Adhesives are applied extensively in daily life, and due to performance failure of conventional polymer adhesives in underwater environments, there is an urgent demand for highly stable underwater adhesives to meet application requirements of stable adhesion in humid environments and rapid leak sealing. Herein, crosslinking network of aluminum oxo clusters sub-nanoparticles (CN ASNPs) is prepared on a large-scale through a facile stirring reaction at room-temperature and atmospheric pressure, showing good gelation properties in non-polar solvents. The organogel exhibits outstanding underwater adhesive performance, arising from synergy effect of hydration layer disruption, micro-nano mechanical interlocking, high polymerization degree and intermolecular forces. And through being modified with perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane (FDETS) and methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS), the adhesive performance can be further improved based on enhanced hydrophobicity and cohesion. The CN ASNPs organogel adhesive is suitable for various substrates, and for steel, the underwater adhesive strength can achieve ~2.41 MPa. More importantly, this adhesive exhibits excellent stability, whether in tap water or saltwater, whether under changed temperature (25~90 ℃) or prolonged time (~180 days) conditions. And this adhesive won’t cause any damage to substrates or leave hard-to-remove residues after bonding. Overall, the CN ASNPs organogel adhesive has great potential for practical applications in underwater and humid environments.

Realizing the dehydrogenation direct pathway of formic acid electrooxidation reaction (FAOR) via sequential dehydrogenation steps is crucial for direct formic acid proton exchange membrane fuel cells (DFAPEMFCs). Herein, a two-dimensional porous Pt/Ag@Bi₂Te₃ electrocatalyst featuring a triple-phase heterointerface is prepared via a visible light-induced strategy. The heterointerface effect and metal–support effect endow the Pt active sites with local electron-rich properties, thereby facilitating attack on the H atom of H–COO–H to cleave the C–H and O–H bonds and realize the direct pathway. The Pt/Ag@Bi₂Te₃ demonstrates remarkable FAOR mass and specific activities of 10.7 A·mg_Pt^–1 and 45.46 mA·cm^–2, outperforming commercial Pt/C by factors of 21.8 and 11.4, respectively. In the practical DFAPEMFC device, the Pt/Ag@Bi₂Te₃ delivers a peak power density of 116.2 mW·cm^–2, indicating its application potential. Density functional theory calculations further confirm the electron-rich Pt active sites and higher energy efficiency for the complete dehydrogenation direct pathway. This study provides a new strategy for preparing highly efficient FAOR catalysts for actual DFAPEMFCs.

High entropy oxides (HEOs), composed of at least five nearly equimolar principal atoms occupying a similar sublattice, demonstrate promising catalytic potential but limited activity. Low-dimensional HEOs, serving as the metastable phase, possess distinctive electronic structures and fully exposed active sites, which anticipate showcasing appealing performance; however, their synthesis remains challenging. Herein, through the incorporation of clusters for kinetic control, a library of single-phase high entropy oxides (HEOs) with single-unit-cell thickness was synthesized under mild conditions (373 K). By modulating the surface entropies, including vibrational, translational, and rotational entropy, the synthesized high entropy subnano-oxides can exhibit structures, such as subnano-wires, subnano-sheets, and spiral coils. Contributed by the fully exposed active sites and electron delocalization among two-dimensional (2D) layer, HEOs presented as subnano-sheets display enhanced catalytic activity for photocatalytic reduction of CO₂ to CH₄, achieving a yield (5777 ± 230.21 μmol·g⁻¹·h⁻¹), which is 41 times higher than that of bulk HEO obtained from the high-temperature calcination synthetic route.

Information encrypting and anti-counterfeiting have attracted increasing attention in the fields of information communications and Internet of Things. It is of great significance to construct advanced stimuli-responsive materials with simple encryption/decryption procedures and high reliability. Herein, the subnanowire (SNW)-liquid crystal (LC) ink was prepared with Bi₂O₃-PMoO SNWs and commercial LCs 4’-pentyl-[1,1’-biphenyl]-4-carbonitrile (5CB), which can be used for preparing films and patterning through blade coating or writing/printing. Through combining photothermal conversion performance of SNWs with thermotropic phase transition of LCs and smart design and patterning, different forms of SNW-LC materials with photoresponsive performance can be applied in multiple-mode information encryption and anti-counterfeiting effectively, exhibiting fast response rate (within 10 s), high sensitivity (even flashlight of mobile phone), and great stability (over 100 cycles). Considering the versatility and easy processability of SNW-LC ink and the good responsiveness and high reliability of SNW-LC materials, combination of SNWs and LCs may be a potential candidate for effective encryption and anti-counterfeiting.

The development of novel and effective methods for the activation of methane is fascinating, which offers a promising potential for the sustainable development of chemical industry and the mitigation of greenhouse effect. Here we successfully synthesize two-dimensional (2D) Zr/5,10,15,20-tetrakis (4-carboxyphenyl) porphyrin (TCPP) ultrathin nanobelts (UNBs) as a high efficiency catalyst for methane (CH₄) oxidation to carbon monoxide (CO). The Co-UNBs show well photo-coupled electrocatalytic performances for CH₄ activation (CO production rates are 0.171 and 8.416 mmol·g⁻¹·h⁻¹ under dark/visible light, respectively). Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed to illustrate the mechanism of photoelectrocatalytic process and the high efficiency oxidation of CH₄ to CO. Based on the ultrathin structure and highly efficient catalytic properties, this work provides a prospecting avenue for the design and synthesis of methane oxidation catalyst.

It is important and challenging to analyze nanocluster structure with atomic precision. Herein, α-hemolysin nanopore was used to identify nanoclusters at the single molecule level by providing two-dimensional (2D) dwell time–current blockage spectra and translocation event frequency which sensitively depended on their structures. Nanoclusters such as Anderson, Keggin, Dawson, and a few lacunary Dawson polyoxometalates with very similar structures, even with only a two-atom difference, could be discriminated. This nanopore device could simultaneously measure multiple nanoclusters in a mixture qualitatively and quantitatively. Furthermore, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations provided microscopic understandings of the nanocluster translocation dynamics and yielded 2D dwell time–current blockage spectra in close agreement with experiments. The nanopore platform provides a novel powerful tool for nanocluster characterization.

Achieving stable surface structures of metal catalysts is an extreme challenge for obtaining long-term durability and meeting industrial application requirements. We report a new class of metal catalyst, Pt-rich PtCu heteroatom subnanoclusters epitaxially grown on an octahedral PtCu alloy/Pt skin matrix (PtCu_1.60), for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in an acid electrolyte. The PtCu_1.60/C exhibits an 8.9-fold enhanced mass activity (1.42 A·mg_Pt⁻¹) over that of commercial Pt/C (0.16 A·mg_Pt⁻¹). The PtCu_1.60/C exhibits 140,000 cycles durability without activity decline and surface PtCu cluster stability owing to unique structure derived from the matrix and epitaxial growth pattern, which effectively prevents the agglomeration of clusters and loss of near-surface active sites. Structure characterization and theoretical calculations confirm that Pt-rich PtCu clusters favor ORR activity and thermodynamic stability. In room-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, the PtCu_1.60/C shows enhanced performance and delivers a power density of 154.1/318.8 mW·cm⁻² and 100 h/50 h durability without current density decay in an air/O₂ feedstock.