Themed collection Journal of Materials Chemistry A Recent Review Articles

This Highlight explores advancements in Ni-rich cathode materials for sodium-ion batteries, which offer practical synthesis methods, high specific capacity, and environmental benefits while addressing energy density and cycle life challenges.

This perspective delves into the nanoscale photodynamics mapping of perovskite (PSCs) and organic solar cells (OSCs) using a multimodal approach to enhance photovoltaic performance.

This perspective delves into electrochemically active and regenerable liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs), exploring their electrochemical properties and applications in hydrogen storage, regenerative fuel cells, batteries, and flow batteries.

This perspective summarizes recent advances in electrochemical humidity sensors and mainly focuses on three aspects: working principles; humidity sensing and power generation performances; self-powered humidity detection system.

Employing electrochemical impedance spectroscopy as a non-destructive analytical tool for elucidating the interfacial charge transfer in electrochemical energy conversion/storage systems.

This perspective article discusses the research, issues, and prospects of flexible batteries and supercapacitors in terms of one- and two-dimensions, as well as their stretchable, bendable, and twistable properties.

Green hydrogen, produced by water splitting with renewables, faces water scarcity issues. Atmospheric moisture, a stable source, offers an alternative. This article reviews technologies and challenges of using atmospheric water for H₂ production.

The potential of materials informatics in designing lithium extraction materials for capacitive deionization have been discussed.

We present a comprehensive perspective on the fundamental components of a solid-state battery, starting from all-solid-state electrolytes and extending to quantum power harvesting and storage.

Conventional lead halide perovskites, APbI₃, are excellent materials for photovoltaics and other optoelectronic applications. This perspective highlights the temperature and pressure induced structural phase transitions of CsPbI₃, MAPbI₃ and FAPbI₃.

Single-molecule fluorescence imaging offers high spatiotemporal resolution and enables quantitative, operando studies of photocatalytic nanomaterials at the single- or sub-particle level.

This review summarizes the latest advances in material development and process design for electrochemically upgrading CO₂ to value-added C₃₊ chemicals.

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) derived from metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are revolutionizing electrocatalytic energy conversion.

This review analyzes advancements in CO₂-resistant perovskite cathodes for solid oxide fuel cells, detailing CO₂-poisoning mechanisms, evaluation methods, enhancement strategies, and characterization techniques for future cathode development.

The anode-free lithium metal battery is characterized by light weight, low cost, high-energy density, and high safety and shows great potential for the application of flexible devices.

This article focuses on the preparation of transition metal-modified zeolite catalysts and their catalytic performance for the purification of engine exhausts.

We review polythiophene and its derivative (PT)-based polymer donors for all-PSCs, focusing on material design, morphology optimization strategies, and the selection and design of polymer acceptors that complement their properties.

State-of-the-art HEAs with outstanding water splitting performance is rationally designed, which provides a blueprint for the design of a next-generation platform for hydrogen regeneration.

Recent strategies for improving the uniformity of metallic nanowire-based flexible transparent electrodes for application in highly reliable flexible devices are reviewed.

In this review, we summarized the application methods of SECM in electrochemical reactions and also discussed the challenges and prospects of SECM in characterizing the activity of electrocatalysts.

The review summarizes and categorizes innovative gel synthesis methods and coating fabrication techniques with robust interfacial adhesion, focusing on the strategies of user and eco-friendliness in versatile scenarios.

Tailoring defect-based single-metal atom catalysts onto different supports for the CO₂ reduction, NO₃⁻ reduction, oxygen reduction and hydrogen evolution reactions.

This review covers advancements in noble and non-noble metal oxides for acidic OER, emphasizing the evaluation of catalyst instability, and strategies to enhance IrO₂, RuO₂, and TM oxides.

This review delves into the applications of DACs for the eCO₂RR, highlighting their pivotal role in producing a range of diverse Cn products. DACs, through their synergistic interactions.

