The development of high-efficiency metal-free photocatalysts for eliminating endocrine-disrupting compounds continues to pose a considerable challenge. Herein, we report the rational design and fabrication of a green and efficient donor-acceptor heterojunction photocatalyst, PTQ10:Y6@CSC, via a robust π-π stacking strategy. Relative to the PTQ10:IEICO-4F system with weak π-π interactions, the PTQ10:Y6 heterojunction exhibits a significantly enhanced internal electric field, with an intensity 2.05 times greater. This reinforced internal electric field effectively promotes the dissociation of photogenerated excitons and extends the charge carrier lifetime to 1.473 ns (compared to 1.267 ns for PTQ10:IEICO-4F). As a result, the production efficiency of key reactive species (•O2- and h+) is substantially elevated, enabling the complete degradation of 20 ppm methyltestosterone within 40 min under simulated solar irradiation. The PTQ10:Y6@CSC composite also demonstrates remarkable cycling stability, retaining 97.89% of its initial activity after 16 consecutive runs. Moreover, combining density functional theory simulations with experimental analyses, this study elucidates the underlying photodegradation pathways and reaction mechanisms by identifying the vulnerable attack sites on the methyltestosterone molecule. These findings provide not only a high-performance photocatalytic system for endocrine-disrupting compounds remediation but also fundamental insights into the structure-property relationships governing π-π stacked heterojunctions.

This study aimed to investigate how alertness, sleepiness, and fatigue change across consecutive night compared to morning shifts among Arctic shift workers and whether these effects differ between seasons of midnight sun and polar night. We conducted an observational crossover study of 118 shift workers from an industrial plant at a high latitude (71°N) in northern Norway. Eighty-one individuals participated in both the light (near 24-hour daylight) and dark (minimal natural light) seasons. Work schedules included blocks of seven consecutive morning shifts and seven consecutive night shifts, separated by four rest days. Alertness (psychomotor vigilance test), subjective sleepiness (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale), and subjective fatigue were measured at the end of shifts on days 1, 3, and 6 of each shift block. We analyzed data using multilevel mixed-effects regression models with season, shift type (morning/night), and consecutive workday number as fixed effects. Night shifts were linked to lower alertness and higher sleepiness and fatigue in both seasons, with the largest impairments on the first night. Across six consecutive night shifts, alertness improved and sleepiness and fatigue decreased, with similar trajectories in both seasons. There was no evidence that season significantly affected alertness, sleepiness, or fatigue. Night shifts generally impair alertness and increase sleepiness and fatigue, yet outcomes improved across consecutive nights. Despite the well-established effects of natural light on circadian rhythms, the seasonal photoperiod altered neither the shift-related impairments in alertness, sleepiness or fatigue nor the subsequent improvements across consecutive nights; workers showed similar adaptation in both seasons.

Controlled light intensity efficiently enhances micronutrient content and composition in chia sprouts.

Tuning pyrolysis temperature of wheat straw biochar supports for enhanced Bi2WO6 photocatalytic degradation of stormwater contaminants in real water matrices.

Cu0.5Ni0.5MnxFe2-xO4 magnetically separable nano ferrites: A highly efficient photocatalyst for degradation of dye under solar light irradiation

Light pollution by coastal streetlights affects intertidal grazers and biofilm differentially in natural rocky habitats and breakwaters.

While greenhouse cultivation boosts food production to address population growth, its energy-intensive temperature control and irrigation systems pose significant sustainability challenges. Here, we present a thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) hydrogel (NA-Li) that closes the water and thermal energy loop within greenhouses. Below the thermoresponsive temperatures, the embedded hygroscopic salt enables autonomous atmospheric water harvesting in a wide range of humid environments. Above the thermoresponsive temperatures, the poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) chains collapse, directly squeezing out the liquid water to irrigate drylands, without extra condensers. Simultaneously, the dropped transmittance of solar light efficiently decreases the interior temperatures (1.1-6.0 °C) to mitigate sunscald and reduces soil- and transpiration-driven water loss. As a proof-of-concept application, greenhouse trials confirmed the noticeable efficacy of NA-Li in promoting crop survival rates under thermal shock and doubling productivity, saving 1.02 kg m-2 water consumption. By synchronizing atmospheric water capture, on-demand irrigation and adaptive radiative shading in a single material, this study connected the interdisciplinary fields of horticulture, thermal energy management, water and materials, which could provide a feasible solution to water and temperature management in greenhouses and a technical route for its sustainable development.

