Zhongjun Cheng

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation coupled with evaporation-induced electricity generation offers a promising route for simultaneous freshwater production and low-grade energy harvesting, but its performance is often limited by the trade-off among water transport, heat localization, and ion migration. Here, an MXene-based porous foam evaporator with coupled pore-size and wettability gradients was fabricated through prefreezing and freeze-drying. The resulting architecture comprised a small-pore upper layer, an interconnected middle layer, and a large-pore bottom layer, enabling localized heating, continuous capillary water supply, rapid vapor escape, and directional ion transport. Benefiting from the broadband photothermal response of MXene and the hydrophilic PAAm-SA network, the optimized evaporator achieved solar absorptance above 90% and an evaporation rate of 1.44 kg m–2 h–1 under one sun, and an equivalent evaporation enthalpy of approximately 1.43 kJ g–1. After 100 h, 94.4% of the initial evaporation rate was retained. The device also exhibited stable electrical output, with voltage and current retentions of 93.4% and 90.1%, respectively. This work provides a simple strategy for integrating solar-driven interfacial evaporation and evaporation-induced electricity generation.

Ice accretion poses serious risks to transportation safety, energy efficiency, and the reliability of transparent electronic systems in cold environments.

Three‐dimensional reconfigurable light‐emitting devices are promising for next‐generation displays, wearable electronics, and interactive optoelectronic systems. However, conventional alternating‐current electroluminescent devices usually rely on multilayer architectures, making it difficult to simultaneously achieve structural simplicity, stable light emission, and programmable shape reconfiguration. Herein, a shape‐memory‐polymer‐based electroluminescent device with 3D reconfigurability is developed. The epoxy/ZnS:Cu composite layer serves simultaneously as the electroluminescent medium and shape‐memory layer, enabling temporary shape fixation and thermally triggered recovery. At 60 wt.% ZnS:Cu, the composite achieves a shape‐fixity ratio of 99.8% and a shape‐recovery ratio of 97.6%. An MXene electrothermal layer provides rapid, controllable Joule heating, enabling electrically triggered reconfiguration without an external heat source. At 3 V and approximately 49 mA, the MXene layer reaches a stable temperature within about 32 s. The device maintains stable electroluminescence in flower‐shaped, butterfly‐shaped, bent, coiled, and fiber‐shaped configurations. After 100 fixation–recovery cycles, the shape‐recovery ratio remains above 93%, confirming good cycling stability. The strategy is further extended to shape‐memory electroluminescent fibers, broadening accessible device geometries and display formats. This work provides a practical route toward structurally simple, electrically reconfigurable, and morphologically programmable light‐emitting devices for adaptive wearable displays, three‐dimensional artistic displays, and fiber‐based optoelectronic platforms.

The growing demand for lightweight, low-cost, and mechanically compliant electronics has stimulated the development of paper-based conductive materials. MXene is a promising coating material for this purpose because of its metallic conductivity, hydrophilic surface terminations, and solution processability. However, in most MXene-coated paper systems, the relationship between coating thickness, microstructural evolution, and coupled functional performance remains insufficiently clarified. Herein, Ti3C2Tx MXene was blade-coated onto commercial A4 paper to fabricate conductive papers with nominal coating thicknesses from 5 to 25 μm. This work uses the coating gap as a structural variable to clarify how the evolution from discontinuous fiber-supported MXene nanosheet coverage to a continuous lamellar conductive network regulates electron transport, Joule heating, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, infrared shielding, and solar-driven evaporation. As the coating thickness increased from 5 to 25 μm, the sheet resistance decreased from 18 to 5.7 Ω sq−1, the equilibrium temperature under 5 V increased from approximately 33 to 61 °C, and the EMI shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) increased from 11.2 to 33.5 dB. The evaporation rate was also enhanced with increasing MXene loading. These improvements originate from increased inter-sheet contacts, reduced interfacial resistance, enhanced heat localization, and stronger attenuation of electromagnetic and infrared radiation. Compared with dense self-standing MXene films, the present MXene conductive paper emphasizes low-cost commercial paper substrates, scalable coating fabrication, mechanical flexibility, and multifunctional integration. This study clarifies a coating-gap-dependent structure−property relationship and provides practical guidance for the design of paper-based flexible electronic materials.

Detectable adhesives that provide real-time feedback on the curing status and bonding strength via colorimetric or electrical signals hold great promise for industrial quality control and intelligent manufacturing. However, systems that simultaneously offer non-destructive, instrument-free detection remain scarce, posing a critical challenge for their broader practical deployment. In this study, a design strategy for visually trackable adhesives that exhibit real-time, non-destructive curing-state indication is proposed, enabled by the incorporation of photochromic spiropyran molecules. The adhesive features a linseed oil core and a calcium alginate shell, allowing air-curable adhesion and mechanically triggered release. The system achieves a high transparency of over 95% and a maximum bonding strength of 15 MPa after full curing, demonstrating both optical and mechanical superiority. Compared to existing intelligent adhesives, this MLOA system integrates adhesion, visualization, and sustainability, while maintaining excellent performance under liquid nitrogen and solvent exposure and exhibiting strong compatibility with a wide range of substrates. This dual-feedback system bridges sensing and adhesion in a single platform, opening new avenues for real-time monitoring and adaptive control in next-generation smart manufacturing.

This study introduces a scalable dynamic phase separation strategy to fabricate silicone based liquid-like coatings with ultralow PDMS content.

A rigid flame-retardant material with complex shapes was developed via sequential curing of a dual-modulus network, overcoming conventional molding limitations and expanding application potential.