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Environmental transmission electron microscopy reveals distinct atomistic pathways for the reduction of NiO to metallic nickel by CO and H₂, with H₂ more effective in transforming the entire bulk material.

Conversion electrodes possess high energy density but suffer a rapid capacity loss over cycling compared to their intercalation equivalents. Here the authors reveal the microscopic origin of the fading behavior, showing that the formation and augmentation of passivation layers are responsible.

Edge computing devices must be compact and energy efficient for use in low-power environments. Here, the authors propose a flexible memristive dot product engine designed for edge use with 0.3% energy consumption compared to digital approaches.

Upgrading biogas to valuable solid carbon can potentially lead to negative CO₂ emissions with long-term carbon storage but faces substantial thermodynamic and kinetic limits using a single reactor. Tandem strategies can decouple reactions into tandem reactors, integrate non-equilibrium processes and identify synergistic catalytic sites to enhance carbon nanofiber production.

Nickel-rich Li-ion positive electrodes face challenges such as high cost and poor cycling stability. Here, authors show that quenching heat treatment can lead to more stable performance at high voltages, with synchrotron analyses revealing the roles of surface chemistry and bulk charge distribution.

Designing highly active and stable catalytic sites is often challenging due to complex synthesis procedures and the agglomeration of active sites during high-temperature reactions. Here the authors present a two-step method to synthesize Pt clusters in In-modified ZSM-5, resulting in superior propane dehydrogenation performance.

Zinc batteries are receiving growing attention due to their sustainability merits not shared by lithium-ion technologies. Here the aqueous electrolyte design features unique solvation structures that render Zn–air pouch cell excellent cycling stability in a wide temperature range from −60 to 80 °C.

Supramolecular mixed matrix materials containing amorphous MOFs are carbonized to form hierarchically nanoporous carbon membranes, and the single metal atoms and clusters enhance H₂ separation properties for H₂ production, delivery, and recovery.

Fixing CO₂ into value-added solid carbon such as carbon nanofibres is a promising process but poses substantial challenges. Now a tandem strategy is proposed where CO₂ and water are electrocatalytically converted into syngas to subsequently form carbon nanofibres via a thermocatalytic process.

Operando synchrotron experiments reveal the Mn dissolution/redeposition dynamics in Mn-containing cathodes and offer insights into the regulation of Mn dissolution using ion-capturing polymers.

The dependence on lithium-ion batteries leads to a pressing demand for advanced cathode materials. Here the authors report a new concept of layered-rocksalt intergrown structure that enables nearly zero-strain operation upon high-capacity cycling, offering tremendous opportunities to design new cathodes.

The rational design of efficient water oxidation electrocatalysts is paramount to the development of electrochemical devices. Now, a Co-TiO₂ single-site catalyst is presented for alkaline water oxidation with high intrinsic activity, and its mechanism has been studied by grand canonical quantum mechanics calculations and in situ techniques.

Platinum group metal- and iron-free catalysts are highly desirable for the oxygen reduction reaction in proton-exchange membrane fuel cells. Now, Wu and co-workers show a carbon catalyst with atomically dispersed single Mn sites as an efficient catalyst with enhanced stability in acidic media.

Poor electrochemical reversibility of the conversion-type cathode materials remains an important challenge for their practical applications. Here, the authors report a highly reversible fluoride cathode material with low hysteresis through concerted doping of cobalt and oxygen into iron fluoride.

Chunsheng Wang and colleagues develop an electrolyte strategy to enable the use of commercially available microsized alloys, such as Si–Li, as high-performance battery anodes. They ascribe its success to the formation of robust LiF-rich layers as the solid–electrolyte interface.

A reversible oxygen redox process contributes extra capacity and understanding this behavior is of high importance. Here, aided by resonant inelastic X-ray scattering, the authors reveal the distinctive anionic oxygen activity of battery electrodes with different transition metals.

PdMo bimetallene, a highly curved and sub-nanometre-thick nanosheet of a palladium–molybdenum alloy, is an efficient and stable electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction and evolution reactions under alkaline conditions.

Infrared-active InAs quantum dots (QDs) were synthesized with zinc coordination complexes for surface passivation, resulting in improved optoelectronic properties. The resulting InAs QDs doped with Zn showed narrowed size distributions, reduced surface defects, and modulation of electronic properties through Zn surface doping. These InAs:Zn QDs exhibited improved electrical properties when integrated into infrared photodiodes.

Memristors based on 2D materials are promising candidates for realizing artificial synapses in next-generation computing. Here, utilizing optimal-power argon plasma treatment, the authors enhance the performance of memristors fabricated from monolayer MoS₂, reducing non-linearity and asymmetry in synaptic weight updates and minimizing cycle-to-cycle variability.

Dispersionless flat bands are often required to observe unusual quantum states of matter. Here, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) reveals a flat band electronic structure in a VSe₂/Bi₂Se₃ heterostructure, and exhibits complex circular dichroism.

Understanding the connection between qubit coherence and microscopic materials properties is vital for improving device performance. Here, the relaxation times of superconducting transmon qubits are found to be directly correlated with Nb film properties such as grain size and surface oxide composition.