News & Comment

The shift towards electrified transportation, aerospace and distributed technologies demands energy-storage systems that are efficient and structurally integrated. Rechargeable batteries, conventionally implemented as monofunctional components, introduce mass, volume and carbon penalties at the system level, revealing the need to rethink batteries as multifunctional materials rather than stand-alone devices.

Perovskite solar cells have emerged as one of the most exciting photovoltaic technologies, offering a unique combination of high efficiency and low-cost solution processability. Yet for all their promise, a fundamental question has increasingly come to define the field: how can we make them last?

Artificial intelligence is transforming materials research, yet its potential for sustainability remains underexploited. Artificial intelligence can enable circular materials systems by integrating materials performance, life-cycle assessment and sustainability metrics across design, use and recycling, accelerating the transition from linear innovation to closed-loop materials economies.

Covalent organic frameworks promise breakthroughs in water treatment, separations and photocatalysis. Yet their real-world performance is governed by sequence-dependent transformations — hydrolysis, photo-oxidation and defect-driven fragmentation — that can silently reshape pore chemistry and release mobile products. Transformation atlases built from laboratory and synchrotron and/or neutron characterization can now predict these trajectories and enable safer, more durable design.

Lignin forms the polyphenolic network in wood that enables trees to stand upright, transport water and ions, and resist microbial attack. Although its structural complexity is often seen as a limitation, its inherent multifunctionality offers opportunities. By strategically harnessing these features, new directions for advanced lignin-based materials can emerge.

Conventional electronics are heavily dependent on fossil-based plastics, rare metals, ceramics and semiconductors, the production of which is too energy-intensive and polluting to be sustainable. Wood is a renewable natural resource with unique features that could help to meet the increasing need for environmentally friendly bio-based electronics.

Carbon dioxide mineralization transforms carbon dioxide into stable solids, offering a route to durable carbon storage. Scaling this technology will require clarifying the mechanisms behind key reaction bottlenecks and translating those insights into cost-effective materials design and robust process engineering.

Transparent wood has potential not only as a sustainable substitute for glass, but also as a multifunctional energy material whose value lies in the integration of diffuse light management, thermal insulation, mechanical load bearing and sustainability. Its widespread adoption will require application-driven design, realistic durability assessments and alignment with standards.

The transition to a circular economy has entrenched a dangerous orthodoxy: the belief that disposal is a systemic failure. However, genuine sustainability requires functioning sinks. By recognizing disposal as a strategic necessity, we can build a materials economy grounded in physical reality rather than ideological purity.

Widespread ecosystem degradation demands scalable strategies for plant establishment — the process of successful seed dispersal and burial that enables a seed to germinate, survive its vulnerable early stages and emerge as a resilient seedling. However, harsh environmental conditions often make conventional seeding efforts costly and ineffective. Inspired by natural seeding mechanisms that exploit environmental cues, emerging biodegradable, stimulus-driven morphing matter-enabled machines can support plant establishment across its critical phases, offering a pathway to low-impact ecological restoration.

Two-dimensional materials were once celebrated mainly for spectacular single-device demonstrations, but advances over the past decade have revealed that geometry, manufacturability and surface chemistry are equally decisive. Recognizing how structure, synthesis and interfaces work together is now reshaping two-dimensional materials engineering and opening new routes to scalable, reliable and application-ready systems.

High-entropy alloys were once thought to owe their exceptional properties to complete chemical disorder, but advances over the past decade revealed that subtle forms of atomic order are widespread and often essential. Recognizing how order and disorder work together is now reshaping alloy design and opening new routes to stronger, tougher and more reliable materials.

High-entropy bioceramics, which incorporate many elements in near-equimolar ratios, could enable patient-specific implants with customized mechanical, biological and therapeutic properties. Combined with additive manufacturing and artificial intelligence approaches, high-entropy bioceramics hold promise for a new generation of personalized bone substitutes that could redefine regenerative medicine.

Catalytic deconstruction offers a route from waste plastics to monomers and oligomers that can be repolymerized into new plastics. Zeolite catalysts engineered with extra-large pores, hierarchical pore networks or nanoscale dimensions can help to address the diffusion limitations of conventional microscale zeolites in plastic upcycling — an important step towards a more circular plastic economy.

The shift from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources requires the development of efficient systems for long-term energy storage and global distribution. Iron powder is a highly promising zero-carbon energy carrier that can store large amounts of energy and can be transported efficiently over long distances.

Organic solar batteries integrate light harvesting and energy storage in a single device and, particularly when based on porous organic materials, enable efficient solar-to-electrochemical energy storage. However, despite promising advances in materials and device engineering, challenges in charge dynamics and scalability remain, requiring further research and optimization to realize their full potential.

Organic thermoelectric materials are transitioning from laboratory prototypes towards practical devices and could potentially surpass the performance of their inorganic counterparts near room temperature. Research priorities include probing the thermoelectric conversion limit of soft materials, designing organic thermoelectrics for precise temperature control and exploring applications beyond conventional power generation.

The emergence of super wood, transparent wood, mouldable wood and wood–geopolymer hybrids is redefining the structural and functional performance of bioinspired engineered wood products. Meanwhile, the advance of these materials towards industrial deployment faces challenges relating to regulation and environmental impacts, as well as opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.

The project Hiveopolis reimagines beehives as biohybrid superorganisms by introducing living fungal materials and digital technologies into one living architecture — a buzzing honeybee colony. It pioneers a transdisciplinary approach to multispecies resilience and sustainable co-habitation by adapting shape and function, utilizing bio-inspired algorithms to negotiate material costs, time, energy and structural performance.

mRNA-loaded lipid nanoparticles have gained recognition as a promising therapeutic platform against a wide range of diseases. However, a key component of mRNA-loaded lipid nanoparticles, the polyethylene glycol-conjugated lipid, presents inherent barriers to their therapeutic success. Emerging strategies are now offering potential ways to overcome these limitations.