Themed collection Journal of Materials Chemistry A HOT Papers

This perspective highlights how electrode substrate choice critically affects electrocatalyst performance in water splitting, guiding researchers to design better catalysts by leveraging each substrate’s unique properties.

Zinc–air batteries (ZABs) stand at the forefront of energy storage technologies. However, challenges like slow kinetics and low rechargeability persist. MOF–MXene hybrids enhance performance, enabling sustainable ZAB technology.

This review clearly elucidates the lineage of the development of NO₃⁻RR from the theoretical mechanism to practical reactions and deepens the understanding of NO₃⁻RR, pointing out the direction for the advanced design of NO₃⁻RR electrocatalysts.

By adjusting the composition of the inner Helmholtz plane and the outer Helmholtz plane, it is expected to improve the desolvation structure of zinc ions, inhibit the side reaction of zinc anode and enhance the long-cycle performance of the battery.

This review provides a comprehensive overview of the current development of smart batteries, which can be divided into three parts: smart materials, smart manufacturing and smart sensing.

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have emerged as a compelling alternative to lithium-ion batteries, driven by the abundance of raw materials and lower costs.

The utilization of nickel-based catalysts in hybrid CO₂ electrolysis systems enhances the efficiency of CO₂ reduction by coupling low-energy alternative oxidation reactions, thereby offering an innovative route towards a sustainable carbon economy.

Overview of the applications and performance improvement strategies of pyro-catalysis.

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (2DTMDCs) are promising in quantum computing, flexible electronics, spintronics, sustainable energy systems, and advanced healthcare.

This review summarizes the recent progress of atomically dispersed metal catalysts for oxygen reduction electrocatalysis, including advanced theories and descriptors, active site structure, and advanced characterization techniques.

The utilization of 2D CTFs in advanced electrochemical energy storage systems not only demonstrates the enhancement of the energy and power densities of these devices, but also promotes their cycling stability and rate performance.

We explored the cutting-edge dual-functional CaL-ICCC process, addressing current limitations and proposing future strategies to minimize energy penalties through integrated multiscale approaches spanning materials, reactors, and systems.

We review the progress on MOF-based separators for LSBs, with a particular focus on the relationship between the MOF structures and their functional roles in polysulfide capture, catalytic conversion, and uniform Li⁺ ion flux regulation.

This review highlights that screen-printed gas sensors are cost-effective and scalable, ideal for environmental, industrial, and healthcare applications.

This review focuses on the transformative role of the carbon-based covalent bridging bonds in the field of sodium-ion batteries, providing valuable insights for advancing the next-generation high-performance sodium-ion batteries.

The construction of multilayer electrolytes can improve the electrode interface and enhance the performance of solid-state batteries.

This review focuses on pore engineering (intrinsic pore size, extrinsic porosity, and pore environment) in porous organic cages and summarizes the roles of pore engineering in various fields.

This review highlights recent advances in Ir-based electrocatalysts based on different design strategies. This review will guide future research in the development of high-performance Ir-based HOR electrocatalysts for AEMFCs.

The utilization of ferroelectrics offers an additional lever to surpass the performance limits of traditional photoelectrodes. In this review, design strategies for ferroelectric photoelectrodes from materials to PEC system design are assessed.

This review examines the integration of artificial intelligence with nanogenerators to develop self-powered, adaptive systems for applications in robotics, wearables, and environmental monitoring.

Disk-like CuS nanoparticles facilitate the photocatalytic conversion of carbonate-rich waste marble-dust to acetic acid under monochromatic green light, offering a green route for carbon upcycling and waste utilization.

Nickel-mediated interfacial design in Mo₂C/Ni/Fe₃O₄ ternary heterostructures establishes decoupled hydrogen/oxygen-containing intermediate spillover pathways via interfacial Ni–C–Mo and Ni–O–Fe interactions and moderation.

A novel 2PACz/MA composite HTL strategy improves the efficiency and stability of OSCs by optimizing interface quality.

A weakly solvated electrolyte strategy for high-performance fluoride-ion batteries at room temperature.

This work systematically investigates the influence of the sp/sp² hybrid carbon ratio on the NRR catalytic performance of Ti@GY/Gr heterojunctions and explores the underlying mechanisms and relevant descriptor relationships.

Structured macro-droplets, stabilized by self-assembled and jammed hemispherical Janus particles at water–oil interfaces, enable scalable fabrication of multi-functional granular materials, e.g., magnetic/fluorescent capsules.

An encapsulated graphene oxide/silk protein aerogel fiber made by coaxial spinning is reported to exhibit ultra-high mechanical properties. The aerogel fiber showed efficient performance in thermal management applications.

DFT reveals oxygen vacancies on SnO₂ stabilize polarons, driving efficient O₂ activation and CO oxidation. These findings enable advanced SnO₂-based sensor design, leveraging defect engineering to boost catalytic and sensing performance.

Electro-epoxidation of ethylene/propylene using *O intermediates generated through water electrolysis under low applied potentials and over a wide potential range.

Composition-tuned WSe₂–MoSe₂ alloy nanosheets were synthesized via a colloidal reaction. They show the decreased stability of 2M phase at higher Mo composition, which was supported by first-principles calculations using metal vacancy models.

SnSe demonstrates unparalleled potential in thermoelectric applications, combining non-toxicity, low cost, and abundant sources.

Thermal regulation plays a significant role in maintaining human physiological homeostasis, yet conventional thermal management systems face limitations due to their unidirectional operation and insufficient adaptability in extreme environments.

