A Robust and Tough Composite Hydrogel Electrolyte with Anion‐Locked Supramolecular Network for Zinc Ion Batteries
A composite hydrogel electrolyte is prepared by constructing a 3D supramolecular network. The hydrogel electrolyte possesses good mechanical properties, superior ionic conductivity, and high zinc ion transference number, which can inhibit dendrite growth, enable uniform zinc deposition, achieve long cycle life, and realize high capacity retention.
Abstract
Hydrogel electrolytes have garnered extensive attention in zinc ion batteries due to their excellent flexibility and good safety. However, their limited mechanical properties, low ionic conductivity, and poor Zn2+ transference number pose significant challenges for developing high-performance zinc ion batteries. Herein, this work constructs a 3D supramolecular network capable of locking anions and active water molecules through the abundant hydrogen bonding interactions between aramid nanofibers, polyvinyl alcohol, and anions. This network synergistically enhances the mechanical properties (with a mechanical strength of 0.88 MPa and a toughness of 3.28 MJ m−3), ionic conductivity (4.22 S m−1), and Zn2+ transference number (0.78). As a result, the supramolecular composite hydrogel electrolyte can effectively inhibit dendrite growth and side reactions, facilitate interface regulation, and enable uniform zinc deposition. The Zn anode exhibits a cycle life of 1500 h at 5 mA cm−2 and 5 mAh cm−2, with an average coulombic efficiency of 99.1% over 600 cycles. Additionally, the Zn||polyaniline full cell maintains a high capacity retention of 78% after 9100 cycles at 1 A g−1. The assembled pouch cells demonstrate good flexibility, deformability, and compression resistance. This work provides valuable insights into the design of high-performance hydrogel electrolytes for zinc ion batteries.
Engineering Magnetotactic Bacteria as Medical Microrobots
Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are living microorganisms that produce magnetosomes for navigation using the Earth's geomagnetic field. Their built-in magnetic components, along with their intrinsic and/or modified biological functions, make them one of the most promising platforms for making future living and programmable microrobots. This review highlights recent advances in MTB-based microrobotics, detailing their interactions with magnetic fields, propulsion mechanisms, motion control, and emerging strategies for engineering and functionalizing MTB for biomedical applications.
Abstract
Nature's ability to create complex and functionalized organisms has long inspired engineers and scientists to develop increasingly advanced machines. Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB), a group of Gram-negative prokaryotes that biomineralize iron and thrive in aquatic environments, have garnered significant attention from the bioengineering community. These bacteria possess chains of magnetic nanocrystals known as magnetosomes, which allow them to align with Earth's geomagnetic field and navigate through aquatic environments via magnetotaxis, enabling localization to areas rich in nutrients and optimal oxygen concentration. Their built-in magnetic components, along with their intrinsic and/or modified biological functions, make them one of the most promising platforms for future medical microrobots. Leveraging an externally applied magnetic field, the motion of MTBs can be precisely controlled, rendering them suitable for use as a new type of biohybrid microrobotics with great promise in medicine for bioimaging, drug delivery, cancer therapy, antimicrobial treatment, and detoxification. This mini-review provides an up-to-date overview of recent advancements in MTB microrobots, delineates the interaction between MTB microrobots and magnetic fields, elucidates propulsion mechanisms and motion control, and reports state-of-the-art strategies for modifying and functionalizing MTB for medical applications.
Efficient Kinetic Separation of Carbon Dioxide from Acetylene Using Mordenites Featuring Modified 1D Channels with Excellent Selectivity and Diffusion
This work reports the precise recognition of gas molecules with similar kinetic sizes while maintaining high gas diffusivity through the modification of the 1D channels of micrometer-sized mordenite. The weak acid salt-modified mordenite NaAlO2@MOR(0.5) exhibits remarkable carbon dioxide/acetylene kinetic selectivity (534.3), and high carbon dioxide capacity and diffusion constant.
