A self-stratified stretchable interface for thermal management of wearable electronics
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 27-Oct-2026 10:17 ET (27-Oct-2026 14:17 GMT/UTC)
Researchers have developed a stretchable passive cooling interface that spontaneously self-stratifies into a sunlight-reflecting upper region and a liquid-metal heat-spreading lower region, reducing the temperature of wearable electronics by up to 12 °C outdoors while preserving the quality of physiological signals.
Metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) affects approximately 25% of the global population and is typically linked to obesity. Notably, emerging evidence indicates that 12%–20% of MAFLD occurs in individuals with normal body weight or even in lean individuals, a condition termed lean MAFLD. These individuals often exhibit distinct clinical features, including lower insulin resistance but similar risks of liver fibrosis, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), and higher cardiovascular mortality. Despite its clinical significance, the underlying mechanism of lean MAFLD remains poorly understood due to the lack of representative animal models.
Liver fibrosis, a common pathological outcome of chronic liver injury, is a key precursor to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Despite its clinical importance, no effective antifibrotic therapies are currently available.
Through a sol-gel method, sub-nanometer WN clusters are embedded into a porous Fe-N-C aerogel to form a universal support that anchors Pt-based ORR catalysts with record stability. In MEA (0.05 mgPt/cm²), it delivers 1.85 W/cm² peak power density and retains 91.1 % after 90,000 cycles (only 4 mV loss at 0.80 A/cm²)—far exceeding the DOE 2030 target.
With the accelerated advancement of lunar and Mars exploration programs, long-term human habitation on extraterrestrial bodies faces the severe challenge of extreme diurnal temperature variations. Phase change materials (PCMs), owing to their ability to store or release substantial latent heat during solid–liquid phase transitions while maintaining a nearly constant temperature, have become an ideal solution for space thermal control systems. However, in the microgravity environment of space, the ground-dominant natural convection tends to disappear, and thermocapillary convection may become the prevailing heat transfer mechanism; in low-gravity environments such as those on the Moon and Mars, the coexistence and competition between these two convective regimes remain unclear. Existing studies have predominantly focused on either Earth's gravity or pure microgravity conditions, with a notable scarcity of research on the coupled effects of thermocapillary and natural convection at intermediate gravity levels. The melting dynamics of two typical organic PCMs, succinonitrile and n-octadecane, under low-gravity conditions have not yet been systematically elucidated. Therefore, clarifying the roles of thermocapillary convection under varying gravity levels and container geometries holds significant engineering guidance for the design of efficient space thermal control systems.