In article number 2000228, Luying Li, Tianyou Zhai, and co-workers prepare large-size BiOCl flakes with thickness down to a monolayer via salt-assisted chemical vapor deposition. The 2D BiOCl photodetectors exhibit high responsivity throughout the solar-blind range at room and high temperatures. The success in fabrication of atomically thin BiOCl photodetectors opens opportunities for their potential applications in solar-blind UV photodetection.

In article number 2000655, Po-Liang Lai, Hsing-Wen Sung, and co-workers present a hollow microsphere system that may function as an incubator for the generation and delivery of NO in a scavenger-free environment. Upon leaving the incubator, the NO molecules may passively diffuse through their protected-surfactant layer gradually to the tumor site, performing long-lasting radiosensitization.

In article number 2001384, Yi Wang, Yunteng Qu, Jinbo Bai, and co-workers develop an ionic exchange strategy to fabricate atomically dispersed CuNC material with unsaturated CuN₃ centers. Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) tests indicate that its half-wave potential and turnover frequency are significantly enhanced compared to that with CuN₄ moieties. This suggests that decreasing N coordination number of the active center could greatly boost the ORR activity. This may inspire further design of efficient electrochemical catalysts.

This work is inspired by oysters converting worthless sand into precious pearls. In article number 2000553, Chen Wang and co-workers present the “trash into treasure” process, which efficiently promotes antibacterial therapy and wound healing. The confinement effect of 2D Al-metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) maintains gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as ultrasmall without gathering and makes them exhibit excellent peroxidase-like activity. The ultrasmall AuNPs/MOFs nanozymes representing oysters convert H₂O₂ symbolizing grains of sand into ·OH symbolizing valuable pearls.

Recent significant development of elaborately designed protein-based artificial nanosystems as drug carriers, adjuvant agents and therapeutic species is summarized. The aim is to stimulate this important research area toward more practical applications.

Herein, a systematic summary for the construction and mechanism of different aqueous zinc-based batteries is established. Details for three major zinc-based battery systems, including alkaline rechargeable Zn-based batteries, aqueous Zn ion batteries, and dual-ion hybrid Zn batteries are given. Combining the characteristics of zinc-based batteries with good use of concepts and ideas from other disciplines will surely pave the way for its commercialization.

An ionic exchange strategy is developed to fabricate atomically dispersed CuNC material with unsaturated CuN centers (CuN₃ moieties), which possesses a higher half-wave potential of 180 mV and the 10 times turnover frequency than that with CuN₄ moieties in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) test. Furthermore, the optimum CuN₃ catalyst demonstrates a better performance in ORR and zinc–air batteries compared with commercial Pt/C.

The performance of glyme-based electrolytes in symmetric lithium metal cells containing LiTDI salt is improved compared to LiTf salt as a consequence of chemical composition and morphology of the solid electrolyte interphase. The solid electrolyte interphase in the LiTDI case is more dense and contains additional species beneficial for ionic conduction and mechanical properties (e.g., Li₃N).

Hexagonal tungsten oxide with the morphology of ultrathin nanowires can be synthesized by molten-salt method, which is critically dependent on the substantial proportion of molybdenum (Mo) dopant. The ultrathin nanowires exhibit a high NH₃-production rate of 370 µmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹ for photocatalytic nitrogen (N₂) fixation, benefiting from the interplay between Mo-dopant and surface hydroxylation of the hexagonal structure.

A peptide nucleic acid (PNA)-based gene therapy shows promise for safely inhibiting pancreatic cancer progression and metastasis via V-Ki-ras2 Kirsten ratsarcoma viral oncogene homolog mutation silencing. Treatments with layered double hydroxide loaded PNA demonstrate markedly inhibited growth of pancreatic cancer xenografts, and consequently, the 100% survival rate of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma xenografted mice for at least 60 days.

In article number 2001721, Takeshi Sakamoto, Hiroyuki Katayama, Takashi Kato, and co-workers achieve high virus removal for liquid-crystalline water treatment membranes. The liquid crystal forms 2D lamellar nanochannels allowing superior virus removal while maintaining efficient water flux. The removal efficiency is 99.999994%. Self-assembly of smectic liquid crystals and subsequent photopolymerization leads to the formation of nanostructured 2D materials.

A 2D virus removal membrane for water treatment based on polymeric self-assembling liquid crystal is developed. The obtained polymer membrane shows excellent virus removal with 99.999994% efficiency. The liquid crystal forms 2D lamellar nanochannels allowing superior virus removal while maintaining improved permeation.

This work demonstrates the synthesis of large-size atomically thin BiOCl flakes via salt-assisted chemical vapor deposition. The BiOCl flake based solar-blind UV photodetectors exhibit a responsivity up to 35.7 A W⁻¹ and detectivity of 2.2 × 10¹⁰ Jones at 250 nm, and also possess high responsivity across the solar-blind range.

The as-proposed hollow microsphere system may function as an incubator for the generation and delivery of NO in a scavenger-free environment, analogous to the protection offered by ovoviviparous fish against predation before birth of their offspring. Upon leaving the incubator, the NO molecules may passively diffuse through their protected-surfactant layer gradually to the tumor site, performing long-lasting radiosensitization.

