Materials chemistry articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solid state Pt(II)-pincer complexes exhibiting vapochromic responses show promise for chemical sensing applications, but their slow responses typically limit their utility. Here, Raithby and colleagues design a Pt(II)-pincer complex with a subsecond, highly-selective vapochromic response to water and methanol.

    • M. J. Bryant
    • , J. M. Skelton
    •  & P. R. Raithby

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydrogen is attractive as a clean fuel for motor vehicles and porous carbons represent promising hydrogen storage materials. Here, Mokaya and colleagues incorporate oxygen-rich functional groups into porous carbons with high microporosity, showing that such materials exhibit significantly enhanced H2 storage capacity.

    • L. Scott Blankenship
    • , Norah Balahmar
    •  & Robert Mokaya

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single-walled carbon nanotubes offer exciting optoelectronic applications but generally suffer from low quantum yields. Here, Luo et al. demonstrate that coupling nanotubes to plasmonic antennas can lead to large Purcell enhancement and corresponding increase in quantum yield as well as plasmonic thermometry at the single molecule level.

    • Yue Luo
    • , Ehsaneh D. Ahmadi
    •  & Stefan Strauf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The exterior layers of mollusk shells are prismatic in nature, endowing them with stiffness and wear resistance. Inspired by these biominerals, here, Jiang and colleagues grow structurally similar prismatic-type CaCO3 thin films with comparable stiffness and hardness.

    • Chuanlian Xiao
    • , Ming Li
    •  & Helmut Cölfen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cationic metal-organic frameworks provide promising opportunities to capture anionic pollutants, but stable frameworks with sufficiently large pores are lacking. Here the authors present a thorium-based mesoporous, cationic and hydrolytically-stable MOF that can rapidly trap inorganic and organic anionic pollutants.

    • Yuxiang Li
    • , Zaixing Yang
    •  & Shuao Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Increasing CO2 emissions pose serious environmental issues. Here, the authors report the synthesis of a robust metal-organic framework which displays high volumetric uptake of post-combustion CO2 under ambient conditions and can catalyze CO2 fixation into cyclic carbonates.

    • Linfeng Liang
    • , Caiping Liu
    •  & Maochun Hong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An understanding of how caged carbon materials self-assemble from doped graphite is a long-standing challenge. Here, the authors show that distinct bottom-up processes lead to the synthesis of high-symmetry clusterfullerenes.

    • Marc Mulet-Gas
    • , Laura Abella
    •  & Paul W. Dunk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mechanochemistry offers exciting opportunities for molecular engineering of stress-responsive properties of polymers. Here the authors show that macrocyclic cinnamate dimers in a polymer chain can undergo dissociation on the sub-second timescale under 1–2 nN stretching to yield a chromophore that then can be optically healed.

    • Huan Zhang
    • , Xun Li
    •  & Roman Boulatov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling mechanical motions in solid state devices is highly desirable for the development of nanoscale machines. Here, Kepert and colleagues exploit an ultra-flexible coordination framework in which thermally-controlled Fe(II) spin transitions result in remarkable flexing of the crystal lattice.

    • Benjamin R. Mullaney
    • , Laurence Goux-Capes
    •  & Cameron J. Kepert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coupling molecular toroids via ferrotoroidic interactions represents an important opportunity to enhance ground state toroidicity, but is challenging to achieve. Here the authors isolate a {CrIIIDyIII 6} complex with a ferrotoroidic ground state and an enhanced toroidal moment, arising solely from intramolecular dipolar interactions.

    • Kuduva R. Vignesh
    • , Alessandro Soncini
    •  & Gopalan Rajaraman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Great efforts have been devoted to the development of chemiluminescence systems that emit light with high intensity over long periods of time. Here the authors show, firefly-mimicking intensive and long-lasting chemiluminescence hydrogels consisting of chitosan, N-(4-aminobutyl)-N-ethylisoluminol (ABEI) and catalyst Co2+.

    • Yating Liu
    • , Wen Shen
    •  & Hua Cui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synthetic nanochemistry currently lacks the molecular step-by-step routes afforded to organic chemistry by total synthesis. Here, the authors track the seeded growth of atom-precise gold nanoclusters using mass spectrometry, revealing that the clusters evolve through a series of intermediates in two-electron steps.

