Cell Reports Physical Science

Our joint special issue on the chemistry of nucleic acids, published with @cp-trendschem.bsky.social, is out now! Thanks to @jesspanch.bsky.social for Spotlighting two of the CRPS papers from the issue in Trends in Chemistry www.cell.com/trends/chemi...

A metal oxide coating to suppress the corrosion of aluminum current collectors for high-voltage LiTFSI-based batteries We propose a metal-oxide coating (MOC) strategy to enhance the anti-corrosion of Al current collectors in LiTFSI-based electrolytes, aiming to attain …

Finally, in Energy Storage Materials, Yin and coworkers interrogate a series of metal oxides to determine which is the best candidate for protecting current collectors.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Batch diagnosis of batteries within one second As demand grows for scalable and sustainable energy storage, fast and affordable diagnostics are urgently needed, especially for factory-level cell so…

Battery diagnostics often rely on the same techniques, and are complicated across systems with many cells. In Joule, Jervis and colleagues pioneer a technique to diagnose multi-cell systems in seconds.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Flipping the switch: carbon-negative and water-positive data centers through waste heat utilization Artificial intelligence (AI) growth poses major electricity, emissions, and water challenges. Globally, AI data centers are projected to demand Gigawatts of electricity, leading to Gigatons of carbon ...

AI seems here to stay, and with it comes energy-intensive data centers expected to produce gigawatts of waste heat. Diaz-Marin and Berquist give their perspective in EES on how to capitalize on and incentivize heat capture, using data centers as an energy resource.

pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Salt-templated transformation of waste plastics into single-atom catalysts for environmental and energy applications - Nature Communications Converting plastic waste into single-atom catalysts (SACs) provides both a sustainable approach to waste management and a source of valuable catalytic materials. Here, the authors present a straightfo...

To tackle plastic waste, Shaobin Wang and colleagues in their recent @natcomms.nature.com paper report a method to upcycle diverse plastic types into single atom catalysts using transition metal chloride salts, which are then tested across a range of reactions.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our weekly journal club meeting spanned hot topics across energy and materials. Check out some of the highlights here! 📖🧪

Our editor in chief @andrewbissette.bsky.social will be at the International Symposium on Foldamers at @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social this week. If you're around come and say hello!

Scalable metal–organic framework-based electrodes for efficient alkaline water electrolysis - Nature Chemical Engineering Metal–organic frameworks hold promise as electrocatalysts for water splitting, but their large-scale production remains a challenge. This study reports on a scalable synthetic approach to fabricate la...

And in their recent @natchemeng.nature.com study, Shenlong Zhao and colleagues present a scalable synthesis of CoCe MOFs for alkaline water splitting, reporting long-term stability, competitive hydrogen costs, and lower carbon emissions. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

NitrOFF: An Engineered Fluorescent Biosensor to Illuminate Nitrate Transport in Living Cells Here, a first-generation, two-domain biosensor for nitrate named NitrOFF is reported. The power of directed evolution over seven rounds has unlocked this sensing potential. The integration of in vitr...

Writing in @angewandtechemie.bsky.social, Sheel Dodani, Jessie Zhang and colleagues use directed evolution to develop a nitrate biosensor based on the nitrate recognition domain from S. carnosus. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

24-h-long room temperature phosphorescence in flexible and transparent polymeric materials through charge reservoir strategy This study introduces a strategy to achieve flexible and transparent polymeric materials with hour-long room temperature phosphorescence (HLRTP) prope…

Jiaju Shi, Yucong Lan, and Guodong Liang in @cp-matter.bsky.social demonstrate an unusual flexible and transparent polymeric material, which exhibits a green room temperature phosphorescence lasting 24 h under ambient conditions. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Evidence of Spin-Forbidden Excitation of [Ru(bpy)3]2+ and Application in Red-Light-Driven Photocatalysis Red-light-driven catalysis presents a promising alternative to conventional blue light photocatalysis, offering enhanced light penetration, functional group tolerance, and energy efficiency. However, its widespread application remains underdeveloped, partly due to the lack of readily accessible photocatalysts capable of efficiently absorbing low-energy red photons. A promising, yet underexplored, strategy involves direct spin-forbidden singlet-to-triplet excitation. In this study, we demonstrate the experimental evidence that [Ru(bpy)3]2+ can engage in photocatalysis through direct singlet-to-triplet excitation under red light irradiation. This finding, supported by optical and spectroscopic investigations, broadens the reactivity of [Ru(bpy)3]2+ and offers broadly applicable design principles for robust Ru(II) photocatalysts suited for red-light-driven reactions.

Writing in ACS Catalysis, Eugénie Romero, Oliver Wenger, and team investigate the possibility of using photocatalytic [Ru(bpy)3]2+ for red-light-driven reactions. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

As the new semester kicks off and students head back to classes, we're back to our regularly scheduled journal club! ✏️📚 Explore some of our recent reads highlighted in the thread!

We're delighted to announce our new intern, Cocoa, has joined us for the next week. Cocoa will be handling submissions related to murine anatomy and Nepeta cataria pharmacology.

Upcycling Post-Consumer Polystyrene Waste into Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers To address the dual challenges of plastic waste management and sustainable hydrogen storage, we propose an innovative strategy to upcycle post-consumer polystyrene (PS) waste into liquid organic hydro...