Smart windows that function in response to external conditions provide a promising approach to reduce heating, ventilation, and air conditioning energy consumption. However, it remains a major challenge to develop a smart window with environmental adaptability, multiple working states, and most importantly, the ability of dynamic management of solar light and heat with a simple and versatile molecular-designed material. Here, we present a temperature- and light-regulated smart window based on the interplay of light-driven molecular motors and liquid crystal (LC) polymers. The window can dynamically switch among three distinct working states: transparent, reflective, and scattering, depending on ambient temperature and solar light intensity. The fast switching of working states enables excellent modulation of visible light transmittance (ΔTlum = 75.2%) and near-infrared light transmittance (ΔTNIR = 49.3%), showing effective management of daylight and solar heat gain indoors. Simulation of energy regulation demonstrates that the smart window significantly reduces energy demand for indoor cooling and, therefore, is suitable for cities with different climate conditions. Our system provides an attractive approach toward more effective smart windows for sustainable and energy-efficient green buildings.

Sustainable and eco-friendly insect management practices are increasingly important in modern agriculture due to the adverse effects of chemical pesticides on ecosystems and human health. Solar insect light traps using colored light sources provide an environmentally safe alternative for insect control with minimal or no adhesive use. This study analysed the performance of a solar insect light trap developed at the Centre of Excellence for Mango, Dapoli, Maharashtra, India, with the aim of identifying the optimum environmental and operational conditions for maximum insect catch. The experiment evaluated insect catches under six different coloured solar light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs positioned at three different heights and operated during three different time periods across varying temperature conditions. Count data regression modelling was initially applied to identify significant explanatory variables, followed by a linear mixed-effects model on the reduced dataset to determine the optimum factor combination. The analysis revealed that the highest insect catch occurred at a temperature of 26 °C using a white solar LED light fixed at a height of 150 cm. The findings demonstrate that insect trapping efficiency is strongly influenced by temperature, light colour, and trap height. The study establishes that a white solar LED trap positioned at 150 cm under 26 °C conditions provide the most effective insect capture. These results contribute to the advancement of sustainable pest management by optimising eco-friendly trapping strategies that can reduce dependence on chemical insecticides in agricultural systems. © 2026 Society of Chemical Industry.

Sunlight to Plasma: Mimicking nature's light for smarter agriculture and crop production.

Solar-driven interface evaporation (SDIE) technology is considered an effective way to alleviate the world's water resources scarcity problem, and the development of structurally stable and high-performance photothermal materials is the key to SDIE technology. Black titanium dioxide (TiO2) has excellent light absorption capacity and good chemical stability, rendering it a desirable candidate for SDIE technology. Herein, a black TiO2 nanoparticle was prepared by calcining a colloidal titanium dioxide precursor, and then a black TiO2/calcium alginate composite hydrogel (PUCA-TiO2) was obtained by an impregnation cross-linking technique using a polyurethane sponge as a backbone. The PUCA-TiO2 evaporator exhibited excellent evaporation performance at one solar light intensity (1 kW m-2) with an evaporation rate of 3.331 kg m-2 h-1 and a photothermal conversion efficiency of 92.79%. Notably, the material was able to maintain an efficient evaporation rate of 2.876 kg m-2 h-1 even in a high brine concentration of 25 wt%. Real seawater desalination tests further confirmed its excellent seawater desalination capacity and long-term salt stability. The developed PUCA-TiO2 composite hydrogel breaks through the bottleneck of traditional TiO2 photothermal applications and has great potential in solar interface evaporation applications.

Since the broiler industry moved primarily to solid sidewall houses nearly twenty years ago, the goal of providing uniform light intensities by artificial bulbs has been the norm. However, increasing consumer demand for improved bird welfare has led to the provision of natural light via windows in some broiler houses and, consequently, to a more varied lighting environment. The effects of varying window configurations and seasonality on in-house light intensities have not been characterized for windowed houses. This study characterized light intensity using multiple sensor orientations in two Global Animal Partnership (GAP)-certified commercial broiler houses (18.3 × 183.9m) with different window configurations: one-sided windows (1SW) and two-sided windows (2SW), across summer, winter, and fall flocks. The 1SW configuration included 23 translucent windows on the north sidewall, while the 2SW configuration included windows on both north and south sidewalls, along with two additional west end-wall windows. Two data acquisition units per house measured light intensity at one-minute intervals near bird height in five directions. Data were analyzed across three production phases: brooding (d 1-8), growout1 (d 9-20), and growout2 (d 20-42). Mean light intensity was significantly higher in the 2SW configuration (39.9lx) compared to the 1SW configuration (27.2lx) across all seasons and phases. Solar altitude strongly influenced indoor light intensity; mean indoor light intensity in summer (44.4lx) was only 4% higher than in fall (42.7lx), despite ambient sunlight being 56% greater in summer. Ceiling-facing sensors captured less than 17% of maximum light ingress, while north- and south-facing sensors captured 60% to 99% suggesting a rotational sweep with a single sensor may better represent the light environment experienced by birds. Relative light uniformity (coefficient of variation) did not statistically differ between window configurations but was better at lower artificial light levels. Overall, these findings demonstrate that window configuration and solar geometry strongly influence the indoor light environment in broiler houses, highlighting the need for improved measurement approaches and more refined design guidelines to ensure consistent and welfare-appropriate lighting conditions.