    • Qiaofeng Yao
    • , Xun Yuan
    •  & Jianping Xie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Enzymes regulated by chemical signals are common in biology, but few such artificial catalysts exist. Here, the authors design an aniline catalyst that, when activated by a chemical trigger, catalyses formation of hydrazone-based gels, demonstrating signal response in a soft material.

    • Fanny Trausel
    • , Chandan Maity
    •  & Rienk Eelkema

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Experimental studies of frustrated spin systems such as pyrochlore magnetic oxides test our understanding of quantum many-body physics. Here the authors show experimentally that Tb2Hf2O7 may be a model material for investigating how structural disorder can stabilize a quantum spin liquid phase.

    • Romain Sibille
    • , Elsa Lhotel
    •  & Michel Kenzelmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Producing graphene oxide membranes with narrow channels is desirable for small molecule separations, but methods to narrow the 2D spacing typically result in membrane damage. Here the authors exploit electrophoresis-deposition to prepare GO membranes that are reduced in situ, leading to narrow and uniform 2D channels.

    • Benyu Qi
    • , Xiaofan He
    •  & Yuhan Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Few models exist that describe the spontaneous organization of colloids into materials. Here, the authors combine liquid-phase TEM and single particle tracking to observe the dynamics of gold nanoprisms, finding that nanoscale self-assembly can be understood within the framework of atomic polymerization.

    • Juyeong Kim
    • , Zihao Ou
    •  & Qian Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecules that act as both autocatalysts and material precursors offer exciting prospects for self-synthesizing materials. Here, the authors design a triazole peptide that self-replicates and then self-assembles into nanostructures, coupling autocatalytic and assembly pathways to realize a reproducing supramolecular system.

    • Roberto J. Brea
    •  & Neal K. Devaraj

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Producing hydrogen peroxide via electrochemical oxidation of water is an attractive route to this valuable product. Here the authors theoretically and experimentally investigate hydrogen peroxide production activity trends for a range of metal oxides and identify the optimal bias ranges for high Faraday efficiencies.

    • Xinjian Shi
    • , Samira Siahrostami
    •  & Jens K. Nørskov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    T-carbon is a previously predicted but so far unobserved allotrope of carbon, with a crystal structure similar to diamond, but with each atomic lattice position replaced by a carbon tetrahedron. Here, the authors produce T-carbon nanowires via laser-irradiating a suspension of carbon nanotubes in methanol.

    • Jinying Zhang
    • , Rui Wang
    •  & Chunming Niu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Separating immiscible liquids with small surface energy differences remains a challenge. Here, the authors develop a polarity-based strategy for the separation of multiphase mixtures of immiscible liquids, even those with surface energy differences as small as 2 mJ m-2.

    • Yang Wang
    • , Jiancheng Di
    •  & Jihong Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The exposed facets of oxide nanocrystals are key to their properties. Here, the authors use 17O solid-state NMR spectroscopy to discriminate between oxygen species on different facets of anatase titania nanocrystals, providing compelling evidence for the value of NMR spectroscopy in characterizing faceted oxides.

    • Yuhong Li
    • , Xin-Ping Wu
    •  & Luming Peng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perovskite manganites exhibit intriguing but poorly understood properties, including multiferroicity. Here, the authors synthesize a Ce3Mn8 cluster that structurally resembles a perovskite repeat unit, and use this molecular analogue to elucidate mechanisms driving bulk perovskite properties.

    • Annaliese E. Thuijs
    • , Xiang-Guo Li
    •  & George Christou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The design of organic and polymeric soft materials showing isothermal reversible liquid–nonliquid conversion is challenging. Here, the authors show solvent-free repeatable molecular architectural transformation between liquid-star and non-liquid-network polymers by the cleavage and reformation of covalent bonds in the polymer chain.

    • Satoshi Honda
    •  & Taro Toyota

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Minerals are rarely explored as building blocks for dynamic inorganic materials. Here, the authors derive inspiration from fish scales to create mutable surfaces based on arrays of calcite crystals, in which one end of each crystal is immobilized in and regenerated from silicone, and the other functional end is left exposed.

    • Jaeseok Yi
    • , Yucai Wang
    •  & Bozhi Tian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Capturing radioactive organic iodides from nuclear waste is important for safe nuclear energy usage, but remains a significant challenge. Here, Li and co-workers fabricate a stable metal–organic framework functionalized with tertiary amine groups that exhibits high capacities for radioactive organic iodides uptake.