Plastic waste pyrolysis yields a complex mixture that is difficult to reuse. In ACS Catalysis, An et al. propose using pyrolysis products as liquid hydrogen carriers, developing a process that gives high catalyst stability and competitive hydrogen transport costs. 5/5
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Demand for hydrogen as an energy source and reagent is growing, but its transport and production can be challenging. In ACS ES&T, Lu et al show that using reclaimed water from power plants can help resolve challenges for electrolytic H2 production across China. 4/5 pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Neural Algorithm Aided Operation of CO2 Electrolyzers While the number of reports on the electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction increases at an ever-accelerating rate, achieving long-term stable, selective, and energy efficient operation is still chall...

In ACS Energy Letters, Csaba Janáky and team design an autonomous CO2 reduction electrolyzer test station to collect large amounts of data, which are used to train a neural network. This approach enables efficient optimization of electrolyzer operating conditions. 3/5 pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Chirality Makes or Breaks Chemically Driven Self‐Assembly Chirality-controlled reaction cycles: Reaction cycles are constructed to respond to the chirality (handedness) of an acylating agent. Left- and right-handed aminoacyl phosphate esters modulate the st...

In @angewandtechemie.bsky.social , @pappasgroup.bsky.social and colleagues use chiral acylating agents to generate different transient supramolecular structures from homochiral peptides, depending on the absolute configuration of the acylating agent. 2/5
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Feels like an age since our last journal club - it's conference season so the team have been out and about. But today three of us got together to take a look at recent papers. Quick thread of some highlights! 🧵

Building safer laboratories by evolving culture and practice Fostering a safe and productive environment in the laboratory is a challenge that faces both institutions and individual researchers at every stage of their careers. This Voices article shares perspec...

Oh hey our new Voices article is out - on building safer labs, physically, culturally, and psychologically. Featuring contributions from @trantteam.bsky.social, @shufflersunite.bsky.social, @rachael-dickman.bsky.social, and more! www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Building material made of living #fungus can repair itself for over a month. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

@cheveran.bsky.social @vilezz.bsky.social
@cp-cellrepphyssci.bsky.social

In case you missed it, check out this paper from @glowsticks.bsky.social and colleagues. It's one of our most-read papers in the last thirty days, and a great story on a surprising phenomenon (that you may have seen yourself in the lab)! 🌟💡

Message in a bubble: using physics to encode messages in ice. http://dlvr.it/TLR5Wc

Beijing Institute of Technology Mengjie Song
@cp-cellrepphyssci.bsky.social

Electrochemical Li Recovery from Spent LiFePO4-Based Li-Ion Batteries The increase in electric vehicles (EVs) powered by lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) will generate a massive number of spent LIBs in the future. LiFePO4 has recently become the most desired cathode for LIB...

Finally, Choi and colleagues (@uwmadison.bsky.social) propose a feasible, low-cost route to recovering lithium from EV batteries. Their method works on spent batteries and can produce various lithium salts for reuse. 🔋

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Direct Synthesis of para-Xylene from CO2 Hydrogenation with a Record-High Space-Time Yield The direct synthesis of para-xylene (p-X) from CO2 hydrogenation with high space-time yield (STY) remains a significant challenge due to two primary limitations: the Anderson–Schulz–Flory distribution...

An international team from Anhui University of Technology & University of Toyama report a composite catalyst, K-FeMn/Hollow ZSM-5, that enables the efficient hydrogenation of CO2 to para-xylene by integrating two synergistic catalytic functions. ⚗️

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Pd/C promotes C–H bond activation and oxidation of p-hydroxybenzoate during hydrogenolysis of poplar - Nature Communications Hydrogenolysis of lignin produces a complex mixture of products, including small lignin-derived monomers, dimers, and higher oligomers. Using poplar and lignin model compounds, the authors demonstrate...

Steven Karlen (@uwmadison.bsky.social) and colleagues identify previously unrecognised reaction pathways in the Pd/C-promoted hydrogenolysis of poplar lignins. 🌳

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Lab-scale versus industrial-scale thermal runaway tests for lithium-ion battery cells Lithium-ion battery safety is a topic of large importance, and testing is associated with large costs. Safety evaluation is therefore needed also at a…

Battery safety is a paramount concern, especially when developing new energy storage materials. In this JES study, Willstrand and colleagues investigate the applicability of industrial-scale thermal runaway characterization methods at the laboratory scale. 🪫

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In Science Robotics, Yuntao Ma et al. (@ethz.ch) show an impressive display of coordinated motion with a demonstration especially interesting to a general audience - a robot playing badminton. 🏸

www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Our weekly journal club discussion had everything from building robots to breaking down trees - take a look at what we discussed this week! 🤖🌳

Our panelists are:
M. Lisa Manning (@syracuseu.bsky.social) studies collective behaviour of cells in biological tissues and disordered solids
Ramin Golestanian (@maxplanck.de), explores nonequilibrium activity across length scales
Guillaume Salbreux (U. Genève) works on the physics of morphogenesis

Banner advertising a webinar titled "Challenges and opportunities for active matter in biology". Depicts an abstract, liquid-like, blue background.

Save the date - on July 11th we're going live to talk about active matter in biology. Our three panelists work at the interface of physics and biology, promising a fascinating, interdisciplinary conversation. Register for free here: www.bigmarker.com/cellpress-so...