The computational design of heteroatom-doped organic dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) remains challenging, as predictive methods must accurately describe long-range charge-transfer (CT) excitations while remaining computationally efficient for systematic materials screening. In this work, we investigate the electronic structure and excited-state properties using the range-separated hybrid functional LC-ωPBE in conjunction with linear-response time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) within the Tamm-Dancoff approximation (TDA). We employ a simplified, physically motivated, effective tuning protocol (ωeff) to enable the rapid and reliable screening of electronic properties of organic dyes. Charge-transfer excitation energies and frontier orbital alignment, the key factors governing light absorption and electron injection in DSSCs, are analyzed through targeted heteroatom (N, O, and B) incorporation into donor-π-acceptor (D-π-A) organic dyes. A library of 27 mono-, di-, and tridoped prototypical organic dyes is designed based on a carbazole donor and a cyanoacrylic acid acceptor through targeted doping at three positions of the π-bridge or linker. Distinct design trends emerge: electron-rich nitrogen and oxygen dopants increase the HOMO-LUMO gap and blue-shift CT excitations, with nitrogen exhibiting the strongest effect, whereas electron-deficient boron substitution narrows the gap and induces pronounced red shifts. Notably, the BBN-doped dye exhibits the smallest gap and lowest excitation energy, highlighting boron-rich motifs as promising candidates for enhanced solar light harvesting. Overall, this study establishes transferable heteroatom-doping guidelines and introduces an efficient, reliable, and cost-effective tuned DFT-TDDFT framework for high-throughput computational discovery and optimization of DSSC sensitizers.

Light exposure plays a fundamental role in human physiology, influencing circadian rhythms, hormonal regulation, and reproductive health. This review examines the multifaceted impact of natural and artificial light on women's reproductive function, with particular emphasis on mechanisms underlying light-mediated biological processes. Evidence demonstrates that light exposure affects melatonin secretion, which in turn modulates reproductive hormones including luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and sex steroids. Disruption of natural light-dark cycles through shift work, artificial light at night, or circadian misalignment has been associated with menstrual irregularities, ovulatory dysfunction, reduced fertility, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Conversely, adequate vitamin D synthesis through ultraviolet light exposure supports ovarian function and metabolic health. Recent studies reveal that continuous light exposure can induce anovulation through disruption of the leucine-mTOR-autophagy axis, while circadian rhythm disturbances correlate with polycystic ovary syndrome. This article synthesizes current knowledge on photobiological mechanisms, clinical implications, and therapeutic applications of light modulation in gynecological practice.

High dynamic range (HDR) imaging offers an enhanced visual experience by capturing a wider range of real-world luminance levels in digital images. Driven by the increasing demand for high-quality visuals, HDR monitor technology has seen significant advancements. As such monitors become commonplace in both consumer and professional settings, efficient methods are needed for both converting standard dynamic range (SDR) content to HDR-known as reverse tone mapping-and optimizing natural HDR lighting content for display on HDR monitors. A reverse tone mapping procedure aims to produce natural lighting levels, but even on high-end HDR monitors, such images still require adjustment to avoid hard clipping. This paper presents a solution that jointly does both steps: (1) reverse tone mapping to a display-aware HDR representation, and (2) direct generation of an image tailored for a chosen monitor brightness value. We propose a novel neural network architecture conditioned on the target peak brightness via a lightweight multi-layer perceptron (MLP) module injected at the bottleneck, which predicts a bracketed stack of LDR exposures serving as the method's HDR representation. In this manner, the ill-posed tone mapping problem is guided by auxiliary information about display characteristics, improving visual quality. Experiments throughout the full consumer HDR range (100-4000 nits) show consistent improvements over the display-agnostic baseline in peak luminance utilization, local contrast, color and perceptual quality.

