Ultrasonic vibration turns back the aging clock on metallic glasses

Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory

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Aging-Assisted UV Loading

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Credit: Jiang Ma, Shuai Ren and Jianyu Chen from Shenzhen University.

A research team led by Jiang Ma from Shenzhen University, China, has developed a novel technique to enhance the plasticity of metallic glasses. By leveraging a combination of controlled aging processes and ultrasonic vibrations, they have demonstrated the ability to reverse aging-induced property deterioration and significantly improve the capacity of these glasses to deform without breaking. The team demonstrated that aged samples completely lose their compressive plasticity, whereas UV treatment after aging not only restores it but enhances the plasticity beyond that of the as-cast one.

This finding breaks through the traditional perception of aging effects and opens up a new research direction for more durable and versatile applications of MGs in various industries.

Metallic glasses (MGs) are a unique class of amorphous metals characterized by their disordered atomic structures, which confer exceptional mechanical properties such as high strength, elasticity, and corrosion resistance. These materials have attracted significant interest for diverse applications, including structural components, electronic devices, and biomedical implants. However, despite their advantageous properties, MGs face critical challenges that hinder their practical deployment. One major obstacle is their susceptibility to aging, a natural process where the atomic arrangement gradually relaxes into a more stable, lower-energy state over time. This aging leads to a deterioration in ductility and plasticity, making the materials more fragile and less capable of sustaining deformation without fracture.

Traditionally, efforts to rejuvenate or restore the ductility of aged MGs have involved thermal treatments or mechanical processes, but these methods often require high energy input, lengthy procedures, or risk damaging the structural integrity of the glasses.

MGs are fabricated by quenching glass-forming metallic liquids at relatively high cooling rates to prevent crystallization. Owing to their unique amorphous structure, MGs exhibit superior properties such as large elastic limits, high strength, good wear resistance, and remarkable soft magnetic properties. However, their inherent brittleness has limited their applications. Moreover, shaping MGs into desired components often involves thermo-plastic deformation, which requires heating the sample to the supercooled liquid region. However, this heating process significantly exacerbates the aging effect, leading to a rapid deterioration in properties, particularly in terms of plasticity. This greatly restricts their processing and applications. Therefore, finding ways to mitigate the effect caused by aging is a critical challenge in this field.

The Results: Taking this in mind, a group of researchers found that ultrasonic vibration (UV) treatment can effectively reverse aging in MGs. within just half a second, restoring and even surpassing original levels of plasticity. They revealed that UV treatment can rejuvenate aged Zr-based MGs in just 0.5 seconds, restoring and even enhancing their plasticity to 14.5%, 1.5 times greater than their original as-cast state. This rapid, efficient recovery marks a major improvement over conventional aging reversal method. The research uncovers the structural basis for this rejuvenation, showing that UV treatment induces a higher energy, disordered atomic state associated with “anti-free volume defects”, a densely packed regions that improve atomic mobility and facilitate deformation. This disorder directly correlates with improved mechanical properties, offering a key insight into how vibrational energy reshapes the atomic structure of these glasses.

An innovative and counterintuitive approach was also introduced by the researchers: the pre-aging the MGs and subsequent UV treatment can improve ductility of the glasses.

The Impact: The findings offer a transformative, low-cost alternative to traditional rejuvenation methods, enabling fast and damage-free recovery of aged MGs. This technique could greatly extend the lifespan and reliability of MG components in structural, biomedical, and electronic applications.

Beyond practical applications, the study establishes a new paradigm for tailoring amorphous materials by linking vibrational energy input to atomic-level structural changes and macroscopic properties.

The Future: This work demonstrates that aging is no longer a detrimental process, but an essential prerequisite to improve plasticity MGs after UV treatment. This finding breaks through the traditional perception of aging effects and opens up a a novel path for designing MGs with customizable mechanical performance, opening exciting directions for future research and processing techniques across various amorphous and metastable materials.

