Themed collection Journal of Materials Chemistry A Recent Review Articles

We highlight how DTEM reveals catalytic dynamics and outline key advances, challenges, and future opportunities.

The convergence of photoelectrode engineering and organic synthesis offers a new paradigm for sustainable chemical transformations.

How M–O bonding governs the transition between charge storage and catalytic activity.

This perspective discusses how advances in quantum science and technology can be utilized to improve, design, and better understand heterogeneous catalysis.

Research on high-energy-density materials (HEDMs) has largely centered around molecules derived from the classical CHNO framework.

Recycled polymers from e-waste are good candidate materials for sensors from the point of view of circularity and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The binding energy in clusters (BEC) serves as an effective bridge connecting the microscopic structure and macroscopic properties of molecular crystal materials.

This perspective defines quantitative ‘target design windows’ for contact resistivity and shear strength, mapping four dominant strategies to guide the transition from empirical metallization to engineered reliability.

The sustainable production and efficient utilization of hydrogen are central to achieving global carbon neutrality.

Artificial intelligence promises to revolutionise materials discovery through accelerated prediction and optimisation, yet this transformation brings critical data integrity challenges that threaten the scientific record.

Two‑dimensional (2D) hybrid organic–inorganic perovskites (HOIPs) exhibit pressure‑tunable structures and properties that enable optimized performance in energy and optoelectronic devices.

Metal–oxygen coordination environments dictate band structure, charge transport, and surface stability in transition metal oxide (TMO) photoanodes, providing design principles for robust photoelectrochemical seawater splitting.

Coordination chemistry enables descriptor-driven control of electronic and thermal transport in metal–organic coordination polymers, closing the theory – experiment gap in organic thermoelectrics.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) persist in water systems due to their extreme chemical stability and weak degradability, demanding treatment approaches that extend beyond simple capture.

Aqueous aluminum metal batteries (AAMBs) have recently emerged as promising candidates for next-generation energy storage systems.

This review summarizes the progress and challenges in CO catalytic oxidation, outlines the properties and design strategies of metal-based catalysts, and discusses the causes of catalyst poisoning and solution strategies.

This article reviews the key challenges and strategies for dual-ion batteries with alloying-type anodes.

Focus on tri-responsive MuF-MOFs as novel, advanced sensor platforms responding simultaneously to three stimuli for high sensitivity and selectivity.

Surface defect engineering, including the creation of surface vacancies, heteroatom doping and other defect strategies, is leveraged to enable the efficient photocatalytic conversion of NO into N₂, NH₃, and NO₃⁻.

Importance of in situ/operando characterization techniques.

Supercapacitor (SC) technology is one of the pioneering energy storage technologies of the current century.

This review highlights recent advances in polymer-based DAC systems for CO₂ capture, with a focus on synthesis strategies and structure–performance relationships in functional polymers, polymer composites, MOFs, and COFs.

This review summarizes recent advances in surface engineering for OER catalysts in direct seawater electrolysis, focusing on how surface-modulation enhances catalytic activity, corrosion resistance, and selectivity in harsh marine environments.

This review emphasizes the latest advancements in asymmetric microsupercapacitors, concentrating on microfabrication techniques, electrode materials, and their incorporation into self-powered microelectronics for future flexible and wearable devices.

This review summarizes recent advances in noble-metal catalysts for MSR, covering mechanisms, synthesis, and performance. It highlights key challenges and future directions to spur research, applications, and the hydrogen economy.

A meta-analysis of 200+ studies maps MXene strategies for Li–S batteries, linking composition and synthesis to stability and performance trends to guide next-gen battery design.

A review on the construction of a reaction system based on Ni-based catalysts for the dehydrogenation of HCOOH to generate hydrogen radicals, and its application in the efficient reduction of Cr(VI).

Escalating plastic pollution and the growing demand for sustainable energy storage call for innovative, integrated solutions.

Upcycling facilitates a paradigm shift in the regeneration of spent LiFePO₄ from mere performance recovery to upgrading through strategies like elemental doping or coating, offering a new perspective for the development of regeneration technologies.

Anion Exchange Membrane degradation can occur through thermal, chemical and mechanical pathways, but there are several strategies that can help mitigate these phenomena and increase AEM durability.

This review examines the methods for recovering acids from industrial wastewater, covering sample characterization and recovery techniques such as ion-exchange membranes, pyrohydrolysis, and solvent extraction.

This article reviews important advances in designing Ruddlesden–Popper perovskite oxides as emerging air electrodes for protonic ceramic cells, aiming to present critical insights for the widespread applications of this technology.

ALD serves as a transformative tool for PEMFCs engineering, enabling atomic-scale design of core-shell catalysts, functional membranes, and GDLs interfaces, bridging lab-scale innovations to high-performance, durable MEAs.

This review integrates borophene, metal borides, and MBenes into a unified boron-based platform for high-performance supercapacitors, linking multicenter bonding, electronic structure, and charge-storage mechanisms to guide durable energy storage.

