Materials chemistry articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many MOFs feature carboxylate ligands with strong coordination bonds, hindering thermal melting. Here, authors present a meltable carboxylate MOF designed with a thermodynamically favored component.

    • Minhyuk Kim
    • , Hwa-Sub Lee
    •  & Hoi Ri Moon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Introduced here is a light-induced MOF synthesis, enabled by plasmonic nanoparticles. The method, proven to be rapid and efficient, can also promote the formation of a nanoparticle-MOF composite, imparting photothermal properties to the new material.

    • Ofir Shelonchik
    • , Nir Lemcoff
    •  & Yossi Weizmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Crack formation typically results in random patterns and material failure. Inspired by plant phototropism, the authors use plasmonic absorbers to control crack propagation in colloidal films with light, showcasing a robust, programmable self-assembly process.

    • Fanny Thorimbert
    • , Mateusz Odziomek
    •  & Marco Faustini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The dynamic protein corona hinders the uptake of nanocarriers in desired target cell populations, limiting their bench-to-bedside translation. Here the authors reveal that the modification of hydroxyl and amino functional groups on nanovesicles can rationally regulate the composition of protein coronas to improve the efficiency of targeted drug delivery.

    • Yunqiu Miao
    • , Lijun Li
    •  & Yong Gan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coacervate-based compartments are attractive as potential protocells, but formation and control of the compartments can be challenging. Here, the authors report the spontaneous formation of core-shell, cell-sized coacervate compartments driven by droplet evaporation.

    • Cheng Qi
    • , Xudong Ma
    •  & Zhou Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    “Understanding the structure-property relationship of organic molecules which exhibit different properties upon aggregation is important for the field of material science. Here, the authors prepare nonconjugated rhodamine-based molecules without aggregation-induced emission building blocks yet displaying typical aggregation-induced emission behavior.”

    • Lin-Lin Yang
    • , Haoran Wang
    •  & Ben Zhong Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ionic skins have potential in long-term physiological monitoring, but do not always achieve a desirable balance of viscosity and elasticity. Here, the authors report a material with hierarchical topological entanglements allowing desirable viscoelastic properties.

    • Huating Ye
    • , Baohu Wu
    •  & Peiyi Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial ion channels have potential in a range of applications, but achieving performance comparable to biological channels has been challenging. Here, the authors report an artificial, light-driven chloride pump, inspired by halorhodopsin, with a helical porphyrin channel array.

    • Chao Li
    • , Yi Zhai
    •  & Lei Jiang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Toxic amyloid-beta plaque and harmful inflammation are two leading hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and precise AD therapy is elusive due to the lack of dual-targeting therapy function, limited blood-brain barrier penetration, and low imaging sensitivity. Here, the authors address these issues by designing a near-infrared-II aggregation-induced emission nanotheranostic for precise AD therapy.

    • Jiefei Wang
    • , Ping Shangguan
    •  & Ben Zhong Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Batch-to-batch reproducibility of device performances is crucial for perovskite photovoltaics moving towards industrialization. Here, the authors show that commercial as-received C60 source materials may coalesce during repeated thermal evaporation processes, jeopardizing such reproducibility.

    • Ahmed A. Said
    • , Erkan Aydin
    •  & Stefaan De Wolf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To enhance the utility of organic molecular cages (OMCs), the evolution of OMCs into higher-level chiral OMCs with self-similar superstructures is meaningful yet challenging. Here, the authors report a pair of higher-level 3D tri-bladed chiral helical molecular cages, displaying self-similarity in a discrete self-similar superstructure at different levels.

    • Zhen Wang
    • , Qing-Pu Zhang
    •  & Chuan-Feng Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs) attract increasing attention as porous materials. Despite the widely studied solid-state properties, little research has been done on the solution state. Here, the authors demonstrate that HOFs fragment into small particles while maintaining their original assemblies upon dispersing in solvents.

    • Qi Yin
    • , Kuan Pang
    •  & Tian-Fu Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Robust hydrogels offer a promising solution for the development of artificial skin for bionic robots, yet few hydrogels have a comprehensive performance comparable to real human skin. Here, the authors present a general method to convert traditional elastomers into tough hydrogels via a unique radiation-induced penetrating polymerization method.

    • Yuan Tian
    • , Zhihao Wang
    •  & Yunlong Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fabrication of polymeric membranes with high permeance and remarkable selectivity for simultaneous H2 purification and CO2 capture is challenging. Here, the authors design a polymer membrane with sub-micro pores via controlled transformation of amine-linked polymer films into benzimidazole- and amine-linked polymer layers.

    • Xueru Yan
    • , Tianqi Song
    •  & Xinlei Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Native spider silk has desirable mechanical properties, but these are challenging to replicate in an artificial material. Here, the authors report the use of a microfluidic system to create continuous fibers based on recombinant spidroin.

    • Jianming Chen
    • , Arata Tsuchida
    •  & Keiji Numata

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Prelithiation can introduce controllable amounts of lithium within porous silicon, however it yields a highly reactive material unsuitable for biomedicine. In this study, the authors present a strategy to lithiate porous silicon nanowires, resulting in a biocompatible and bioresorbable material.

