We're thrilled to announce a significant milestone for our group—our second paper, titled "Photoswitchable Imines Drive Dynamic Covalent Systems to Nonequilibrium Steady States", has been accepted as a full paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society!

This work highlights a unique feature of our imine switches, which we are excited to share with the broader scientific community. You can access the paper for free (Open Access, RIP finances...) via this link: JACS paper link.

We extend our gratitude to the reviewers for their excellent suggestions, which helped improve the overall narrative. We look forward to sharing more of our work in this exciting area in the near future!

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Abstract " Coupling a photochemical reaction to a thermal exchange process can drive the latter to a nonequilibrium steady state (NESS) under photoirradiation. Typically, systems use separate motifs for photoresponse and equilibrium-related processes. Here, we show that photoswitchable imines can fulfill both roles simultaneously, autonomously driving a dynamic covalent system into a NESS under continuous light irradiation. We demonstrate this using transimination reactions, where E-to-Z photoisomerism generates a more kinetically labile species. At the NESS, energy is stored both in the metastable Z-isomer of the imine and in the system’s nonequilibrium constitution; when the light is switched off, this stored energy is released as the system reverts to its equilibrium state. The system operates autonomously under continuous light irradiation and exhibits characteristics of a light-driven information ratchet. This is enabled by the dual-role of the imine linkage as both the photochromic and dynamic covalent bond. This work highlights the ability and application of these imines to drive systems to NESSs, thus offering a novel approach in the field of systems chemistry."