Reviews & Analysis

The unique properties of MXenes make them suitable for various sensors, but scalability challenges persist. This Review focuses on overcoming these barriers to guide the development of cost effective, high-performance sensors for soft electronics.

Solid-state lithium–sulfur batteries offer enhanced energy density and safety over traditional lithium-ion batteries, making them ideal for advanced applications. Here, this Review examines their recent advances and highlights challenges encountered in practical applications and recommendations for industrial development.

Aqueous zinc sulfur batteries offer safety and high energy density, but are limited by poor conductivity, dendrite growth, and unstable interfaces. This review highlights electrolyte design strategies that tune Zn²⁺ solvation and interfacial chemistry to enhance performance and guide future development.

Enzymatic recycling of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) offers a promising solution to plastic waste. This Review explores recent advances in engineering PET-degrading enzymes, highlighting trends in rational design and directed evolution toward more effective and economical recycling processes.

Lithium-sulfur batteries face challenges which limit their practical application. This Review discusses recent advances in metal-organic framework-derived single atom catalysts in lithium-sulfur batteries in enhancing polysulfide redox kinetics and mitigating lithium dendrite growth.

Blue energy harvesting has grown in prominence in recent years, involving energy generation based on water and moisture. This Review discusses the use of MXenes in blue energy, considering the basic properties of MXenes and their devices

Memristor-based compute-in-memory systems face performance challenges due to inherent noise, traditionally seen as a drawback. Here, the authors review strategies that harness this noise to enhance computational functionalities, highlighting its potential to improve optimization, enrich feature spaces, and enable stochastic processes, thus paving the way for innovative, energy-efficient computing technologies.

The compositions in high entropy alloys are highly tunable, making them promising materials for catalytic applications. Here, the critical role of surface optimization in nanostructured high entropy alloys is explored in electrocatalytic applications, with their potential in sustainable energy technologies discussed.

Lithium–sulfur electrochemical cells are of substantial interest for energy storage applications. This Review discusses strategies to enhance their performance, with a focus on new metal-based composite sulfur cathodes.

Intrinsic magnetic topological insulators of the MnBi₂Te₄ family are remarkable for their higher-temperature quantum anomalous Hall effect and the wide range of phenomena they exhibit. This Review discusses the state-of-the-art and future challenges in this family of magnetic topological insulators.

Developing particulate matter filtration materials is important to remove airborne pollutants. This Review discusses recent developments in electrospun nanofiber membranes for filtration, exploring key attributes like fiber geometry, hydrophobicity, and temperature resistance.

Covalent organic frameworks can stabilize multivalent ions through chelation and confined pore effects, making them ideal for electrochemical energy storage. This Review highlights advances in covalent organic frameworks beyond-lithium-ion batteries and presents optimization strategies as next-generation electrodes.

X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy is pivotal for analyzing catalyst surface interfaces. This Review highlights the advantages of X-ray Absorption fine structure spectroscopy for identifying configurations and dynamic transformations of CO₂ reduction reaction electrocatalysts.

Cell membranes are dynamic entities that are actively involved in many cellular processes. This Review highlights recent advances in the photopharmacology of phospholipids, exploring the photoswitchable properties of membranes and how they are used in biomedical and biomaterial science applications.

Covalent organic frameworks are ideal materials as nanofiltration membranes for pharmaceuticals, hormones, antibiotics, and pesticide separation. This Review covers the challenges and solutions to green and sustainable large-scale fabrication of covalent organic framework membranes.

All-weather solar-powered desalination systems are more demanding in terms of materials and system design compared to daytime-only systems. This Review discusses all-weather seawater evaporators, with a focus on photothermal conversion materials and their hybrid systems.

Delivering drugs across the blood-brain barrier is important for medical treatments in immunology, oncology, and neurology. This Review discusses the use of implanted and external devices for delivering drugs for the treatment of glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer.

Development of mechanically flexible batteries has stalled due to their capacity decay, limited power and energy, and safety issues. Here, advances in flexible electrodes and cell architectures across Li-based batteries are Reviewed, correlating microstructure, performance, mechanical pliability, and safety.

Synthesizing phase-pure zirconium-porphyrin metal-organic frameworks is challenging. This Perspective discusses different synthetic approaches and investigations to guide conditions to achieve phase-pure zirconium-porphyrin metal-organic frameworks.

Additive manufacturing has emerged as a powerful approach for achieving properties that are not possible in conventionally processed alloys. This Perspective provides a state-of-art overview of the use of operando x-ray techniques for understanding solidification dynamics and melt pool behavior in additive processes.