On December 15, 2025, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) reached a unanimous agreement at its December meeting to identify n-hexane as a Substance of Very High Concern (SVHC). Another substance, 4,4'-[2,2,2-trifluoro-1-(trifluoromethyl)ethylidene]diphenol (BPAF) and its salts, was designated as an SVHC without the involvement of the Committee. ECHA will add these two substances to the Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern in February 2026, bringing the total number of substances on the list to 253 at that time.

A rotational rheometer is a core instrument for studying the rheological behaviors of materials (such as viscosity, elasticity, and yield stress), and it is widely used in fields including polymers, food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, inks, and coatings. It applies controllable stress or strain to samples via rotating fixtures, measures the mechanical responses of the materials, and thereby analyzes their flow and deformation characteristics.

The foundation and objective of modern aircraft design lie in achieving low structural weight, high strength and high efficiency. These characteristics are attained through the utilization of advanced materials (such as high-strength aluminum alloys and carbon fiber-reinforced composite materials) as well as the development of special structural solutions. One such solution is to replace mechanical fasteners (e.g., fasteners, rivets, etc.) with bonded joints. The primary advantage of bonded joints is their lower weight compared to mechanical fasteners. However, the adoption of bonded joints also introduces new challenges, whether in manufacturing, testing or aircraft structural modeling. Accurate measurement of the mechanical properties of adhesives, especially the shear modulus, is crucial for the efficient design of aircraft structures.

Benefiting from their outstanding specific strength, specific stiffness and designability, composite materials have been widely applied in high-end equipment fields such as aerospace, rail transit and automotive industry. Among various mechanical properties, compressive performance is a key indicator for evaluating the load-bearing capacity of composite structures. However, due to their characteristics including anisotropy and relatively low interlaminar strength, the accurate measurement of compressive performance has long been a key challenge and research priority in the field of material testing.

When designing for electrically sensitive or safety-critical applications, it is crucial to understand how materials behave when exposed to flame. The UL 94 flammability rating is a widely recognized benchmark for evaluating the flame-retardant properties of polymers and foams, yet navigating through the various tests, classifications and certification data can be a challenging task.

Batteries, fuel cells, and electrolyzers are of great significance for meeting our future energy supply demands. For these applications, it is imperative to fabricate sophisticated electrode layers. The preparation of electrode layers is similar to coating processes, which requires crack-free and inclusion-free homogeneous electrode layers as well as uniform coating thickness of the dried layers. Since the final formation of the network structure takes place during the drying step, the key focuses lie on the porosity and the local distribution (in-plane and cross-plane) of electrode components within the layers.

Uniaxial high-speed tensile tests were carried out on rod specimens of cast iron and cast aluminum at different strain rates to investigate their dynamic mechanical properties and fracture behaviors, and the effects of relevant factors on the tests were analyzed. The results show that: the methods for measuring strain and stress, the gauge length and grip section length of the specimens, and other factors exert a significant influence on the test accuracy and the oscillation degree of the curves; the test accuracy can be improved by using fixtures with high specific stiffness and specific strength, adopting specimens with short gauge length, measuring stress with strain gauges, measuring strain with two cameras, and appropriately increasing the length of the grip section.

The automotive industry is experiencing a sweeping trend of systematic transformation, where electrification, intelligence, and sharing are mutually reinforcing. Against this backdrop, the electrification transition of the industry is accelerating at a faster pace.

To reduce the environmental impact of automotive products, commit to environmental and resource protection as well as energy conservation, countries and regions around the world have successively formulated environmental laws and regulations, strengthened the management of end-of-life vehicle (ELV) recycling and utilization, improved the indicators for ELV recycling rates, effectively mitigated the environmental impact of end-of-life vehicles, and realized the sustainable growth of the automotive industry.

With the continuous improvement of requirements for electric vehicle (EV) driving range and charging efficiency, high-voltage platforms of 800V and above have become an industry development trend. After Porsche Taycan took the lead in commercializing the 800V architecture in 2020, major automakers including Hyundai, BYD, and Xpeng have followed suit with their respective layouts.

Research on Improving the Accuracy of Material Cards for Simulating the Deployment of Plastic Covers of Automotive Airbags. With the growing global attention to the environment and energy consumption, polymer materials including composite materials, engineering plastics, and rubber have been increasingly applied in automotive lightweight design due to their high strength-to-weight ratio.

Although polymer materials have only a history of over a hundred years since their advent, their rapid development and wide range of applications have made them one of the four basic materials of modern society, alongside steel, wood, and cement. Compared with other materials, polymer materials possess excellent molding and processing properties as well as mechanical strength, which are closely related to their special structure, molecular weight, and degree of molecular weight variation (molecular weight distribution).