From a theoretical standpoint, the anti-free volume defect framework offers a compelling explanation for our experimental observations. However, the direct experimental evidence for these defects remains elusive, representing a critical gap in our understanding of their structural manifestation. Future studies are needed to obtain direct evidence for the formation of anti-free volume defects through molecular dynamics simulations or positron annihilation spectroscopy. Such investigations will not only validate the anti-free volume defects, but also offer critical insights into the atomic-scale mechanisms governing defect-mediated plasticity in MGs.

From a broader perspective, this strategy offers new possibilities for the functional application of amorphous alloys and may potentially be extended to multiple functional material fields, such as catalytic performance modulation (in Pd-based or Pt-based MGs) and soft magnetic property optimization (in Fe-based MGs), holding significant scientific and application value. Moreover, the relationship between the energy threshold exhibited in this work and the amorphous composition, as well as the long-term stability of the samples after ultrasonic treatment, still warrant further investigation.

This research has been recently published in the online edition of Materials Futures, a prominent international journal in the field of interdisciplinary materials science research.

Reference: Jianyu Chen, Shuai Ren, Zhe Chen, Jie Dong, Zhichao Lu, Jiahua Zhu, Lixing Zhu, Yangguang Zhan, Xingran Zhao, Wenxue Wang, Shenghao Zeng, Jing Xiao, Sajad Sohrabi, Xiong Liang, Ke Yang, Dong Ma, Jiang Ma. Plasticity Enhancement in Metallic Glasses via Aging-assisted Ultrasonic Vibrations[J]. Materials Futures. DOI: 10.1088/2752-5724/adeeae

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Journal

Materials Futures

DOI

10.1088/2752-5724/adeeae 

 

Risk of deadly diarrheal diseases in children set to worsen as climate changes

Diarrhea remains one of the most serious health threats to young children in the Global South improved access to education and targeted health policies could help families protect their children

Flinders University

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Diarrhoea remains one of the most serious health threats to young children in the Global South, and new research shows that climate change is set to worsen the risk substantially. However, improved access to education and targeted health policies could help families protect their children from this deadly disease.

Published in the scientific journal Environmental Research, this is one of the first large-scale studies to examine how long-term climate, socio-economic, and maternal and child health factors intersect to affect the risk of acquiring diarrhoea.

This study shows that rising temperatures and unusually drier rainy seasons — both hallmarks of climate change — are expected to increase the risk of diarrhoeal diseases across South and Southeast Asia, posing serious health threats to millions of children.

Although preventable and treatable, diarrhoeal diseases currently claim hundreds of thousands of child lives every year, predominantly in low- and middle-income countries. Increasing the use of measures known to limit the spread of the causal infections can help counter the expected increases in mortality from climate change.

Led by Dr Hira Fatima formerly of Flinders University, researchers including Prof Corey Bradshaw from Flinders, and Dr Melinda Judge and Prof Peter Le Souef from The Kids Research Institute Australia and the University of Western Australia, analysed observations of more than 3 million children in eight Asian countries, and highlighted temperature extremes and declining rainfall as the two main climate-associated drivers of higher risk of children getting diarrhoea.

Dr Fatima says the results make it clear that maternal education on good hygiene practices, the importance of breastfeeding, and recognising the symptoms of diarrhoea are the most effective ways to reduce diarrhoea in children in South and Southeast Asia.

“Children of mothers with less than eight years of schooling faced an 18% higher risk of diarrhoea,” said Dr Fatima. “This makes investing in maternal education one of the most powerful and scalable climate-adaptation strategies — not only to improve child health, but also to address broader challenges like overcrowding and poor hygiene. Education empowers mothers to act early when their children fall ill, which can save lives.”

“Education is not only a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, but also a powerful tool for climate adaptation that must be central to climate-health policies, particularly in densely populated, high-risk regions of the world.

Co-author, Professor Corey Bradshaw says the modelling shows that temperature swings of 30 to 40 °C increased diarrhoea risk by 39%, while drier rainy seasons raised the risk by 29%.

