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Plastics have profoundly changed what is possible in modern society. But between their reliance on fossil fuels and their massive accumulation as waste, plastics are also at the heart of a dual environmental crisis.
Layered oxide compounds with anion redox are among the most promising positive electrode materials for next-generation Li-ion batteries. In this Review, we discuss the thermodynamics and kinetics of the proposed redox mechanisms, and the implications of these mechanisms for designing engineering strategies to achieve stable anion redox.
Trained immunity is a form of nonspecific immune memory, harboured within the innate immune system. This Review discusses nanomedicine platforms to therapeutically regulate trained immunity for the treatment of various conditions, including cancer, inflammation and infection.
An article in Nature Communications reports the construction of a material with switchable rigidity and surface lubrication that is inspired by the ability of catfish to evade capture by predators.
Polymer materials that can reorganize over time or under specific conditions have enormous advantages over static polymer networks. This Review discusses the many classes of molecular bonding motifs used to introduce dynamicity to polymer materials and outlines the design rules for engineering the interaction timescales for desired applications.
The ability to control interlayer excitons in van der Waals heterostructures provides a practical way to address the spin and valley degrees of freedom in solid-state devices. This Review surveys the recent progress in this field, with a focus on devices and engineering techniques.
An article in Advanced Materials reports an environmentally friendly hybrid mineral that presents the same flexibility and moldability as traditional plastics.
Chemistry plays a determining role in every stage of the plastic life cycle. We reflect on the challenges and limitations of plastics — their sheer abundance, chemodiversity and imperfect recoverability leading to loss of material — and on the need for chemical and non-chemical approaches to overcome them.
An article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society reports a method to exploit the stereochemical differences between two sugar-based monomers to fabricate a family of plastic-like materials with a range of degradation and mechanical properties.
Long-acting drug delivery formulations enable sustained and prolonged drug release at the site of action or for systemic delivery, overcoming the need for frequent and repeated drug administration. This Review discusses US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved long-acting drug delivery formulations, highlighting different slow-release mechanisms and delivery platforms, and the materials used to achieve them.
Microplastic is a complex contaminant causing great concern in society. This Review examines the properties of microplastic particles compared with natural particles in the environment and discusses methods of assessing the risks to humans and the environment.
Plastics support modern life but are also associated with environmental pollution. This Review discusses technologies for the production and recycling of bioplastics as part of a more sustainable and circular economy.
The design of superionic conductors necessitates a fundamental understanding of how to invoke fast ion transport in the solid state. This Review discusses the role of framework anion rotational dynamics in enhancing cation diffusion through the paddle-wheel mechanism and its exploitation at room temperature.
Nanoreactors that isolate chemical precursors within a confined space are promising tools for synthesizing nanoparticles. This Review unifies the many classes of solution-based and substrate-confined nanoreactors, evaluating their current synthetic capabilities and their potential for solving future challenges in nanoparticle synthesis.
The 2021 Materials Research Society (MRS) Fall Meeting was a hybrid event for the first time, featuring both an in-person meeting in Boston and a virtual meeting held separately. Nature Reviews Materials speaks to Gopal Rao, Chief Editor of Technical Content for MRS and Editor of MRS Bulletin, to find out what pandemic-era conference planning is like.
The Materials Research Society (MRS) fall meeting is a fixture in the conference calendar of the global materials science community. This year, for the very first time, the conference went hybrid, posing new opportunities, but also challenges, for organizers, speakers and attendees.
Centrifugal and/or shear forces induced by rotary motion can drastically alter outcomes of chemical experiments and processes. This Review surveys rotary systems in which such forces control self-organization phenomena, materials synthesis or even chemical reactivity at molecular and macromolecular scales.
