Themed collection 2019 Highlight article collection

A review of the recent progress on the transition metal based catalysts for water splitting with emphasis on crystal engineering.

Interest in developing high performance lithium-ion rechargeable batteries has motivated research in precise control over the composition, phase, and morphology during materials synthesis of battery active material particles.

This highlight surveys recent progress in groups 6–10 metal carbonyl cluster-based coordination polymers, focusing on diverse synthetic strategies, versatile structures, structural transformations, and semiconducting as well as magnetic properties.

As children play with wooden building blocks, we would like to construct elaborate architectures through the one-by-one accumulation of nanocrystals.

This highlight gives a helicopter view on the application of electric fields and discusses its potential future applications.

This highlight summarizes current challenges of mesostructuring and focuses on the scope and the potential of the ELAN – (electrostatic attraction of nanoobjects) strategy in mesostructuring of transition metal compounds.

Solid-state multiple [2 + 2] cycloaddition reactions of polyenes continue to attract attention as a mediate for the synthesis of polycyclobutane derivatives.

The major factors governing template-induced nucleation of molecular crystals are assessed, highlighting applications in pharmaceutical manufacturing and formulation processes where the templating effect is used to promote crystal nucleation and for controlling crystal polymorphism.

In this review, we summarize the recent progress on ReS₂ as an electrode for alkali-metal ion batteries, mainly focusing on the synthesis method, structures, reaction mechanism, and the corresponding electrochemical performance. Additionally, the perspective and challenges of ReS₂ electrodes are also discussed.

This review of recent research advances in continuous-flow crystallization includes a five-step general design procedure, generally applicable process intensification strategies, and practical insights.

The photochemical reactions of anthracene derivatives have been reviewed by means of a micro-Raman technique, monitoring at the same time and on the very same spot, the molecular (intramolecular vibrations) and the lattice (intermolecular vibrations) transformations.

We review the polymorphism of p-aminobenzoic acid (pABA), a model drug compound whose crystallisation and polymorphic behaviour has been extensively studied in recent years.

Both multisize and multiweight effects are proposed to characterize multiscale rare earth crystal materials.

A newly developed LAFD method was revealed to be effective in producing ZnO crystals with different morphologies, evidencing a high crystalline and optical quality.

High pressure offers insight into the mechanisms of a wide range of solid-state phenomena occurring under atmospheric pressure conditions.