SiO₂ aerogel, characterized by its lightweight, highly porous, and thermally insulating properties, has emerged as a versatile material capable of addressing the challenges of providing sustainable energy and clean water.

The synthesis, modulation and effect of MSI on 2D carbon-based heterogeneous catalysts for the HER.

The shuttle effects originating from the practical air environment and operation process (electro-reduced oxygen species, redox mediators) on Li-metal reshapes the solid-electrolyte-interphase of Li-surface and causes Li-anode failure.

Amorphous materials, being in a metastable state and having many “dangling bonds”, are more active than crystalline materials.

A complete summary of viologen-based aqueous organic redox flow batteries is provided from materials synthesis to physicochemical properties and battery performance on the basis of conventional, π-conjugated extended, and polymeric viologens.

This review focuses mainly on the overall facilitating effect of heterostructures on the OER process. The fabrication of heterostructured electrocatalysts and the relationship between their structures and electrocatalytic properties are discussed.

OER plays a crucial role in energy storage and conversion, and the application of thermal fields in the OER is widespread but not systematically discussed. In this work, we have a discussion on built-in electric field and extra electric field.

Supercapacitors are widely recognized as a favorable option for energy storage due to their higher power density compared to batteries, despite their lower energy density.

This review comprehensively summarizes the development history of CPDT-based organic photovoltaic materials, which contributes to a deeper understanding of the revival of CPDT driven by low-cost acceptors.

This review provides valuable insights and suggestions for future research on designing low-strain cathode materials for long-life and high-energy-density all-solid-state batteries under low external pressure conditions.

Silicon oxides/carbon composites are classified based on the variation of carbon sources, and representative developments are systematically reviewed, providing a comprehensive perspective for the design and construction of SiO_x/C composites.

Transition from superhydrophilic to superhydrophobic on hydrophilic hierarchical structures due to organic adsorption and fundamentals, transition mechanism and effects of organic adsorption, preparation methods, applications and stability.

This work presents a systematic review of recent progress in Li dendrite growth. The origins of Li dendrite growth are ascribed to two mechanisms, crack-induced and electron-conduction.

This review provides a comprehensive overview of radiative cooling textiles from fundamentals, advanced structures and construction strategies to emerging applications.

The recent advances in portable and smart devices require modern microelectronics to be miniaturized, leading to the need for small, lightweight, reliable, and on-chip integrated energy storage systems like rechargeable micro-batteries (μBs).

This article discusses the fundamentals and progress of photothermal actuators, and their applications from bionic design to intelligent robots in detail.

In this review, we discuss the promising applications and practical considerations of thermoelectrics to harvest the unutilized thermal gradient between the plasma-facing surfaces and the molten salt coolant loop in tokamak fusion reactors.

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysis is the key to solve the problem of hydrogen production by hydrolyzing water and secondary metal–air batteries.

Challenges and progress made in alkali metal hybrid ion capacitors are discussed, including electrode materials, mechanisms, device/electrode components, electrochemical properties, and structural regulation in aqueous and nonaqueous systems.

Supercapacitors are emerging as viable replacements for AECs in next-generation filtering capacitors. Researchers focus on the development of high-performance filtering capacitors by selecting electrode materials and adopting structural designs.

This review summarizes the development (integrated effects, classifications, and applications) of emerging catalysts that integrate single atoms with nanoparticles (SA/NPCs). It also highlights the future challenges and opportunities in this field.

A summary and discussion on the recent research advances in chiral carbon materials based on various carbon nanomaterials.

Light-driven three-phase interface catalysts for the production of green ammonia as one of the key future energy carriers for the net-zero carbon landscape.

In this review, recent progress in the synthesis and electrocatalytic applications of hybrid nanomaterials containing low-dimensional metals was outlined and some promising future directions were proposed.

In this review, first, the synthesis of CMPs is reviewed. Second, the application of CMPs in flexible electronics is emphatically introduced. Finally, the problems and challenges of CMPs in flexible electrode materials are discussed.