A pioneering technology capable of converting lignin, one of the world's most abundant organic compounds, into vanillin and biodegradable materials has been unveiled by the University of Alicante (UA), in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV). The study, published today in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, offers a sustainable method for repurposing plant waste and identifies viable alternatives to the fossil fuels that currently drive the chemical industry. For the first time, scientists have successfully processed this agricultural by-product into biodegradable plasticisers suitable for 3D printing.

New study by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry shows: The forest chemically adapts to extreme drought – and continues responding long after the stress ends

Researchers led by Professor Maochang Liu at Xi’an Jiaotong University have developed a photocatalytic system that simultaneously produces hydrogen gas and a valuable industrial chemical from ethanol with 100% selectivity. By anchoring Ru single atoms and creating S vacancies on ultrathin porous CdS nanosheets, the team achieved an 81.5-fold enhancement in hydrogen evolution compared to pristine CdS. The work, published in Science Bulletin, provides a new strategy for solar-driven coproduction of clean fuel and high-value chemicals.

Researchers at The University of Osaka used a focused laser beam to make in vitro models of cytoskeletal networks that exhibit dynamic cell-like motions. This technique provides spatiotemporal control of the network structure, unlike conventional methods based on self-organization and photochemical reactions. The models could be used to determine the structure–motion relationship of cytoskeletal networks, which has applications for understanding cell division, migration, and adhesion and the creation of protein-based robots and synthetic cells.

Biochar is often described as a climate-smart soil amendment because it can improve soil quality while storing carbon for long periods. But once biochar is added to soil, it does not stay unchanged. Rain, drying, minerals, oxygen, and microorganisms gradually alter its surface, chemistry, and environmental functions. For saline soils, where salt stress already limits crop production across many agricultural regions, scientists have had limited information about how biochar changes over time.

Tea is one of the world’s most widely consumed beverages, but the soils that sustain tea plantations are under growing pressure. Long-term fertilizer use, monocropping, soil acidification, nutrient loss, heavy metal contamination, and climate stress are threatening both tea productivity and environmental safety. A new review published in Biochar examines how biochar, a carbon-rich material produced by heating biomass under limited oxygen, could become a practical tool for more sustainable tea cultivation.

Rice feeds billions of people, but flooded paddy fields are also an important source of methane, a greenhouse gas far more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. A new five-year field study suggests that the way biochar is applied may determine whether rice farming can achieve durable climate benefits.

Scientists have identified the two biggest reasons that once-pristine rivers across the Arctic are growing cloudy with toxic orange iron particles that smother insects and suffocate fish.