Abstract
The design of physical adsorbents for a precise recognition of gas molecules with similar kinetic sizes is of importance as adsorptive separation can serve as an alternative to energy-intensive distillation processes. However, it is challenging to balance the selectivity, capacity, and adsorption kinetics of the adsorbents. Herein, an efficient kinetic separation of acetylene and carbon dioxide is reported, which have nearly identical kinetic sizes, achieved through modification of the one-dimensional (1D) channels of a micrometer-sized mordenite. Under ambient conditions, the weak acid salt-modified mordenite denoted as NaAlO2@MOR(0.5), exhibits a remarkable kinetic separation selectivity of 534.3 while retaining an excellent diffusivity for CO2. Compared to other adsorbent materials, its dynamic column performance for carbon dioxide significantly exceeds those of molecular sieve materials. In terms of separation selectivity, it is superior to thermodynamic separation adsorbents. The high efficiency of NaAlO2@MOR(0.5) in CO2/C2H2 kinetic separation is validated by column breakthrough experiments. Furthermore, NaAlO2@MOR(0.5) has a low cost and high thermal stability. This study can guide the design of adsorbents that balance selectivity, capacity, and gas diffusivity, to provide a highly efficient kinetic separation of gas molecules with similar kinetic diameters.
Ligand effects enhancing low-temperature oxygen reduction kinetics in neutral conditions
DOI: 10.1039/D5EE01407G, PaperYongjian Zhao, Murong Huang, Yongshuai Kang, Yong Fang, Tianyou Zhao, Hu Wang, Jiayi Ou, Jiajun Liu, Meixi Zhong, Tao Wang, Xianhu Sun, Chenyang Zhao, Dan Wang
The sluggish oxygen reduction kinetics, resulting from ineffective O2 activation and hydrogenation, has been hindering the performance improvement of self-breathing zinc-air batteries (ZABs), especially in a hostile environment under low...
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Issue Information
Recreating Silk's Fibrillar Nanostructure by Spinning Solubilized, Undegummed Silk (Adv. Mater. 15/2025)
Recreating Silk's Fibrillar Nanostructure
In article number 2413786, Martin Zaki, Benjamin James Allardyce, and co-workers present a new method to solubilise silk without degumming and use it to successfully wet spin fibres with a nanofibrillar structure akin to natural silk, but twice as tough. This new spinning dope, which contains both undegraded fibroin and sericin, spontaneously exhibited naturally-occurring liquid-liquid phase separation behaviour, which is likely to be a crucial step in replicating native silk spinning. Cover art by Ella Maru Studios.
Buckle‐Barrel Correspondence Based on Topological Polarization Conversion in Mechanical Metamaterials (Adv. Mater. 15/2025)
Mechanical Metamaterials
Simple changes in the local topology of a mechanical metamaterial can induce dramatic global deformations, potentially driving advances in future shape-morphing materials and deployable structures, such as those used in space settlement or medical devices. More details can be found in article number 2415962 by Johan Christensen and co-workers.
Directly Printed 3D Soft Microwave Plasmonic Enhanced‐Q Resonators by Decoupling from Lossy Media (Adv. Mater. 15/2025)
Directly Printed Soft 3D Plasmonic Resonators
Conventional 2D plasmonic resonators face limitations in their application to soft electronic platforms due to signal attenuation induced by lossy media. In article number 2418182, Seungjun Chung and co-workers developed directly printed 3D plasmonic resonators with highly conductive elastomeric composites. Diverse soft 3D resonators demonstrated structural and signal integrities under repetitive strain cycles, highlighting higher Q-factor resonances even on lossy media.
Reactive Oxygen Species Resistive Redox Mediator in Lithium–Oxygen Batteries (Adv. Mater. 15/2025)
Organic Redox Mediators
In article number 2415805, Hyun-Wook Lee, Ji-Won Hwang, Ja-Yeong Kim, Shuming Chen, Sung-Eun Suh, Won-Jin Kwak, and co-workers present reactive oxygen-resistive redox mediator (RM) by rational design strategies based on Bredt's rule. Unlike other bi-cyclic RMs, the as-designed RM shows exceptional chemical stability against reactive oxygens and consequently delivers improved electrochemical reversibility with high oxygen yield during cycles.
