Materials chemistry articles from across Nature Portfolio

The development of ultramicroporous covalent organic frameworks (COFs) remains a daunting challenge. Here, the authors report a pore partition strategy, which allows for the segmentation of mesopores of COFs into multiple uniform ultramicroporous domains.

Covalent organic molecules can be combined with ionic inorganic molecules to create a hybrid material demonstrating paradoxical mechanical properties in a bottom-up manner, enabling the manufacture of an ‘elastic ceramic plastic’.

Analysis of dendrite initiation, owing to filling of pores with lithium by means of microcracks, and propagation, caused by wedge opening, shows that there are two separate processes during dendrite failure of lithium metal solid-state batteries.

Preparation of porous liquids are fluids with the permanent porosity still requires complicated and tedious use of porous hosts and bulky liquids. Here, the authors develop a facile method to produce a porous metal-organic cage liquid by self-assembly of long polyethylene glycolimidazolium chain functional linkers, calixarene molecules and Zn ions.

Growth constitutes a powerful method to post-modulate materials’ structures and functions without compromising their mechanical performance for sustainable use, but the process is irreversible. To address this issue, the authors here report a growing-degrowing strategy that enables thermosetting materials to either absorb or release components for continuously changing their sizes, shapes, compositions, and a set of properties simultaneously.

Producing functional soft fibers via existing spinning methods is environmentally and economically costly due to the complexity of spinning equipment, involvement of copious solvents, intensive consumption of energy. Here, the authors report a nonsolvent vapor-induced phase separation spinning approach under ambient conditions, which resembles the native spider silk fibrillation’.