“Our modelling emphasises that we need to develop and implement climate-related health policies that protect children under five years old from this increasing health risk,” said Professor Bradshaw.

“Around 88% of diarrhoeal deaths are linked to unsafe drinking water and related causes. Improved access to drinking water can reduce the risk of diarrhoea by 52%, while better sanitation facilities can lower the risk by 24%. We know that poverty increases the risk of diarrhoea by limiting access to nutritious food, clean water, and healthcare, while also fostering environments where diarrhoeal pathogens thrive.

“With our recent research also showing that droughts in East Asia will intensify based on 150,000 years of monsoon records, this new study now warns that the intensified impacts of climate change will lead to increased child diarrhoea and all the associated health impacts in Asia.”

To build resilience against the growing impacts of climate change, the researchers urge governments to prioritise expanding access to maternal education — particularly through child health programs — while also investing in safe water systems and addressing overcrowding through improved housing and infrastructure policy.”

Dr Melinda Judge says that despite contributing the least to climate change, low- and middle-income countries will continue to experience a higher burden of childhood diarrhoeal disease because of it. Specific child health impacts due to climate change must be acknowledged and addressed.

Professor Peter Le Souëf says that as climate change accelerates, child health outcomes will worsen if measures are not put into place to counter the predicted increase in diarrhoea cases.

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Journal

Environmental Research

DOI

10.1016/j.envres.2025.122412 

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Impact of climate change on diarrhoea risk in low- and middle-income countries

Article Publication Date

29-Jul-2025

 

Allergy-triggering proteins in barley measured precisely for the first time—new basis for more tolerable foods

Researchers develop new measurement method and analyze over 180 barley accessions from around the world

Leibniz-Institut für Lebensmittel-Systembiologie an der TU München

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The photo shows a section of a barley field. The grain is still green and not yet fully mature.

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Credit: Prof. Dr. Katharina Scherf

Amylase/trypsin-inhibitors (ATIs) are proteins that can trigger immune reactions in the human body. They are best known from wheat, where they are considered a possible trigger of non-celiac wheat sensitivity. An international research team led by Katharina Scherf from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich has now succeeded for the first time in precisely measuring these proteins in barley. The results could open up new avenues for the development of more tolerable foods.

For their study, the researchers analyzed 181 different barley accessions from around the world. Among the accessions were 113 two-row and 68 six-row types with different genetic backgrounds. Although two-row accessions only form one grain per node in the ear, this grain is particularly strong and rich in starch, making it especially suitable for beer production. In contrast, multi-row barley accessions develop three grains per node. These are slightly weaker developed and are mainly used as animal feed.

Using a specially developed analysis method, Katharina Scherf and her team were able to clearly identify and quantify ten barley-specific ATI types for the first time. “Until now, we knew very little about the occurrence of ATIs in barley. Our method now provides reliable data on the barley-specific ATI composition for the first time,” reports principal investigator Katharina Scherf.

As her research team shows, the total ATI content of the samples examined varied between 1.1 and 5.2 milligrams per gram of flour, which corresponds to 0.7–3.6 percent of the total protein content. Interestingly, the number of rows of barley did not significantly influence the ATI content.

Relevance for people with intolerances

The findings are particularly relevant for people with food intolerances. Alongside gluten and so-called FODMAPs, ATIs are considered possible triggers of symptoms such as diarrhea, flatulence, headaches, or “brain fog.” Sabrina Geisslitz, co-author from the Leibniz Institute, adds: “Although it is still difficult to diagnose non-celiac wheat sensitivity, many sufferers report relief from symptoms when following a gluten-free or low-gluten diet.”

“Now that we have a better understanding of the ATI composition in barley, we can specifically identify accessions with particularly low ATI content. This is an important first step toward breeding more tolerable barley accessions,” explains Sarah Joestl, first author of the study and PhD student of Katharina Scherf. Three six-row landraces originating in Eritrea, Greece, and Ethiopia, which had very low ATI levels, are particularly promising.

