Themed collection Most popular 2019-2020 materials and energy chemistry articles

This perspective discusses the main issues with Zn anodes and highlights recent strategies to improve their performance in aqueous zinc ion batteries.

Dopants for small molecule-based organic hole-transport layers impact both perovskite solar cells initial performance and long-term stability.

This review summarizes recent advances in the design and synthesis of stable MOFs and highlights the relationships between the stability and functional applications.

First scaffolding approach to obtain tubular-shaped contorted aromatic architectures.

This work reports the general fabrication of hierarchical sheet/plate-like M-BDC MOFs for electrochemical non-enzymatic glucose sensing.

A medium concentration of oxygen vacancies (V_O ≈ 2%) is critical to the performance of WO₃ photoanodes for solar water oxidation, enhancing charge separation and reducing recombination across all timescales examined.

A new cationic PEDOT derivative inhibits repulsion phenomena within iodine-based electrolytes, boosting the efficiency of aqueous solar cells.

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) show great promise as heterogeneous photocatalysts, but they have not yet been explored for asymmetric photocatalysis, which is important for the sustainable production of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals.

Fe isolated single-atom sites anchored on COF-derived N-doped carbon nanospheres as efficient multi-functional catalysts.

A cationic COF removes carcinogenic bromate with a remarkable rate constant of 191.45 g mg⁻¹ min⁻¹.

A metal-decorated alkene-linked covalent organic framework is a robust, selective photocatalyst for CO₂ reduction.

Solvent polarity effect on circularly polarized luminescence intensity was assessed in helical push–pull organic systems through excited-state symmetry breaking and interbranched exciton coupling.

Conformationally flexible “Carbene–Metal–Amide” (CMA) complexes of copper and gold show photoemissions across the visible spectrum, including mechanochromic behavior which led to the first CMA-based white light-emitting OLED.

A new design strategy for the high-performance organic cathode-active materials of lithium-ion batteries is presented, which involves the assembly of redox-active organic molecules with a crystalline porous structure.

Blue thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters incorporating phenazasiline and phenazagermine as donor units are developed, and their structural, photophysical, and electroluminescent properties are systematically investigated.

Herein we report the first case of a β-ketoenamine based Michael addition–elimination reaction as well as ambient aqueous-phase synthesis of highly crystalline COF materials.

We have demonstrated a hydroquinone stitched β-ketoenamine COF acting as an efficient organic cathode in an aqueous rechargeable zinc ion battery.

Plasmonic black gold converts CO₂ to methane using solar energy.

The carbazolophane (Czp) donor unit is introduced to the design pool of donors in TADF emitters.

This work develops a new post-synthetic polymerization strategy to make various metal–organic frameworks more stable.

Understanding how mesoporous noble metal architectures affect electrocatalytic performance is very important for the rational design and preparation of high-performance electrocatalysts.

Highly crystalline, monodisperse, imine-linked covalent organic framework nanoparticles were obtained under Sc(OTf)₃-catalyzed conditions and enlarged by a slow monomer addition technique that prevents secondary nucleation.

A very simple method to enhance the low volumetric energy density of free-standing carbon nanofiber electrodes.

Short ionic polypeptide tags were demonstrated to drive complex coacervation of globular proteins at physiological conditions while maintaining protein activity.

Doubly strapped porphyrin improved efficiency from 8.6% to 9.3% and finally to 10.6% through a combined approach of coadsorption and cosensitization.

Block copolymers were used to generate metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) as novel materials (block co-polyMOFs, BCPMOFs) with controlled morphologies.

MOF gels with intrinsic emission color are prepared with 5-boronoisophthalic acid and Eu³⁺, Tb³⁺, and/or Dy³⁺. Single-metal gels exhibit trichromatic fluorescence, so full color emissions are readily obtained by tuning the type and/or ratio of Ln³⁺ ions to prepare mixed-metal gels. Nano-ribbons form from the precursors and then entangle together to generate the gels.

Sky-blue-emitting arylgold(III) complexes have been synthesized for OLEDs with EQEs of up to 11.3%.

Nanoframes of cobalt–iron bimetal phosphide enhance both HER and OER activities towards efficient overall water splitting.

Improving the deep-tissue phototherapy (PDT) efficiency in the near-infrared (NIR) region has become one of the major challenges in clinics for cancer treatment.