Ultrasmall gold nanoparticles (UsAuNPs) are grown on ultrathin 2D metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) via in situ reduction. The formed UsAuNPs/MOFs nanozyme exhibits excellent peroxides-like activity under a low concentration of H₂O₂, which efficiently promotes antibacterial therapy and wound healing.

A magnetic urchin-like microswimmer based on sunflower pollen grain that can pierce the cancer cell membrane and actively deliver therapeutic drugs is reported. These dual-action microswimmers demonstrate good biocompatibility, high intelligence, precision in single-cell targeting, and sufficient drug loading, presenting a promising avenue for a variety of biomedical applications.

Co–Fe Prussian blue analogues are coated with methionine to fabricate S, N codoped carbon cubes embedding Co–Fe carbides, showing superb capacity in catalyzing reversible oxygen conversion. The activity origin and catalyst fate are well elucidated through elaborate control studies and postelectrolytic characterizations.

A sandwich photothermal membrane is prepared by confining the hierarchical porous carbon cells in two energy barriers to achieve a rapid water evaporation rate of 1.87 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ under 1 sun illumination. The significantly enhanced evaporation rate is mainly attributed to the inherently optimized micropore evaporation mode, and the synergistically regulated water transporting and thermal management performance.

The first synthesis of novel hierarchical microoctahedra is realized by a self-template and subsequent vulcanization treatment, which are constructed by Cu₂S/MoS₂ heterojunction structural nanosheets immobilized on the 3D porous carbon framework (Cu₂S/MoS₂⊂PCF). Due to the distinctive structural and compositional features, these Cu₂S/MoS₂⊂PCF microoctahedra show excellent sodium-storage performance including high capacity, excellent rate capability, and superior cycling stability.

A type I photosensitizer (PBV NP) with excellent O₂^∙− photogeneration ability is devised. Triggered by acidic tumor microenvironment, vadimezan, a vascular disrupting agent, can be effectively released from PBV NPs, facilitating the shut-down of tumor vasculature. Harnessing the effective vadimezan release and O₂^∙− generation of PBV NPs, excellent hypoxic-tumor ablation is achieved without any metastasis occurrence during the whole life-span of mice .

An acid-activated mitochondria-targeted drug nanoplatform is developed for precise subcellular delivery of nitric oxide to induce mitochondria dysfunction through facilitating mitochondrial membrane permeabilization and downregulating adenosine triphosphate (ATP) level. Such an energy suppressing strategy proves crucial in inhibiting P-glycoprotein-related bioactivities and tumor-derived microvesicles formation, showing great potential to overcome drug resistance and cancer metastasis.

A single-step fabrication of 1T-Mn_xMo_1−xS_2−ySe_y and MoFe₂S_4−zSe_z nanosheet arrays based high-performance flexible and solid-state asymmetric supercapacitor (FS-ASC) is reported. FS-ASC shows high energy density and power density compared to contemporary reported transition-metal dichalcogenides based supercapacitor due to increase in surface area, enrichment of 1T phase, and expansion in the interlayer spacing following co-doping and intercalation of metal and nonmetals .

DNA-driven two-layer core–satellite assembly is fabricated to detect the microRNA (miRNA) in living cells. With the circular dichroism and surface-enhanced Raman scattering signals, the ultrasensitive detection of miRNA in living cells is successfully achieved. The developed fabrication strategy opens up an avenue for ultrasensitive, highly accurate, and reliable diagnoses of clinical diseases.

A flexible, controllable, and robust photoelectrochemical (PEC)-type photodetector based on hydrogen-terminated germanene is demonstrated that exhibits a high photocurrent density of 2.9 µA cm⁻² with zero bias potential, excellent responsivity as well as short response time. This efficient strategy suggests a path to promising high-performance, self-powered, flexible photodetectors, and it also paves the way to a practical application of germanene.

Vertically aligned porous cobalt tungsten carbide nanosheet embedded in N-doped carbon matrix is constructed via a facile metal–organic frameworks derived method and exhibits excellent hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction catalytic activity in alkaline solution. The two-electrode water splitting device requires a low cell voltage of 1.585 V at 10 mA cm⁻² with a great stability.

This work originally addresses the role of chemical substitution in tuning the metal–insulator transition (MIT) and the associated changes in the intrinsic resistive switching (RS) parameters in two strongly correlated systems, lanthanum strontium manganites (band-filling-controlled MIT) and rare-earth nickelates (bandwidth-controlled MIT) through scanning probe microscopy. These findings can help to optimize RS devices based on metallic complex oxides.

A resource-efficient ionic-liquid-assisted, low-temperature synthesis route of high-quality Pb₂B₅O₉X (X = Cl, Br) borate-halide microcrystallites is reported herein. Due to their finite size and large specific surface area, they exhibit excellent second harmonic conversion efficiencies. This is highly useful for surface studies, such as monitoring chemical reactions with picosecond time resolution, when investigating in situ (photo-) catalysis, and for biological sensing.

A new humidity-induced nontemplating strategy for the general synthesis of hierarchical carbon hybrid nanofibers with abundant mesopores and interconnected cavities is developed. Benefiting from the unique topology, the resulted hybrid catalyst exhibits excellent bifunctional electrocatalytic activities toward oxygen reduction/evolution reactions. Zinc–air battery based on this catalyst shows high power density and long cycle life.