Themed collection Journal of Materials Chemistry A HOT Papers

CO₂-switchable membranes represent an exciting separation technology based on gas-tunable pore sizes and surface properties.

Heterostructure interface engineering brings about substantial possibilities for designing efficient electrocatalysts toward the oxygen evolution reaction.

In the quest for finding non-toxic and stable lead-free perovskite nanocrystals (NCs), bismuth halide perovskites (BHP) have emerged as a promising alternative. This perspective presents an overview, challenges, and future opportunities in BHP NCs.

Highly efficient chalcopyrite photovoltaic cells display complex distributions of sodium dopant and gallium: how are these distributions related to each other?

Strategies for enhancing the electrocatalytic activities of transition metal chalcogenides by increasing the number of active sites and intrinsic activity.

The complex behaviour of layered oxide cathode materials at high voltages currently limits the energy densities which can be achieved by sodium-ion batteries.

The recent advances in photo-promoted CO₂ hydrogenation over solid catalysts have been reviewed.

The separation mechanism and material design of advanced PEO membranes for CO₂ capture have been reviewed in detail and further directions in this field have been provided.

Photo-driven Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS) provides a attractive and sustainable alternative compared to traditional FTS. This minireview expatiates the recent advances of various metal-based catalysts for photo-driven FTS.

Hydrogen production as very attractive clean energy technology has sparked the accelerated development of catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) towards efficient photo- and electrolytic water splitting.

A comprehensive review on TOSCs, which can provide valuable guidance for the further development of high-performance TOSCs with good stability.

This review summaries recent progress of noble-metal-free electrocatalysts toward H₂O₂ production including carbon-based materials, metal compounds, single atom catalysts and metal complexes.

Conductive polymer hydrogels, which combine the advantages of both polymers and conductive materials, have huge potential in flexible supercapacitors.

This article reviews the latest research results of advanced noble metal nanocluster and single-atom electrocatalysts for the HER.

This article presents a systematic review on the history of production of lithium metal and an insightful outlook on its future development.

The synthetic methods for vanadium sulfide based materials and their applications in energy storage and conversion are discussed.

Over the past decades, visible-light-driven water splitting on CdS has gained substantial attention owing to its low cost, appropriate bandgap, and electron affinity that best fit the visible light absorption spectrum.

A comprehensive overview of the advances in the expeditious synthesis of COFs.

This review highlights recent progress in Ti-MOFs based on discrete Ti-oxo clusters and infinite Ti-oxo chains and sheets.

This review highlights the recent advances made in MnO_x nanostructures as a promising candidate for use in electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been demonstrated as one of the most promising energy storage devices for applications in electric vehicles, smart grids, large-scale energy storage systems, and portable electronics.

A systematic review summarizing and analyzing the role of recently observed nano-domains and polar nanoregions (PNRs) in lead-free piezoceramics.

This review highlights recent advances and future opportunities in pristine MOF nanosheets for electrocatalysis.

Defect engineering of nanostructured electrocatalysts for enhancing the nitrogen reduction reaction is systematically reviewed with challenges and opportunities for further research discussed.

In this review, a comprehensive summary of the potential photocatalytic applications realized to date in the fast-growing field of COFs is provided with the aim to present a full blueprint of COFs for photochemical energy conversion and reactions.

Various strategies to design LDH catalysts for advanced oxidation processes.

This review summarizes the recent progress in vanadium-containing catalysts, including the synthesis strategies and performance in electrocatalytic and photocatalytic oxygen evolution.

In this review, we provide an in-depth overview of perovskite film formation mechanism and highlight the important role of nucleation/crystal growth in perovskite photovoltaics by using scalable solution deposition techniques.

Barium titanate/polyvinylidene fluoride- (BT/PVDF-) based nanocomposite film exhibits excellent energy storage and mechanical properties and can be used as flexible electronic components.

2-D Au coatings enable stable and uniform deposition of Aluminum.

A slope-dominated mechanism is designed by preparing hybrid nanostructure carbon materials using a CVD-like method which provides hard carbon with excellent rate performances and high average discharge potential as an anode for Na-ion batteries.

Bimetallic sulfide SnS/MoS₂ heterostructures decorating N, S co-doped carbon nanosheets have been synthesized, and evaluated as high performance anode materials for SIBs.

An isolated Ru-modified FeP catalyst was designed with boosted catalytic performance for the hydrogen evolution reaction. Further, we revealed that the bond-length-extended isolated Ru(+3)–P₄–Fe serve as active sites through operando XAS analysis.

The appropriate d-band center of Cu₃N induced its intrinsic privileges towards H₂ generation as a cocatalyst with 851-fold enhancement.

3D CuO–C modified glass fiber films with a mixed ion and electron-conducting network to realize the homogenized lithium ion flux by supplying widespread inner lithium ion transport channels in the skeleton.

Pd–GDY catalysts show an evident dependence on Pd species size in hydrogenation reaction. Specifically, Pd^s–GDY shows superior performance in semihydrogenation of phenylacetylene with much higher TOF of 6290 h⁻¹ and selectivity of 99.3% at 100% conversion.

Carbon-matrix-free hierarchical CoP nanorods composed of ultrathin nanosheets are successfully fabricated based on Co-MOFs for efficient water splitting.

In this work, we visualize and quantify the microstructure evolution in the composite electrode after solid-state battery (SSB) cycling. The observed severe mechanical degradation highlights the importance of mechanical considerations in SSB design.

Water drops with a vesicle surfactant exhibit efficient spreading and controllable penetration after high speed impact on a superhydrophobic surface.