Barley—more than just a base for beer

Barley is one of the world's most important cereals after corn, wheat, and rice. Around 142 million tons were harvested in the 2023/24 harvest year alone. In Europe, it is mainly used for animal feed and beer production, but increasingly also as an ingredient in breakfast cereals, baked goods, and plant-based meat alternatives.

In future studies, the researchers therefore want to investigate the ATI content in processed barley products. The aim is to improve the tolerability of these products, especially for sensitive people with allergies or chronic inflammatory diseases.

Publication: Joestl, S., Alomari, D.Z., Alqudah, A.M., Börner, A., Geisslitz, S., and Scherf, K.A. (2025). Quantitation of amylase/trypsin inhibitors in barley using targeted LC-MS/MS. Food Res Int, 116910. 10.1016/j.foodres.2025.116910. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2025.116910

Funding: Co-funded by the European Union (ERC, GLUTENOMICS, 101040437). However, the views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the funding authority can be held responsible for this.

More Information:

An accession is a single, clearly identified plant variety that is collected, described, and preserved for research or breeding purposes. Each accession may be genetically different, e.g., from a specific region, with special resistance characteristics, yield potential, or taste.

Amylase/trypsin-inhibitors (ATIs) are naturally occurring proteins found in the endosperm, the nutrient storage tissue of grains. They may be involved in grain maturation and carbohydrate storage. They also act as protection against parasites and pathogens by inhibiting the digestive enzymes alpha-amylase and/or trypsin.

FODMAPs are certain types of carbohydrates found in many foods that can cause digestive problems such as bloating, abdominal pain, and diarrhea in some people. FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. These are types of sugars and sugar alcohols. Foods high in FODMAPs include grains such as wheat, dairy products, certain fruits and vegetables, and legumes.

The prevalence of non-celiac wheat sensitivity varies between 0.6 and 6 percent in the Western population.

Grains such as corn, wheat, rice, and barley are important staple foods worldwide, accounting for over 60 percent of global food consumption. Barley was one of the first grains to be domesticated and is grown worldwide due to its adaptability to different climates and geographical areas.

Analysis methods: The research team developed its own liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for its analyses and combined it with stable isotope dilution analysis.

The barley samples examined in the study were provided by the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research.

Information About the Institute:

The Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich (Leibniz-LSB@TUM) comprises a new, unique research profile at the interface of Food Chemistry & Biology, Chemosensors & Technology, and Bioinformatics & Machine Learning. As this profile has grown far beyond the previous core discipline of classical food chemistry, the institute spearheads the development of a food systems biology. Its aim is to develop new approaches for the sustainable production of sufficient quantities of food whose biologically active effector molecule profiles are geared to health and nutritional needs, but also to the sensory preferences of consumers. To do so, the institute explores the complex networks of sensorically relevant effector molecules along the entire food production chain with a focus on making their effects systemically understandable and predictable in the long term.

A Member of the Leibniz Associatation

The Leibniz-LSB@TUM is a member of the Leibniz Association, which connects 96 independent research institutions. Their orientation ranges from the natural sciences, engineering and environmental sciences through economics, spatial and social sciences to the humanities. Leibniz Institutes address issues of social, economic and ecological relevance.They conduct basic and applied research, including in the interdisciplinary Leibniz Research Alliances, maintain scientific infrastructure, and provide research-based services. The Leibniz Association identifies focus areas for knowledge transfer, particularly with the Leibniz research museums. It advises and informs policymakers, science, industry and the general public.

Leibniz institutions collaborate intensively with universities – including in the form of Leibniz ScienceCampi – as well as with industry and other partners at home and abroad. They are subject to a transparent, independent evaluation procedure. Because of their importance for the country as a whole, the Leibniz Association Institutes are funded jointly by Germany’s central and regional governments. The Leibniz Institutes employ around 21,300 people, including 12,200 researchers. The financial volume amounts to 2,2 billion euros.