Rapid Drying Principle for High‐speed, Pinhole‐Less, Uniform Wet Deposition Protocols of Water‐Dispersed 2D Materials (Adv. Mater. 15/2025)
Rapid Drying
Rapid drying is a key principle for scalable, high-speed, uniform, and pinhole-less deposition of 2D materials. Using hot dipping and air knife sweeping (AKS), deposition speeds up to 0.21 m2 min−1 are achieved, surpassing conventional protocols by 2–4 orders of magnitude. This approach can extend to 1D and 3D materials if they are uniformly dispersible in rapidly evaporable liquids. More details can be found in article number 2411447 by, Chuan Wang, Dongwook Lee, and co-workers.
Polyphosphonitrile Derivative-Based Gel Electrolytes for All-Climate Zinc Metal Batteries Operating from −70 oC to +80 oC
DOI: 10.1039/D5EE01478F, PaperRan Han, Yuefeng Meng, Xin Zhao, Yao Wang, Mingkun Tang, Yichen Ding, Baohua Li, Dong Zhou, Feiyu Kang
The high freezing point and poor anode stability of traditional aqueous electrolytes strongly hamper the cyclability and working temperature range of zinc (Zn) metal batteries (ZMBs). Herein, we demonstrate a...
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Thu 05 Jun 15:30: But why here? Space technologies, the logic of location, and the violence of infrastructure Twenty-Ninth Annual Hans Rausing Lecture
This talk is part of a larger project that imagines a history of space exploration centering the Global South as a crucial site for humanity’s first steps off the planet. During the Cold War, when the United States, the Soviet Union, and many Western European nations first began to explore space, they stationed considerable ground infrastructure on Africa, Asia, and Latin America to track, communicate with, and launch satellites into orbit. Largely invisible in popular accounts of space exploration, these technoscientific stations, strewn across many postcolonial locales, produced a wide range of entanglements with local populations and environments, usually in the form of displacements of people or damage to local ecologies. In looking at the history of this ‘passive’ infrastructure in several locales, including Algeria, Kenya, and India – the talk offers insights along three threads. First it explores the ways in which the selection criteria for locating such technoscientific infrastructure derived from a certain kind of ‘logic of location’ which naturalized exclusionary practices as being ‘rational’ and opposition to them as being antimodern, ahistorical, and against the greater good. Second, it restores ‘history’ to these sites by situating them outside of the space program, thus linking them to broader political economies and colonial geographies, rendering visible the seams and sutures of a larger story of the (re)appropriation of postcolonial geographies in the late 20th century for space exploration. Finally, the talk offers a methodological intervention, situating this kind of technoscientific ‘passive’ infrastructure (and often, their abandoned ruins) as part of a global (and postcolonial) history of technology, one legible at multiple and overlapping registers, including the social, the technological, and the environmental.
- Asif Siddiqi is Professor of History at Fordham University, New York. He specialises in the history of science and technology in the 19th and 20th centuries, with a particular focus on communities and practices operating globally and under conditions of stress and scarcity.
Twenty-Ninth Annual Hans Rausing Lecture
- Speaker: Asif Siddiqi (Fordham University)
- Thursday 05 June 2025, 15:30-17:00
- Venue: Biffen Lecture Theatre, Department of Genetics, Downing Site.
- Series: Rausing Lecture; organiser: David Thompson.
Fully evaporated interfacial layers for high-performance and batch-to-batch reproducible organic solar modules
DOI: 10.1039/D5EE00014A, PaperZe Jin, Cheng Shen, Haotian Hu, Chengcheng Han, Yongqi Bai, Mengjin Yang, Quan Liu, Ziyi Ge
Significant advancements in research have been made in recent years, with single-junction organic solar cells achieving efficiencies exceeding 20%. However, scaling up laboratory prototypes to large-area commercial modules remains challenging...