    • Baiyan Li
    • , Xinglong Dong
    •  & Jing Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    MOF-based membranes have shown great promise in separation applications, but producing thin membranes that allow for high fluxes remains challenging. Here, the authors use a gel–vapour deposition strategy to fabricate composite membranes with less than 20 nm thicknesses and high gas permeances and selectivities.

    • Wanbin Li
    • , Pengcheng Su
    •  & Eddy Zeng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photoelectrochemical water splitting is a promising method for H2 fuel production, but the O2 by-product generated has little economic value. Here, Berlinguette and colleagues demonstrate that BiVO4 photoanodes immersed in organic media can instead perform valuable alcohol oxidation and C–H functionalization reactions.

    • Tengfei Li
    • , Takahito Kasahara
    •  & Curtis P. Berlinguette

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-dimensional superconductors will likely have applications not only in devices, but also in the study of fundamental physics. Here, Wang et al. demonstrate the CVD growth of superconducting NbSe2 on a variety of substrates, making these novel materials increasingly accessible.

    • Hong Wang
    • , Xiangwei Huang
    •  & Zheng Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Probing the growth pathways of quasicrystalline materials, where tiling units arrange with local but no long-range order, remains challenging. Here, the authors demonstrate that dodecagonal tiling of mesoporous silica nanoparticles occurs via irreversible packing of micelles with non-uniform size distribution.

    • Yao Sun
    • , Kai Ma
    •  & Ulrich Wiesner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High energy density materials are of interest, but density is the limiting factor for many organic compounds. Here the authors show the formation of a high density energetic compound from a two-step reaction between commercially available compounds that exhibit good heat thermal stability and detonation properties.

    • Wenquan Zhang
    • , Jiaheng Zhang
    •  & Qinghua Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Orthosilicic acid is essential to many natural and synthetic materials but notoriously difficult to isolate, limiting its use in materials synthesis. Here, the authors successfully synthesize and stabilize orthosilicic acid and its oligomers, making available a new family of building blocks for silicon oxide-based materials.

    • Masayasu Igarashi
    • , Tomohiro Matsumoto
    •  & Shigeru Shimada

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Adding functional electronic components to graphene nanoribbons requires precise control over their atomic structure. Here, the authors use a bottom-up approach to build a metal-semiconductor junction and a tunnel barrier directly into a single graphene nanoribbon, an exciting development for graphene-based electronic devices

    • P. H. Jacobse
    • , A. Kimouche
    •  & I. Swart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organizing photochromic molecules into 3D networks is a key strategy to access photoresponsive materials, but framework rigidity typically limits conversion efficiency. Here, the authors exploit a flexible metal-organic framework to achieve quantitative and reversible photoisomerization in a porous crystalline solid.

    • Yongtai Zheng
    • , Hiroshi Sato
    •  & Susumu Kitagawa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carbon-based materials are promising alternatives to noble metal catalysts, but their structures are typically disordered and difficult to control. Here, the authors obtain ordered carbonaceous frameworks with advantageous electrocatalytic properties via the carbonization of nickel-containing porphyrin dimer networks.

    • Hirotomo Nishihara
    • , Tetsuya Hirota
    •  & Fumito Tani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biological systems vital functions are based on non-equilibrium states driven by consumption of chemical fuels. Here the authors show a spatiotemporal control over the formation of hydrophobic colloids, hydrogels or inks through a chemical reaction network of dicarboxylate compounds fuelled by carbodiimide.

    • Marta Tena-Solsona
    • , Benedikt Rieß
    •  & Job Boekhoven

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single molecule magnets have demonstrated promise for information storage, molecular spintronics and quantum computing, but are limited by their low operational temperatures. Here, Popov and coworkers prepare a SMM with a high blocking temperature of 18 K by trapping two lanthanide ions with a single-electron bond inside a fullerene.

    • Fupin Liu
    • , Denis S. Krylov
    •  & Alexey A. Popov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite living in a three-dimensional world, almost all information in our society is conveyed in a two-dimensional format. Here, the authors provide a technique for the generation of spatially accurate and high-resolution three-dimensional images using fluorescent photoswitch chemistry.

    • Shreya K. Patel
    • , Jian Cao
    •  & Alexander R. Lippert

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