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Journal

Food Research International

DOI

10.1016/j.foodres.2025.116910 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Quantitation of amylase/trypsin-inhibitors in barley using targeted LC-MS/MS

COI Statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

 

Optimizing geothermal foundations in soft clay for urban buildings

Researchers use advanced modeling and simulations for simplified design of geothermal heat-exchanging foundations (energy piles)

Shibaura Institute of Technology

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Researchers develop a simplified model to design efficient energy pile foundations for geothermal temperature regulations in buildings.

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Credit: Prof. Shinya Inazumi from Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan Source Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214157X25008317?via%3Dihub

As urbanization increases and climate changes accelerate, there is an urgent need for sustainable and space-efficient solutions for heating and cooling in buildings. One promising solution is to use energy piles—concrete foundation systems that also serve as heat exchangers using geothermal energy. However, in high-density cities like Tokyo, Bangkok, and Manila, where buildings are often constructed on soft clay foundations, engineers face unique challenges in designing these energy piles.

In this context, a research team led by Professor Shinya Inazumi from the College of Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan, has come up with an innovative framework to improve the design and performance of energy piles, especially in soft clay soils. This study was made available online on June 27, 2025, and was published in Volume 73 of the journal Case Studies in Thermal Engineering in September 2025.

Energy piles are concrete foundation elements with embedded U-shaped pipes that circulate heat transfer fluids within them. These heat transfer fluids exchange thermal energy with the surrounding ground. When these elements are connected to ground source heat pumps (GSHPs), they can efficiently heat and cool buildings by using the stable underground temperatures. GSHPs are known to maintain high performance even in fluctuating surface temperatures, unlike conventional air-source heat pumps, which are less efficient in extreme weather—making GSHPs an ideal solution for extreme temperature climates.

While GSHPs increase efficiency, energy pile systems encounter several challenges. In most cities, soft clay soils are used for construction; these soils are characterized by low permeability (resistance to water flow) and low thermal conductivity (difficulty in transferring heat). In such cases, the accumulation of heat over time can lead to a phenomenon called thermal interference that reduces the efficiency of the entire system.

To encounter this, the researchers used a combined computational and experimental approach and developed a three-dimensional heat transfer model. Using finite element models (FEM) via COMSOL Multiphysics, a physics-based simulation software, the researchers modeled heat transfer around energy piles embedded in soft clay. These simulations were then calibrated using real-world data obtained from a test site in Bangkok. The model analyzed several pile groupings ranging from one to nine piles, which operated under various daily time cycles (8 to 24 hours).

“We developed a simplified prediction model to help engineers improve energy pile design without the need for expensive computational resources or specialized expertise,” says Prof. Inazumi.

The results revealed several insights on the performances of the energy piles. Firstly, the grouped configurations exhibited measurable thermal interference, with soil temperatures rising from 2.18% to 15.43% around the closely spaced piles. Estimating this interference at the design stage was considered critical as it can diminish the system’s efficiency.

“To simplify the process, we introduced practical multiplier factors that allow engineers to predict thermal behavior using single-pile simulations,” explains Prof. Inazumi.

The multiplier factors range from 1.6498 to 2.9119 and could be applied to the results obtained from single-pile simulations, allowing engineers to predict the performance of larger pile groups without the need for complex three-dimensional models. This dramatically reduces the need for full-scale FEM runs, offering a quick, accessible method for thermal performance estimation.

The study also noted that reducing operational hours could delay the temperature saturation (when the soil becomes too warm to absorb more heat) by 103 hours. Additionally, reducing the operational hours also decreased the peak soil temperatures by 29% over 5 years. Another critical finding was that the piles at the center get hotter in comparison to those at the edge, suggesting the effect of crowding. These insights suggest that the design of energy pile groups can be optimized by using the provided multipliers and temperature maps. This optimization strategy can help maintain structural integrity and extend the system's lifespan.