    • Martti Kaasalainen
    • , Ran Zhang
    •  & Ciro Chiappini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Methodologies to achieve efficient and selective uranium separation originating from nuclear waste are desirable. Here the authors report the in-situ formation of π-f conjugated 2D uranium-organic framework for uranium separation, leading to superior performance in uranium uptake and outstanding uranium generation efficiency from seawater.

    • Qing Yun Zhang
    • , Lin Juan Zhang
    •  & Feng Luo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electro-active ionic soft actuators generally present slow responses and poor durability when are applied as artificial muscles. Here, the authors describe a polyelectrolyte membrane based on the assembly of Nafion molecules into micelles with efficient ionic conducting pathways for electro-ionic soft actuators and soft robotics with fast responses and long durability.

    • Van Hiep Nguyen
    • , Saewoong Oh
    •  & Il-Kwon Oh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors report a synthetic strategy to create core@shell catalysts using strong metal-support interactions and low-Tammann-temperature compounds. The resulting materials are highly stable and may be useful in industrial applications.

    • Pei Xiong
    • , Zhihang Xu
    •  & Molly Meng-Jung Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanoscale optoelectrodes hold the potential to optically stimulate individual neuron. Here, the authors form nanoscale capacitive optoelectrodes by incorporating zinc porphyrin into nanorods, coated by TiO2, a design that allows for far-field optical modulation of neurons with efficiency and negligible side effects.

    • Jian Chen
    • , Yanyan Liu
    •  & Wenbo Bu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Soft robots have potential in a number of applications, but the self-regulated steering of the robots under static stimuli is a significant challenge. Here, the authors report the movement of knotbots by symmetry breaking and restoration to achieve tasks including gear rotation and rod climbing.

    • Qing Li Zhu
    • , Weixuan Liu
    •  & Zi Liang Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The water stability of perovskites remains challenging due to their intrinsic ionic nature. Here, the authors present water stable perovskite X-ray imager driven by strong cation-π interactions between organic cations and a complete release of microstrain during dimension transformation process.

    • Wanting Pan
    • , Yuhong He
    •  & Haotong Wei

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A change material properties on application of stimuli is a useful property for hydrogels, but mechano-responsiveness in such materials is challenging to achieve. Here, the authors report a strain-responsive hydrogel, controlled by the activity of enzymes within the material.

    • Kuan Zhang
    • , Yu Zhou
    •  & Lifei Zheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Soft robots have potential in carrying out underwater tasks, but achieving the right level of adhesion and shape-changing ability is challenging. Here, the authors report the development of protein-based hydrogels with iron oxide nanoparticles with photothermal and magnetic responsiveness, capable of carrying out complex tasks.

    • Sheng-Chen Huang
    • , Ya-Jiao Zhu
    •  & Zhi-Gang Qian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The design of host-guest systems for switchable recognition of guests upon the change of external stimuli is challenging due to the invariable host-guest affinity. Here, the authors encode a dynamic motion into a porous crystal to regulate the diffusion of CO2 and C2H2 allowing the crystal to switch the gas recognition selectivity by temperature.

    • Yan Su
    • , Ken-ichi Otake
    •  & Cheng Gu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Iridium-based photosensitizers exhibit good photocatalytic performance, but the in vivo applications are hindered by conventional O2-dependent Type-II photochemistry and poor absorption. Here, the authors report a general metallopolymerization strategy for engineering iridium complexes exhibiting Type-I photochemistry and enhancing absorption intensity in the blue to near-infrared region.

    • Zhao Zhang
    • , Zixiang Wei
    •  & Xuanjun Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coacervate droplets have potential as components for cell-like materials, but are limited by complex molecular structure and control of the internal microenvironment. Here, the authors report stable dipeptide-based coacervates with a microenvironment for the encapsulation of hydrophobic species.

    • Shoupeng Cao
    • , Tsvetomir Ivanov
    •  & Lucas Caire da Silva

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Assembly is an interesting strategy to build chiral hierarchies with premade properties and functionalities. Here, the authors present assembled chiral hydrogen-bonded organic-inorganic frameworks with dynamical chiroptical activities and employ them as powerful and recoverable platforms for enantioselective recognition of chiral aliphatic substrates.

    • Jun Guo
    • , Yulong Duan
    •  & Yi Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The design of multifunctional platforms with tunable spectroscopic and fluorescent properties that span the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared spectral regions remains challenging. Here, the authors report an actuator-type system that leverages a readily-prepared, easily-processable, and exceptionally-stable nonacene-like molecule to achieve multiple complementary dynamic operating modes.

    • Preeta Pratakshya
    • , Chengyi Xu
    •  & Alon A. Gorodetsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chemical approaches to improve aqueous dispersions of conjugated polymers are limited by the feasibility of modifying the backbone or lead to poor performance. Here, Liu et al. show that ground-state electron transfer in donor:acceptor blends aids aqueous dispersion, for high conductivity and solubility.

    • Tiefeng Liu
    • , Johanna Heimonen
    •  & Simone Fabiano

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aerogels attract considerable attention in various emerging fields in recent decades, but low density and weak mechanical performance make their configuration-editing capability challenging. Here the authors establish an efficient twice-coagulated strategy to fabricate configuration-editable tough aerogels enabled by transformable gel precursors.

    • Lishan Li
    • , Guandu Yang
    •  & Xuetong Zhang

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