An ¹⁸O isotope labelling study reveals that the oxygen atom of benzaldehyde originates from benzyl alcohol rather than O₂ during visible light-initiated selective oxidation over Nb₂O₅ nanowires.

A novel bi-encoder architecture RoBERTa framework (BiBERTa) integrates self-supervised pretraining to accelerate the discovery of high-performance organic photovoltaic materials with limited experimental data (MAE = 1.67%).

The schematic structure and selective adsorption of rare earth ions (Sm³⁺) by functionalized hierarchical porous (macro–meso–microporous) carbon materials (HPC) are illustrated.

CoFeP cubes/rGO/Ni foam with a CoFeP–rGO interface is synthesized via a facile wet-chemical method and capable of effective electrooxidation of HMF into FDCA, and electroreduction of nitrobenzene into N-containing chemicals.

The multifunctional amine in COF nanosheet synthesis enables catalysis, defect healing, and intercalation, achieving controlled polymerization and morphology preservation. Resulting COF membranes show high performance in desalination.

The BCST/10 wt% g-C₃N₄ Z-type heterojunction catalyst can effectively convert nitrogen dissolved in solution into nitric acid by harvesting vibration energy.

The molecular conformation of electron acceptors significantly influences the evolution of hole mobility under different conditions, even when the same donor material and weight fraction are used.

This study proposes a phosphorus-doped amorphous TiO₂/C hybrid coating for SiO anodes, which enables the formation of a hierarchical inorganic-rich SEI (Li₃P–LiF–Li₂CO₃) to enhance interfacial stability and Li⁺ transport for LIBs.

Accelerated formation of spiroborate COF in N,N-diethylformamide by reacting (OH)₈PcCo with methyl substituted 4,4′-biphenyldiboronic acid.

Li-rich cathodes with an O2-type layer stacking offer high gravimetric capacities and fast charge–discharge rates, and are structurally more stable with respect to transition metal migration than O3-type Li-rich cathodes.

Ce-doped NiOOH nanosheets were obtained via electrocatalytic self-reconstruction of Ce-doped Ni-MOFs. The optimized electrocatalyst shows excellent performance in HMFOR owing to the strong electron interactions between Ce and Ni.

New high-throughput search strategies based on statistical identification of promising chemical subspaces show potential for accelerating half-Heusler thermoelectric materials discovery.

Pyrene-based 2D COFs with phenolic hydroxyl groups exhibit proton conductivity of 1.09 × 10⁻¹ S cm⁻¹ under high humidity, surpassing most COF-based conductors.

PVDF/TE composites exhibited improved crystallization characteristics and simultaneously obtained large U_e and high η under high electric fields.

Siloxane-decorated polymer acceptors afford all-polymer solar cells with advantages in air-processing, mechanical durability, and device stability.

The enriched OH species on the Ni(OH)₂ surface enhance the oxidative removal of H_ad on Pd, boosting DBFC performance, even with air as the oxidant. The DBFC achieves a peak power density of 625 mW cm⁻² and stability for over 120 h at 200 mA cm⁻².

CBC/PAN flexible core–shell nanoreactor with synergistic effects of efficient photocatalysis and real-time temperature monitoring provides a new strategy for the application of photocatalytic materials in environmental pollution.

By combining multi-scale modelling and design of experiments, we have elucidated the mechanism of order promotion in mesoporous silica, and have proposed strategies for environmentally friendly, cheap and scalable production of those materials.

Carbon fiber (CF)–reinforced epoxy resin (EP) composites (E/C composites) have been widely used in numerous fields, but they are always plagued by the low flame retardancy because of the ‘candlewick’ effect of the CF.

Flexible hydrovoltaic generators, which sustainably convert abundant water resources in nature into electrical energy, have attracted significant attention in the field of wearable electronics.

The development of novel transition-metal heterostructures with rich redox activities, high capacity values, and stable cycling performance is essential for fabricating high-energy-density supercapacitors.

This work provides a high-performance and low-cost carbon anode material (TMLC) for SIHCs and also offers a reference for the application of lignin in the energy storage field.

A two-dimensional MOF with excellent bifunctional OER/ORR activity, named Rh-HITT is screened by first-principles.

Au single atom tailoring of palladium nanocatalysts boosts the cathodic coupling of carbon dioxide and methanol into dimethyl carbonate through effective electronic modulation.

A high-entropy design guided by the phase field simulation is adopted to construct local order–disorder polarization configurations, which results in the formation of polar nanoregions embedded in a disorder polar matrix.

Hard carbon was prepared from biomass with a high degree of crystallinity using hydrothermal pretreatment, which improved the electrochemical performance in sodium-ion batteries.

The relationship between the pore size and the oxygen reduction reaction kinetics is investigated using platinum model electrodes. The compressive strain causes the d-band centre downshift, which results in the quasi-volcano relationship.

A nanoporous Co^2+δ-incorporated RuO₂ (Co/RuO₂-1/50) catalyst, featuring unique Ov–Ru–O–Co coordination, achieved an impressive HER/OER performance (26/243 mV@10 mA cm⁻¹, 54/88 mV dec⁻¹) with superior stability for water electrolysis.

Novel hydrophobic polymer adhesive via one-step copolymerization in hydrophobic deep eutectic solvents offers strong broad-spectrum adhesion, environmental tolerance, and reversible temperature-dependent bonding for durable air and underwater use.

Ni/Al doping significantly enhances the catalytic performance and oxygen transport capability of Ca₂Fe₂O₅ in the CLSMR process, thereby achieving higher syngas and hydrogen yields.