The model has significant potential for real-world applications. It is essentially relevant for engineers working in rapidly urbanizing cities built on soft soils, where traditional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems are both energy-intensive and climate-vulnerable. By offering easy-to-use simulation shortcuts validated with real-world data, this research lowers the entry barrier for adopting geothermal systems in Southeast Asia and beyond, paving the way for a cleaner, and sustainable future.

“Our study, by demonstrating the viability and affordability of geothermal energy systems for dense urban environments, addresses the challenges in regional development, contributing to the global climate agenda,” concludes Prof. Inazumi.

 

***

 

Reference
DOI: 10.1016/j.csite.2025.106571          

 

About Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT), Japan
Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT) is a private university with campuses in Tokyo and Saitama. Since the establishment of its predecessor, Tokyo Higher School of Industry and Commerce, in 1927, it has maintained “learning through practice” as its philosophy in the education of engineers. SIT was the only private science and engineering university selected for the Top Global University Project sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and had received support from the ministry for 10 years starting from the 2014 academic year. Its motto, “Nurturing engineers who learn from society and contribute to society,” reflects its mission of fostering scientists and engineers who can contribute to the sustainable growth of the world by exposing their over 9,500 students to culturally diverse environments, where they learn to cope, collaborate, and relate with fellow students from around the world.

Website: https://www.shibaura-it.ac.jp/en/

 

About Professor Shinya Inazumi from SIT, Japan
Dr. Shinya Inazumi is a Professor at the College of Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan. He has expertise in civil and environmental engineering, with a strong focus on geotechnical engineering. With over 300 scholarly publications on topics such as particle-method simulations, sustainable geopolymer materials, and AI-driven urban-resilience mapping, he is recognized as a leading geotechnical researcher. He has been honored with multiple awards, including the MEXT Young Scientists’ Prize (2015), ICE Publishing Environmental Geotechnics Prize (2020), ISSN Outstanding Researcher & Golden Research Awards (2020), and a Best Paper Award at the 14th International Conference on Geotechnique, Construction Materials and Environment (2024).

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Journal

Case Studies in Thermal Engineering

DOI

10.1016/j.csite.2025.106571 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Integrated computational and experimental evaluation of thermal optimization in energy pile groups in soft clay

Article Publication Date

27-Jul-2025

KAIST enables on-site disease diagnosis in just 3 minutes...nanozyme reaction selectivity improved 38-fold​

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

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<(From Left) Professor Jinwoo Lee, Ph.D candidate Seonhye Park and Ph.D candidate Daeeun Choi from Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering>

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Credit: KAIST

To enable early diagnosis of acute illnesses and effective management of chronic conditions, point-of-care testing (POCT) technology—diagnostics conducted near the patient—is drawing global attention. The key to POCT lies in enzymes that recognize and react precisely with specific substances. However, traditional natural enzymes are expensive and unstable, and nanozymes (enzyme-mimicking catalysts) have suffered from low reaction selectivity. Now, a Korean research team has developed a high-sensitivity sensor platform that achieves 38 times higher selectivity than existing nanozymes and allows disease diagnostics visible to the naked eye within just 3 minutes.

On the 28th, KAIST (President Kwang Hyung Lee) announced that Professor Jinwoo Lee’s research team from the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, in collaboration with teams led by Professor Jeong Woo Han at Seoul National University and Professor Moon Il Kim at Gachon University, has developed a new single-atom catalyst that selectively performs only peroxidase-like reactions while maintaining high reaction efficiency.

Using bodily fluids such as blood, urine, or saliva, this diagnostic platform enables test results to be read within minutes even outside hospital settings—greatly improving medical accessibility and ensuring timely treatment. The key lies in the visual detection of biomarkers (disease indicators) through color changes triggered by enzyme reactions. However, natural enzymes are expensive and easily degraded in diagnostic environments, limiting their storage and distribution.

