The emergence of Turing structures is of fundamental importance, and designing these structures and developing their applications have practical effects in chemistry and biology. We use a facile route based on interfacial polymerization to generate Turing-type polyamide membranes for water purification. Manipulation of shapes by control of reaction conditions enabled the creation of membranes with bubble or tube structures. These membranes exhibit excellent water-salt separation performance that surpasses the upper-bound line of traditional desalination membranes. Furthermore, we show the existence of high water permeability sites in the Turing structures, where water transport through the membranes is enhanced.

Low durability is the major challenge hindering the large-scale implementation of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) technology, and corrosion of carbon support materials of current catalysts is the main cause. Here, we describe the finding of remarkably high durability with the use of a novel support material. This material is based on hollow carbon nanocages developed with a high degree of graphitization and concurrent nitrogen doping for oxidation resistance enhancement, uniform deposition of fine Pt particles, and strong Pt-support interaction. Accelerated degradation testing shows that such designed catalyst possesses a superior electrochemical activity and long-term stability for both hydrogen oxidation and oxygen reduction relative to industry benchmarks of current catalysts. Further testing under conditions of practical fuel cell operation reveals almost no degradation over long-term cycling. Such a catalyst of high activity, particularly, high durability, opens the door for the next-generation PEMFC for “real world” application.

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