bionic prototypes and its models behind, and introduces their specific role within these works. We summarize state-of-the-art works from different motion dimensions, as well as the most widely mentioned applications. We believe this can inspire the transfer of bioinspired structures into functional devices through continued innovative breakthroughs and multidisciplinary collaboration.

Immobilized photocatalyst devices for overall water splitting (OWS) have emerged as a promising strategy for practical hydrogen production. Compared with traditional powder suspension systems, they offer great advantages, including scalability, facile recovery/replacement of photocatalysts, and the elimination of extra dispersion operations. Over the past decade, significant progress has been achieved in this field, especially in material screening, device construction, and system integration for scalable applications. However, up until now, there have been no related reviews focusing on this topic. This review aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive and structured overview of the immobilized photocatalyst devices for efficient OWS. Firstly, the basics of OWS process, including one-step and two-step photoexcitation mechanisms, are elaborated. Subsequently, recent advances in immobilized photocatalyst devices for scalable OWS via these two different approaches are summarized, based on which various solid-state electron mediators are classified and exemplified. The essential structure-performance relationship is also analyzed and revealed. Finally, the future prospects and challenges in this field are proposed and discussed.

Stiffness of the primary longitudinal rubber joints is critical for both the high-speed stability and curve trafficability of the train. However, existing joints with fixed stiffness inevitably generate large wheel-rail lateral forces and wear on curves. To address this issue, a fail-safe rubber joint incorporating magnetorheological fluid (MRF) technology is proposed, enabling bidirectional variable stiffness. First, the structure and working principle of MRF rubber joint are described in detail. Subsequently, prototypes of the MRF damper and the MRF rubber joint are assembled and tested, yielding satisfactory variable damping and stiffness performance. Moreover, dynamic simulations further demonstrate the joint’s effectiveness in improving both stability and curve trafficability. A control algorithm based on track curvature identification is also proposed. The co-simulation results validate the potential of the MRF rubber joint on reducing wheel-rail wear and enhancing safety of trains.

Electrocatalytic oxidation of alcohols and aldehydes, known as alcohol oxidation reactions (AOR), provides a sustainable and efficient route for converting low-value feedstocks such as ethanol, glycerol, and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural into high-value chemicals, including organic acids and aldehydes, in line with the chemical industry’s transition toward carbon neutrality. This review synthesizes recent advancements in electrocatalytic AOR, emphasizing advances in catalyst design and detailed reaction mechanisms. A broad spectrum of catalysts is explored, ranging from noble metal-based (e.g., Pt, Pd, Au) to cost-effective non-noble metal-based (e.g., Ni, Cu, Co) materials, with attention to advanced strategies such as heteroatom doping, vacancy engineering, and alloying for fine-tuning electronic structures and optimizing intermediate adsorption. The review also delves into mechanistic insights, elucidating rate-determining steps, adsorption geometries, and electron-transfer pathways that govern AOR performance, supported by density functional theory analyses. Special emphasis is placed on the interplay between catalyst electronic structure and reaction kinetics, offering fresh perspectives for improving yield, selectivity, and Faradaic efficiency. Finally, current challenges, including catalyst stability, product selectivity, and scalability, are critically evaluated, and future directions such as in situ characterization and the development of non-noble metal catalysts are proposed to advance AOR toward large-scale, sustainable chemical synthesis.

Transition metal phosphides (TMPs) have been recognized as promising electrocatalysts for water splitting due to their high electronic conductivity, tunable structure and composition, and multifunctional active sites. Combining TMPs with other materials such as metals and compounds to form heterostructures can significantly enhance electrocatalytic performance. This review summarizes recent advances in TMP-based heterostructures for electrocatalytic water splitting. The design of electrocatalyst structures and compositions, along with their corresponding electrochemical activities, is discussed. Emphasis is placed on interfacial engineering and the synergistic effects between heterocomponents to elucidate the relationship between interfacial characteristics and catalytic performance. Finally, current challenges and future research directions for TMP-based heterostructure electrocatalysts in water splitting are proposed.

The development of high-performance narrowband red organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) has garnered significant attention, offering both exciting opportunities and formidable challenges. In this study, we report the synthesis of a novel red thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) molecule, 10,10',10''-([1,2,4]triazolo[1,5-a][1,3,5]triazine-2,5,7-triyltris(benzene-4,1-diyl))tris(10H-phenoxazine) (TPXZ-TAZTRZ), which integrates a highly electron-deficient triazolotriazine unit as the acceptor and three strongly electron-donating phenoxazine (PXZ) moieties as donors. TPXZ-TAZTRZ exhibits a small singlet-triplet energy gap, enabling a rapid reverse intersystem crossing rate. Additionally, it shows a broad emission spectrum peaking at 634 nm, spanning the yellow-to-red region. These features render TPXZ-TAZTRZ as an ideal TADF sensitizer for narrowband red fluorescent OLEDs. Accordingly, TPXZ-TAZTRZ was employed to sensitize the conventional fluorescent emitter DBP. The resulting TADF-sensitized fluorescence OLEDs (TSF-OLEDs) demonstrated efficient energy transfer from the TADF sensitizer to the emitter, effectively addressing the limitations previous encountered with TADF systems. The devices achieved high-performance pure red emission, with Commission International de l'Éclairage (CIE) coordinates of [0.67, 0.33], an emission peak at 612 nm, a narrow full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 27 nm, and a maximum external quantum efficiency of 16.2%.

High-performance and long-lifetime blue organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are crucial for meeting the demands of advanced display and lighting technologies. Despite high device efficiency has been achieved in blue OLEDs, development of high-performance and long-lifetime blue OLEDs still lag far behind their red/green counterparts due to the presence of long-lived high-energy triplet excitons and polarons. Given the critical role of charge and exciton management in both the emission and degradation processes of OLEDs, this review systematically summarizes strategies for suppressing charge leakage and exciton quenching, as well as for enhancing exciton utilization in blue fluorescent, phosphorescent, and thermally activated delayed fluorescent (TADF) OLEDs. In this context, we further discuss the roles of conventional fluorescent hosts, triplet-triplet annihilation/hot exciton hosts, TADF assistant hosts, phosphorescent assistant hosts, and exciplex/electroplex hosts in regulating charge and exciton dynamics in blue OLEDs. Additionally, the modification of emitting layer materials is highlighted as a key strategy for managing charge and exciton processes in efficient and stable solution-processed blue OLEDs. Based on current insights into the efficiency and operational stability of blue OLEDs, this review proposes feasible charge and exciton management strategies to address the current challenges.

Circularly polarized light (CPL) features electromagnetic vectors that rotate regularly in a plane perpendicular to the direction of propagation, transmitting optical chirality information that is imperceptible to human beings. CPL can be classified into the left-handed and right-handed circularly polarization light (L-/R-CPL), depending on whether the rotation direction is clockwise or anticlockwise, respectively. The ability to manipulate and characterize CPL is crucial for advancing various optical technologies, making the effective and direct detection of CPL extremely important. Breeding in the hotbed provided by the explosively increased chiral materials with CPL luminescence and strong circular dichroism (CD), CPL detectors are currently experiencing savage growth. Mainstream strategies can be divided into the leverage of photoactive materials with inherent chirality and the integration of chiral metamaterials with nonchiral photoactive materials. In this review, we not only highlight significant material innovations and detector architectures for CPL detection but also address the broader implications of these advancements. We discuss the challenges and future directions in this field, particularly focusing on how these developments could impact existing commodities, such as polarimetric imaging and security communications, and contribute to sustainability in technology through improved detection efficiency. Our goal is to inspire further promising developments in CPL photodetectors and encourage a broader application spectrum.