Micro/nano‑reconfigurable robots for intelligent carbon management in confined‑space life‑support systems
2025-12-03
(Press-News.org)
As CO2 accumulates in crewed spacecraft, submarines and disaster shelters, life-support systems demand sorbents that combine high capacity, ultralow regeneration energy and compact form factors. Now, researchers from Guangxi University, led by Prof. Hui He, unveil micro/nano-reconfigurable robots (MNRM) that harvest sunlight to capture 6.19 mmol g-1 CO2 and release it at only 55 °C—while actively swimming to prevent overheating. In a sealed-mouse model the robots prolonged survival by 54.61 %, offering a self-powered route to carbon-metabolism control in extreme environments.
Why MNRM Matters
Lowest-Ever Regeneration: 55 °C beats all amino-based sorbents by ≥25 °C, cutting thermal energy 33 %.
Solar-Only Operation: 0.7 sun (700 W m-2) suffices; magnetic micro-reconfiguration averts hot-spots.
Life-Support Verified: CO2 inside chamber kept below 2 %; mouse lungs remain grade-1 intact.
Innovative Design & Features
School-of-Fish Motion: Super-paramagnetic Fe3O4 NPs enable remote magnetic steering for uniform light harvesting.
Thermo-Molecular Switch: Pluronic F127 cross-linked to cellulose nano-fibers curls at 45–55 °C, raising amino surface potential and blunting urea-forming side reactions.
GO Heat Bridge: Graphene-oxide layer spreads photothermal heat (78 °C under 1 sun) across 3-D robot framework.
Applications & Outlook
10-Cycle Durability: 94 % capacity retained under 55 °C hydrothermal or 91.6 % under 0.7-sun light.
Antimicrobial Bonus: >98 % inhibition of E. coli, S. aureus and A. flavus—vital for long-term storage.
Scale-up Path: Team is integrating robots into modular cartridges for next-generation extravehicular-activity backpacks and mini-sub life-support loops.
This work translates nano-reconfiguration into a ready-to-deploy robotic carbon metabolism, promising energy-frugal CO2 control for both space exploration and terrestrial emergency shelters. Stay tuned for more advances from Prof. Hui He’s group!
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2025-12-03
Long-term antidepressant use in Australia has risen steadily over the past decade, with the largest increase seen in young people aged 10-24, where rates have more than doubled.
The finding is from a new study undertaken by University of South Australia researchers, who analysed dispensing data from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) covering more than 300,000 antidepressant users between 2014 and 2023.
The most comprehensive study of its kind, published in the Pharmacaoepidemiology and Drug Safety Journal, reveals that 45% of young people on antidepressants are staying on ...
2025-12-03
HONOLULU, Dec. 2, 2025 — Some music is for grooving: It evokes spontaneous dancing, like head bopping, jumping, or arm swinging. Other music is for swaying, or for crying, or for slow dancing. Music makes people move, but whether musicians intentionally induce specific movements with their compositions, such as vertical bouncing or horizontal swaying, or what musical features would contribute to these distinctions, is more complex.
Shimpei Ikegami, an associate professor at Showa Women’s University, sought to understand how musicians express intended bodily movement ...
2025-12-03
HONOLULU, Dec. 2, 2025 — Wildlife poaching remains a major conservation concern. Technological advancements have enabled webs of acoustic sensors to be deployed throughout rainforests, creating the possibility of real-time alerts to the sounds of gun-based poaching.
But the belly of the rainforest is loud, and sorting through a constant influx of sound data is computationally demanding. Detectors can distinguish a loud bang from the whistles, chirps, and rasps of birds and bugs. However, they often conflate the sounds of branches cracking, trees falling, or water dripping ...
2025-12-03
An updated Cochrane review has found that calcium supplementation has no effect on pre-eclampsia, challenging long-held assumptions about the role of calcium in preventing hypertensive disorders in pregnancy.
Researchers from Stellenbosch University have found strong evidence from large trials that calcium supplementation during pregnancy does not reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia.
Pre-eclampsia is a life-threatening condition that can affect women in the second half of their pregnancy. It can be fatal or cause lifelong complications for both mother and baby. Pre-eclampsia is characterised by new onset high blood pressure with end-organ injury. The only ...
2025-12-03
HOUSTON – (Dec. 2, 2025) – Tracking how genes switch on and off in the brain is essential for understanding many neurological diseases, yet the tools to monitor this activity are often invasive or unable to capture subtler changes over time. One emerging alternative is to use engineered serum markers ⎯ small proteins produced by targeted brain cells that can travel into the bloodstream, where they can be measured with a simple blood test.
Referred to as released markers of activity, or RMAs, ...
2025-12-03
About one third of lung transplant recipients have a genetic variant that makes them more likely to develop chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD), the primary cause of mortality after lung transplantation. However, it is unclear why some lung transplant recipients progress to CLAD while others do not. A study led by UCLA Health found that the cause could be a variant in the C3 gene, which makes it harder for the body to regulate the complement system, the part of the immune system that helps the body recognize and clear infections and debris, such as those occurring in the transplanted lung.
“Lung transplantation has the poorest long-term survival ...
2025-12-03
Atmospheric dust plays an important role in the way Earth absorbs and reflects sunlight, impacting the global climate, cloud formation, and precipitation. Much of this dust comes from the continuous reshaping of Earth’s surface through the erosion of rocks and sediments, and understanding how this process has shaped landscapes can help us decipher our planet’s history – and its future. Although an ephemeral phenomenon by nature, dust emissions through ...
2025-12-03
Creating a safe, gender-specific, supportive environment—one that is free of body shaming and idealised female forms, for example—is key to minimising female athletes’ future risks of injury and protecting their health, emphasises the Female/woman/girl Athlete Injury pRevention (FAIR) Consensus Statement—the first of its kind—published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Women and girls have increasingly been taking part in sports, which has led to a concomitant rise in their risk of injury. But how best to minimise this risk has been hampered by a lack of comprehensive and practical gender-specific evidence.
In a bid ...
2025-12-03
Overreliance on generative AI risks eroding new and future doctors’ critical thinking skills, while potentially reinforcing existing data bias and inequity, warns an editorial published in the online journal BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.
GenAI tools are already being widely used amid few institutional policies and regulatory guidance, point out the authors, who urge medical educators to exercise vigilance and adjust curricula and training to mitigate the technology’s pitfalls.
The use of AI is now used in a vast array of different tasks, but along with its burgeoning potential comes an increasing risk of overreliance on it and a host of potential issues ...
2025-12-03
Eating disorders in mums-to-be are linked to a heightened risk of asthma and wheezing in their children, irrespective of the type of disorder, presence of co-existing depression/anxiety, or the timing of their child’s exposure, finds research published online in the journal Thorax.
The findings prompt the researchers to call for the inclusion of dedicated support in the healthcare of pregnant women with eating disorders to improve the respiratory health of their children.
To date, research on the effects of maternal mental health on children’s respiratory health has focused predominantly on depression, anxiety, and broadly defined stress, ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Micro/nano‑reconfigurable robots for intelligent carbon management in confined‑space life‑support systems