A blend of π-CPs and a solid-state ionic liquid provides an enlarged interfacial area at the molecular scale, thereby enabling two-terminal organic chemiresistors (TOCs) with fine discriminatory abilities for sub-ppm-level VOCs at room temperature.

The synergistic role of S-vacancies and B-dopants enables the effective activation of VS₂ basal planes for achieving dramatically enhanced NRR activity.

Molecular ferroelectric shows high potential for electrocaloric effect (ECE) cooling due to its special polarization mechanism.

The electrocatalysis of CO₂ to valuable chemical products is an important strategy to combat global warming.

Bi_Pb is not a recombination center in hybrid perovskites, but promotes the formation of the actual recombination centers—iodine interstitials.

Novel ternary-metallic ZIFs are synthesized in one step and then converted into efficient dual-metal/nanoporous carbon electrocatalysts for the methanol oxidation reaction.

Synergistic tailoring of the electronic structure of Rh through P doping contributes to the remarkable HER/HOR performances.

Metallurgical microstructure control of Al–Ni alloys enabled scalable and facile synthesis of large-area electrodes for alkaline hydrogen evolution catalysts comparable to conventional Pt catalysts.

An ultrahigh enhancement rate of U_d (≈187%) and U_d (≈19 J cm⁻³) have been obtained for P(VDF-HFP)-based nanocomposites using novel core–shell BaTiO₃@MgO as the filler.

MOF-derived copper catalysts underwent a surface reconstruction to form a Cu@Cu_xO core@shell structure during CO₂RR process, which was beneficial for CO₂ to C₂H₄ conversion, resulting in a 51% FE for C₂H₄ and 70% FE for C₂₊ products.

The compressive stress at the NiOOH/NiO interface, created through the battery conversion chemistry, is found to influence the OER performance.

An electro-filtration strategy is used to access a Pt single-atom sites catalyst on graphite carbon paper at room temperature from Pt foil, assisted by a GOM membrane. It exhibits excellent activity and stability towards HER (with CdS) under visible-light irradiation.

A medium-bandgap nonfullerene acceptor IBCT was developed, delivering 11.26% and 15.25% power conversion efficiencies in single-junction and tandem solar cells, respectively.

Our method hinders the Ostwald ripening of polycrystalline MOF film during the solvothermal synthesis, allowing the growth of high-quality MOF films in just 8 min at room temperature.

The rational coupling of hydrothermal and electrodeposition approaches enables controlled synthesis of various CoP Nature-inspired nanostructures with distinct electrocatalytic performance.

Two isomeric perylene diimide acceptors with through-space conjugated [2.2]paracyclophane as a central core show dramatic differences in device performances.

A set of centrally halogenated oligothiophenes were developed for organic solar cells. The devices with a chlorinated donor (2Cl7T) achieved power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of up to ca. 11.5% (vs. ca. 2.5% for non-halogenated donor DRCN7T).

Dual molecular engineering of alkyl side chains and halogen accepting ends of asymmetric fused-ring acceptors has been proposed for controlling aggregation for optimize organic solar cells (OSCs).

All-solid-state batteries exhibit good performance even at low operating stack pressure when soft electrode materials are used.

Few-layer antimonene nanosheets with surface oxidation have been used as an efficient nitrogen reduction reaction electrocatalyst for ammonia synthesis.

Fluorinated solid additives have been designed to increase the π–π stacking of non-fullerene acceptor BTP-4F, leading to increased efficiency from 15.2% to 16.5% of PBDB-T-2F:BTP-4F binary solar cells with excellent stability.

Application of high current density demonstrated enhanced cycling efficiency and the formation of a stable and LiF dominated SEI providing a new path to enable fast charge battery technologies.

The surface-oxygen-modified ultrathin Pt₆₂Ru₁₈Ni₂₀–O/C nanowires catalyst exhibits outstanding mass activity, excellent stability, and CO anti-poisoning for methanol oxidation reaction in acidic medium by DFT and electrochemical experiments.

Size tailored black BiVO₄ colloids with rich oxygen vacancies were generated via facile laser processing for high performance sodium storage.

WS₂@TiO₂ nanoporous films were fabricated by implanting WS₂ nanosheets in TiO₂ nanoporous films and show efficient photocatalytic N₂ fixation.

The detection of nitric dioxide (NO₂) at the parts-per-trillion (ppt) level is critical for both environmental monitoring and human health.

High-temperature operation and flexible supercapacitors are designed from graphene aerogel electrodes and IL-FSN based polymer composite electrolytes, achieving a high capacitance of 1007 F g⁻¹ and an energy density of 1134 Wh kg⁻¹ at 200 °C.

Defect graphene was developed as an efficient electrocatalyst for the NRR and transformed from dopant-free graphene to N-doped graphene after the NRR.

We report a H₂-thermal-reduction strategy to fabricate FeO_x/Fe NPs dispersed on a porous N-doped carbon framework. The optimal hybrid exhibited high ORR performance with an E_1/2 of 0.838 V and remarkable Zn–air battery performance with a peak power density of 156.6 mW cm⁻².

Using high-throughput first-principles calculations, a list of 92 double spinel chemistries are screened for their stability; 49 stable double spinels are identified, representing potentially new compounds with unique properties and functionality.

A novel PdAgIr NFs/C alloy with ordered mesoporous architecture is designed as an advanced catalyst for FOR, which, for the first time, delivers a record-low onset potential, outstanding stability and impressive oxidation current density platform.