ABSTRACT Cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) polymer network (CLCN) patterns for decoration have been well‐developed. However, those for anti‐counterfeiting are still limited. Herein, the CLCN films were used for selectively reflecting circularly polarized light that matches their handedness, and the nematic liquid crystal polymer network (NLCN) films with different thicknesses were used as the waveplates for manipulating the polarization states of the lights. A CLC mixture was prepared using LC242 and a photoisomerizable chiral dopant. Upon the irradiation of the 365‐nm UV light, this CLC mixture changes to a nematic liquid crystal mixture due to the photoisomerization of the chiral dopant. Then, a patterned quarter‐waveplate composed of CLCN and NLCN was prepared using this CLC mixture and a photomask through a two‐step approach. The CLCN/patterned quarter‐waveplate composite film was prepared by directly coating and curing a CLC mixture on the patterned quarter‐waveplate surface. Since the quarter‐waveplate can change the circularly polarized light to linearly polarized light, although the pattern is invisible under natural light, it is visible under linearly polarized light. The results shown here not only give us a better understanding of the effect of waveplates, but also lay the foundation for the anti‐counterfeiting CLCN/NLCN composite film.

Rapid detection of raw meat freshness using deep learning and colorimetric/fluorescent array.

Hybrid AC-DC microgrids provide a critical architecture to integrate distributed energy resources, energy storage, and DC loads by minimizing power conversion stages, thereby enhancing overall system efficiency and reliability. This paper proposes a scalable hybrid AC-DC microgrid utilizing the untapped potential of isolated distributed solar lighting systems having their own solar PV panels and battery storage. The proposed hybrid microgrid consists of a 50kW solar PV plant and 50 units of solar lighting systems. Each solar lighting system has a 200W photovoltaic panel, a 48V and 2kWh battery capacity, and a bidirectional converter. This forms an aggregated 10kW distributed energy resource having grid-forming capability supporting islanded-mode operation. A virtual impedance-based droop control mechanism is implemented for solar lighting distributed converters to enhance their current sharing accuracy and system stability. The proposed hierarchical control architecture encompasses primary and secondary control, with a 60kW bidirectional interlinking converter facilitating power flow between the 220V DC and 220V AC sides of the hybrid microgrid. In islanded mode, the excess power is managed with the help of an electronic load controller for dump loads. This proposed control strategy enables intensity control of solar LED lights, reducing the lighting load by up to 20 percent during high demand periods to support the grid. The simulation is carried out in MATLAB and results show stable microgrid voltage and proportional current sharing among distributed converters. The microgrid achieves a seamless transition from grid-connected to islanded operation even after unintentional islanding, where the results demonstrate that system restores itself to normal operation within 2cycles with the current overshoot in acceptable limits.

The direct conversion of solar light into chemical energy, inspired by natural photosynthesis, presents a promising strategy for energy storage and chemical transformation. We investigate this approach using photoactive Cu(I) complexes with the functional 4H-imidazolato ligand for storage of multiple photoredox equivalents. This study demonstrates that these complexes undergo light-driven reduction under a variety of reaction conditions involving different irradiation wavelengths, solvents, and electron/proton donors. We used single-crystal X-ray analysis together with NMR spectroscopy to characterize the isolated photoreduction product. This analysis supports a proton-coupled two-electron-transfer mechanism and reveals a significant structural transformation of the complex. By employing UV-vis spectroscopy alongside DFT calculations, we elucidated the mechanisms underlying the photoreduction process, including protonation of both exocyclic nitrogen atoms at the chelating binding site as a consequence of the two-electron reduction, resulting in the migration of the Cu(I) bisphosphine fragment from the chelating binding site of the imidazolato ligand to form a trigonal-planar Cu(I) 1H-imidazolato complex. This rearrangement drastically changes the shape of the molecule, exposing an additional binding site on the Cu(I) center and making the N,N-binding site available for subsequent reactions.

While Tanzania’s greenhouse gas emission levels are still low by international comparison, the country is rapidly carbonizing. Designing climate policy instruments that reconcile mitigation and social equity is crucial for sustainable development. This paper examines how carbon pricing can serve as both a climate and development policy by discouraging the use of fossil fuels, generating substantial revenues, and promoting energy access. Employing a microsimulation approach that integrates multiregional input–output and household-level data, we examine the distributional impacts of four different carbon pricing designs and four compensation schemes on Tanzanian households. The results show that while national carbon pricing would have progressive effects, there would be large horizontal differences and around 10% of low-income households would need to raise their spending by over 2%. Revenues would allow cash or infrastructure transfers of 30-60 USD per eligible household, which would more than offset the burdens of low- and middle-income households. We suggest the use of carbon pricing revenues to provide low-income households with access to renewable energy appliances such as solar lights and solar cookers to empower them through long-term cost and time savings as well as health benefits. Our findings highlight how equitable carbon pricing can advance both social well-being and environmental integrity in low-income countries, contributing to the broader debate on just and sustainable transitions.