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Expanded alkali fullerides are molecular superconductors with a Mott parent insulating state. Kluppet al.use infrared spectroscopy to detect the molecular Jahn–Teller distortion of fulleride ions and establish its relevance to strongly correlated superconductivity.

An algorithm has been developed that can provably predict the lowest energy structure of crystalline materials using a combination of combinatorial optimization and integer programming.

Machine learning has the potential to significantly speed-up the discovery of new materials in synthetic materials chemistry. Here the authors combine unsupervised machine learning and crystal structure prediction to predict a novel quaternary lithium solid electrolyte that is then synthesized.

A metal–organic framework with large pores catalytically destroys chemical warfare agents.

The functionalization of crystalline porous materials is frequently limited to groups inert to the microscopic structure. Photoconversion of dormant precursors into highly reactive species shines light on the problem.

The behaviour of heterostructures, crucial in nanodevices, largely depends on interfacial phenomena. These have proven difficult to control when the different materials adopt distinct crystal structures. Now, a coherent interface between perovskite and fluorite has been achieved that relies in particular on the coordination flexibility of judiciously chosen metal cations.

Irreversible bond formation in covalent organic frameworks leads to amorphous materials. Here, the authors show that crystalline and ultra-stable covalent amide frameworks can be accessed by devitrification of amorphous polyamide networks.

A complex iron oxide has been made that has an unusual crystal structure suggesting that the oxide ions are surprisingly mobile. This finding could pave the way to other metal-oxide materials with useful properties.

A drying procedure using supercritical carbon dioxide gives greater access to the pores of metal–organic frameworks, affording larger surface areas for applications.

Superconductivity has been discovered in the materials that form when alkali metals react with a solid hydrocarbon. This is the first new class of organic, high-temperature superconductor in a decade.

Cooperative electronic properties that arise purely from carbon π-electrons can lead to unconventional superconductivity and quantum magnetism. New packing architectures have now been established in two caesium-intercalated polyaromatic hydrocarbons, CsPhenanthrene and Cs₂Phenanthrene, both strongly correlated multi-orbital Mott insulators. The frustrated magnetic topology in CsPhenanthrene also renders it a spin-½ quantum spin liquid candidate.

Electrodes of solid oxide fuel cells need to be stable during operation. Here, the authors use tungsten as a substituent to stabilize a perovskite oxide as a two-phase composite. The resulting material dynamically adjusts the phase compositions to keep a high catalytic activity at operation conditions.

Porous materials acting as molecular sieves for propylene/propane separation are important for the petrochemical industry. Here the authors show an example of how specific guest-host interactions can result in structural changes in the porous host and shut down diffusion of one of the two similar guest molecules.

C₆₀-based solids are the archetypal molecular superconductors, reaching transition temperatures as high as 33 K. Now, Cs₃C₆₀ solids, having a transition temperature of 38 K, have been isolated. Both face-centred-cubic and body-centred-cubic phases were synthesized, and, uniquely among C₆₀ solids, the superconducting phase was found to be body-centred cubic.

Metal-organic frameworks have shown promise as nanoreactors, facilitating the synthesis of molecules that are otherwise difficult to isolate. Here, the authors design a framework featuring unobstructed adenine linkers to which thymine molecules can base-pair, allowing for thymine dimerization in the pores upon UV irradiation.

Fast-ion conductors are needed to reduce the operating temperature of solid-oxide fuel cells. The identification of the conduction mechanism in electrolytes where conduction is based on mobile oxygen interstitials rather than the usual anion vacancies offers a generic design principle for novel solid electrolytes.

Superconductivity and magnetic order are well known in C₆₀ compounds of the form A₃C₆₀ (where A = alkali metal). The spherical C₆₀ molecular ions in these crystals are almost always arranged in a face-centred cubic (f.c.c.) packing, except in Cs₃C₆₀, where the known superconducting phase has a body-centred cubic (b.c.c) packing. Now the f.c.c. polymorph for Cs₃C₆₀ has been isolated; it too is superconducting, although its magnetic properties are very different to those of its b.c.c counterpart.

A new metal–organic framework has several conformational degrees of freedom that can be modified by the external chemical environment to change the structure and trigger the uptake of a guest molecule.

Hydroxycarbonate minerals such as zincian malachite and aurichalcite are well known precursors to catalysts for methanol-synthesis and low-temperature water–gas shift reactions; here, a supercritical antisolvent method is used to prepare highly stable georgeite—a hydroxycarbonate mineral that has hitherto been ignored because of its rarity, but which is found to be a superior catalyst precursor.