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Wed 15 Oct 15:00: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Niamh O'Neill, University of Cambridge
- Wednesday 15 October 2025, 15:00-15:30
- Venue: Unilever Lecture Theatre, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry.
- Series: Theory - Chemistry Research Interest Group; organiser: Lisa Masters.
Wed 15 Oct 14:30: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Pin Yu Chew, University of Cambridge
- Wednesday 15 October 2025, 14:30-15:00
- Venue: Unilever Lecture Theatre, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry.
- Series: Theory - Chemistry Research Interest Group; organiser: Lisa Masters.
Reactive Oxygen Species Resistive Redox Mediator in Lithium–Oxygen Batteries
Organic redox mediators (ORMs) reactive nature with 1O2 causes the functional degradation but the reactivity of ORMs is often neglected. The ORM is systematically designed, which has superior 1O2 stability than ORMs with similar molecular structures and promises enhanced cyclability sustaining its catalytic function. This work emphasizes the necessity of suitable design of ORMs and the importance of controlling 1O2.
Abstract
The utilization of redox mediators (RMs) in lithium–oxygen batteries (LOBs) has underscored their utility in high overpotential during the charging process. Among the currently known RMs, it is exceptionally challenging to identify those with a redox potential capable of attenuating singlet oxygen (1O2) generation while resisting degradation by reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as 1O2 and superoxide (O2 •−). In this context, computational and experimental approaches for rational molecular design have led to the development of 7,7′-bi-7-azabicyclo[2.2.1]heptane (BAC), a newly suggested RM incorporating N–N interconnected aza-bicycles. BAC harnesses the advantages of falling within the potential range that suppresses 1O2 generation, as previously reported N–N embedded non-bicyclic RMs, and effectively defends against ROS-induced degradation due to the incorporation of a novel bicyclic moiety. Unlike the non-bicyclic RMs, which exhibit reduced O2 evolution after exposure to 1O2, BAC maintains consistent O2 profiles during charging, indicating its superior 1O2 resistance and steady redox-catalyst performance in LOBs. This study introduces a precise and rational design strategy for low-molecular-weight RMs, marking a significant step forward in advancing LOB development by improving efficiency, stability, and practical applicability.
Wed 30 Apr 13:30: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Tim Austin (University of Warwick)
- Wednesday 30 April 2025, 13:30-15:00
- Venue: MR4, CMS.
- Series: Discrete Analysis Seminar; organiser: Julia Wolf.
Tetragonal ZrO2 supported low-iridium catalyst activating oxygen spillover stabilized lattice oxygen for proton exchange membrane water electrolysis
DOI: 10.1039/D5EE00544B, PaperSong Ru Fang, Hai Xiang Yang, Hao Yang Lin, Miaoyu Lin, Fangxin Mao, Hao Fan, Huai Qin Fu, Haiyang Yuan, Chenghua Sun, Peng Fei Liu, Huagui Yang
Mediating the trade-off between activity and durability at a low Ir loading is challengeable for acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolysis. Herein, we construct...
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Publisher Correction: Measuring age-dependent viscoelasticity of organelles, cells and organisms with time-shared optical tweezer microrheology
Nature Nanotechnology, Published online: 17 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41565-025-01901-8
Publisher Correction: Measuring age-dependent viscoelasticity of organelles, cells and organisms with time-shared optical tweezer microrheologyPiracetam shapes wide-bandgap perovskite crystals for scalable perovskite tandems
Nature Nanotechnology, Published online: 17 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41565-025-01899-z
Piracetam improves wide-bandgap perovskite crystallinity and uniformity, enabling monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar cells with efficiencies of 28.71% (0.07 cm2) and 28.20% (1.02 cm2), ensuring minimal efficiency loss during scale-up.