To address this, inorganic nanozyme materials have been developed as substitutes. Yet, they typically lack selectivity—when hydrogen peroxide is used as a substrate, the same catalyst triggers both peroxidase-like reactions (which cause color change) and catalase-like reactions (which remove the substrate), reducing diagnostic signal accuracy.

To control catalyst selectivity at the atomic level, the researchers used an innovative structural design: attaching chlorine (Cl) ligands in a three-dimensional configuration to the central ruthenium (Ru) atom to fine-tune its chemical properties. This enabled them to isolate only the desired diagnostic signal.

Experimental results showed that the new catalyst achieved over 38-fold improvement in selectivity compared to existing nanozymes, with significantly increased sensitivity and speed in detecting hydrogen peroxide. Even in near-physiological conditions (pH 6.0), the catalyst maintained its performance, proving its applicability in real-world diagnostics.

By incorporating the catalyst and oxidase into a paper-based sensor, the team created a system that could simultaneously detect four key biomarkers related to health: glucose, lactate, cholesterol, and choline—all with a simple color change.

This platform is broadly applicable across various disease diagnostics and can deliver results within 3 minutes without complex instruments or pH adjustments. The findings show that diagnostic performance can be dramatically improved without changing the platform itself, but rather by engineering the catalyst structure.

Professor Jinwoo Lee of KAIST commented, “This study is significant in that it simultaneously achieves enzyme-level selectivity and reactivity by structurally designing single-atom catalysts.” He added that “the structure–function-based catalyst design strategy can be extended to the development of various metal-based catalysts and other reaction domains where selectivity is critical.”

Seonhye Park and Daeeun Choi, both Ph.D. candidates at KAIST, are co-first authors. The research was published on July 6, 2025, in the prestigious journal Advanced Materials.

●        Title: Breaking the Selectivity Barrier of Single-Atom Nanozymes Through Out-of-Plane Ligand Coordination

●        Authors: Seonhye Park (KAIST, co–first author), Daeeun Choi (KAIST, co–first author), Kyu In Shim (SNU, co–first author), Phuong Thy Nguyen (Gachon Univ., co–first author), Seongbeen Kim (KAIST), Seung Yeop Yi (KAIST), Moon Il Kim (Gachon Univ., corresponding author), Jeong Woo Han (SNU, corresponding author), Jinwoo Lee (KAIST, corresponding author)

●        DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202506480

This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF).

<Figure1. The catalyst in this study (ruthenium single-atom catalyst) exhibits peroxidase-like activity with selectivity akin to natural enzymes through three-dimensional directional ligand coordination. Due to the absence of competing catalase activity, selective peroxidase-like reactions proceed under biomimetic conditions. In contrast, conventional single-atom catalysts with active sites arranged on planar surfaces exhibit dual functionality depending on pH. Under neutral conditions, their catalase activity leads to hydrogen peroxide depletion, hindering accurate detection. The catalyst in this study eliminates such interference, enabling direct detection of biomarkers through coupled reactions with oxidases without the need for cumbersome steps like buffer replacement. The ability to simultaneously detect multiple target substances under biomimetic conditions demonstrates the practicality of ruthenium single-atom catalysts for on-site diagnostics>

<Figure 2.(a) Schematic diagram of the paper sensor (Zone 1: glucose oxidase immobilized; Zone 2: lactate oxidase immobilized; Zone 3: choline oxidase immobilized; Zone 4: cholesterol oxidase immobilized; Zone 5: no oxidase enzyme). (b) Single biomarker (single disease indicator) detection using the ruthenium single‑atom catalyst–based paper sensor.(c) Multiple biomarker (multiple disease indicator) detection using the ruthenium single‑atom catalyst–based paper sensor>

Credit

KAIST

DOI

10.1002/adma.202506480 

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Breaking the Selectivity Barrier of Single-Atom Nanozymes Through Out-of-Plane Ligand Coordination