MXenes are promising two-dimensional materials with high electrical conductivity, large surface area, and tuneable surface terminations, enabling efficient electrocatalytic, photocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance.

Asymmetric fibre supercapacitors (AFSCs) offer higher voltages and energy densities than symmetric designs. This review discusses electrode materials, fabrication technologies, device designs, and future outlooks of AFSCs for soft textile wearables.

A comprehensive review highlighting all the recent strategies and perspectives in enhancing C–C coupling selectivity in electrocatalytic CO₂RR.

Various polymer substrate membranes with excellent performance for CO₂ capture.

This review summarizes recent progress in zero-dimensional lead-free double perovskites, highlighting their crystal structure, optical properties, and potential applications.

Smart self-healing polymers offer sustainable solutions for energy storage and sensing by autonomously repairing damage while enhancing durability and reliability, and enabling next-generation power devices and flexible electronic skin sensors.

This review summarizes the research progress of MSes-based HER electrocatalysts, covering advantages, synthesis, enhancement strategies, mechanisms and current challenges, which is of great significance for designing efficient MSes-based catalysts.

Metal–guest and metal–linker coordination bonds in MOFs form reversible dissociation–association equilibria. These dynamics are tunable by temperature, light, guests, and confinedness, enabling mild activation, cooperative gas uptake, and catalysis.

Schematic representation of a sodium-ion battery, illustrating Na⁺ transport between the cathode and anode during charge and discharge, along with representative crystal structures of typical electrode materials.

This review summarizes the progress in Mg₃(Sb,Bi)₂ thermoelectric materials and analyzes key challenges in practical applications, aiming to achieve low- and medium-temperature waste heat recovery and solid-state cooling.

This review systematically summarizes recent advancements in efficient strategies for the exploration and design of advanced manganese chalcogenide-based anodes for sodium-ion hybrid capacitors.

This review analyzes degradation of layered oxide cathodes in sodium-ion batteries on bulk and interface failure. The strategies of elemental doping, structural engineering, and surface modification are discussed for practical sodium-ion batteries.

This review highlights the application of perovskite oxides as electrocatalysts for small-molecule oxidation, focusing on their structure–performance relationships, defect engineering, and reaction mechanisms to guide efficient energy conversion.

Hole transport layers (HTLs) are crucial for QD-based photovoltaics. This study compares p-type QDs, organic HTLs, and hybrids, showing that alternative ligands beyond EDT offer promise for scalable, stable, and efficient QD devices.

This review summarizes recent progress in developing high-mass-loading cathodes for aqueous zinc-ion batteries and highlights key design principles and emerging strategies toward practical, high-energy-density systems.

Water electrolysis represents a pivotal pathway for green hydrogen production, offering exceptional product purity, operational simplicity, and zero pollutant emissions.

Supercritical CO₂-enabled MXene synthesis is examined via a process-knob-to-metric framework linking green metrics and scalability, guiding the design of safer, sustainable, and industrially relevant processes.

This work explores the synergistic effects of bimetallic electrocatalysts, including their applications in CO₂ reduction, water splitting, and ammonia production, highlighting key advancements in catalyst design and performance.

Computational insights from DFT and MD reveal how borophene polymorphism governs performance in batteries and electrocatalysis, offering guidance for structure-driven design while addressing stability and scalability challenges.

This review summarizes mechanistic insights into biomass-to-carbon conversion strategies, highlighting catalytic pathways, impurity control, heteroatom tolerant catalysis, and AI guided design for scalable, high-performance carbon materials. Figure elements reprinted with permission; see article for details.

π-Extended viologen derivatives with improved properties were summarized, followed by the design and synthesis and photofunctional applications of related macrocycles, such as covalent cyclophanes, coordinated assemblies, and other macrocyclic hosts.

In this review, the preparation methods, design principles, electrochemical behaviors and future perspectives of artificial interphase layers on sodium metal anodes are systematically summarized.

This review explores the applications of nanotechnology to address the challenges of radioactive wastes by transforming it into sustainable nuclear batteries, thereby enhancing the viability of nuclear energy as a clean alternative to fossil fuels.

Graphyne-based materials (GBMs), composed of mixed sp- and sp²-hybridized carbon networks, exhibit tunable pore architectures and unique electronic properties, enabling promising applications in energy, catalysis, and separation technologies.

Carbon-encapsulated electrocatalysts for oxygen electrocatalysis were reviewed, pointing out both the advancement and challenges. Further investigations should emphasize the fundamental theories, synthetic methods, and in situ characterizations.

Ultrafast Joule heating (UJH) has emerged as a cutting-edge technology for synthesizing advanced functional materials (AFMs), representing a burgeoning field of research with significant scientific and industrial implications.

This review offers a critical view of multi-metallic organic frameworks (MMOFs) and their derivatives, focusing on their synthesis, challenges, and the role of each metal present in MMOFs for catalysis, electro-/photocatalysis, sensing applications.