Bernard Paul Binks

Escalating climate pressures paired with rapid global population expansion threaten long-term animal protein security. The global plant-based protein market, presently valued at US$20–22.5 billion, is forecast to expand to US$38–43 billion by the early 2030s, signaling a robust translational demand for scalable, sustainable manufacturing of alternative proteins. However, most alternative proteins are featured by intrinsic colloidal instability, limiting their deployment in tailor-made viscoelastic food materials. This work establishes spatially confined liquid–liquid phase separation (SCLLPS) as a versatile approach towards viscoelastic protein manufacturing. Kinetically, driven by synergistic surface patch interactions and volume exclusion effects, proteins at a high loading (15.0 wt %) undergo selective phase partitioning and become spatially entrapped within anionic domains of polysaccharide matrices. Thermodynamically, the release of cavity-wrap water and retention of bound water jointly provide the energetic driving force forming protein-enriched liquid condensates with long-term colloidal stability. Mechanically, such spatially ordered condensates afford exceptional control over bulk viscoelasticity to tailor fluid mechanics, addressing a long-standing challenge to date. The broad generality of SCLLPS is verified across diverse plant and fungal proteins coupled with distinct anionic polysaccharides, delivering a universal condensate-tuning platform for low-impact food manufacturing with drastically reduced carbon, water, and land footprints.

Liquid marbles, renowned for their non‐wetting behavior, have been extensively investigated in the fields of controlled delivery, droplet reactors, and biomaterial storage. However, the transition in wetting interactions between the liquid droplet and the coating particles has not been clearly studied, and leveraging this transformation for new applications remains unexplored. Here, we use UV irradiation along with mechanical vibration to switch the wetting state at the liquid marble interface from Cassie–Baxter to Cassie‐impregnating during a one‐step process that converts liquid marbles into ceramic green bodies. Renewable biowaste pollen is, for the first time, employed to impart both surface patterning and internal porosity together with a photocured polymer, yielding dual‐porosity ceramic adsorbents that achieve up to 2.88 times higher pollutant removal efficiency, particularly for heavy metal ions and nanoplastics. Furthermore, different pollen species exhibit distinct pollutant selectivity, underscoring their potential for environmental remediation.

Superhydrophobic surfaces are essential to a wide range of applications from self-cleaning and anti-icing surfaces on aircraft to antifouling coatings on maritime vessels. However, most artificial superhydrophobic surface designs rely heavily on fluorinated materials, raising serious environmental concerns due to their bioaccumulation and potential carcinogenicity. Natural spiky pollen, an underutilized biowaste, offers a promising alternative to fluorine-based approaches. These particles intrinsically possess a distinctive topography that closely mirrors the hierarchical superhydrophobic micro/nanostructures. Notably, their distinctive geometrical features can further influence and modulate surface wetting behavior. Here, we demonstrate the engineering of superhydrophobic surfaces using spiky pollen from diverse plant species (ragweed, two chrysanthemum subspecies, and sunflower) to investigate the influence of geometrical features on the superhydrophobic performance and to benchmark their effectiveness against fluorinated-modified counterparts. The engineered pollen-based superhydrophobic surfaces demonstrate exceptional water contact angles and tunable wetting states, ranging from Cassie-impregnating states (“petal effect”) for shorter spike lengths to Cassie−Baxter states (“lotus effect”) for longer spikes. This work establishes a sustainable and facile strategy for engineering advanced superhydrophobic surfaces using natural microarchitectures.

Due to environmental concerns and resource waste associated with large‐scale surfactant discharge, developing efficient recycling and reuse strategies for surfactants is of great importance. Here, a novel switchable Se‐containing sugar‐based nonionic surfactant, N ‐dodecylselenosulfonylpropyl gluconamide (NDSeOPGA), is synthesized, which can be reversibly transformed between an ON state (NDSeOPGA, water‐soluble) and an OFF state ( N ‐dodecylselenolpropyl gluconamide, NDSePGA, insoluble in both water and oil) upon alternating reactions with H ₂ O ₂ and Na ₂ SO ₃ (or N ₂ H ₄ ), leading to the formation of ─SeO─ and ─Se─ moieties, respectively. This distinctive property not only enables the surfactant to behave as a conventional one for preparing micellar solutions, emulsions and microemulsions but also enables demulsification and phase separation readily. Moreover, solid NDSePGA can be recovered (over 95%) simply by filtration from solutions or demulsified oil–water systems at room temperature and reused (more than 10 cycles) through reaction with H ₂ O ₂ . This work establishes a new paradigm for developing recyclable and reusable intelligent nonionic surfactants with broad implications for green chemistry.

This research proposed the use of ultrasound for the encapsulation of liquid metal eutectic GaIn into a silica Pickering shell. Eutectic capsules can be used for autonomic thermal control in chips, batteries and photovoltaic cells.

Precise control over enzyme structure through carrier design is key for high performance biocatalysis. However, achieving selective enzyme orientation and creating a defined local interface environment remain challenging. In this work, amphiphilic dumbbell‐shaped Janus polymer nanoparticles (DS‐JPNs) were designed to anchor Aspergillus niger lipase (ANL) on one side, ensuring the catalytic domain faces outward. The distinct hydrophilic and hydrophobic lobes create different environments that stabilize the enzyme and help open its lid during assembly at interfaces. These DS‐JPN@ANL particles were used as a solid stabilizer in Pickering emulsions. The anisotropic DS‐JPNs stabilize the interface with a large surface area that improves mass transfer while preserving enzyme activity. Confocal microscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy showed that this directional design activates the enzyme at the interface without altering its native structure. As a result, DS‐JPN‐immobilized ANL achieves a 239‐fold higher initial turnover rate than free ANL and retains over 87% activity after five cycles, producing about 89% fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) yield under mild conditions. This study establishes a clear structure–function relationship between Janus carrier anisotropy, directional Pickering emulsion assembly and lipase activation, offering a general strategy for constructing interfacial biocatalysts with controlled orientation and tailored microenvironments.

Pickering emulsions (PEs) are constantly emerging as promising platforms in biphasic catalysis. However, the existing nanoparticle-stabilized PE systems suffer from several drawbacks, such as reactant diffusion, particle leaching, incompatible reaction environments, tedious workups and poor catalyst recovery. The use of nanogel particles in PE catalysis could be highly advantageous in streamlining processes. Herein, we report a general approach to designing a PE droplet-based reactor by using a combination of egg white nanogel particles (EWNGs, 0.01 wt.%) and the newly synthesized switchable surfactant 3-(10-carboxydecyl)-1-methyl-1H-imidazolium bromide (ImDec-COOH) at a very low concentration of 0.50 wt.%. This versatile approach helps EWNGs in PEs overcome existing limitations, such as reactant diffusion and incompatible reaction environments, while stimulus-responsive surfactants increase the pH of PE systems. Thus, nanogel particles stabilize the PE system, and imidazolium-based surfactants effectively facilitate organic transformation through biphasic catalysis. As a proof-of-concept, the as-developed microreactor was employed to achieve a one-pot synthesis of benzothiazoles and benzoxazole in high yield, in situ product separation and excellent catalyst recovery.