Environmental Science: Nano Blog

Guest edited by Professor Zhugen Yang (Cranfield University, UK), Professor Bintian Zhang (Southern University of Science and Technology, China) and Professor Peter Vikesland (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, US), Environmental Science: Nano is pleased to highlight our new collection exploring Nanosensing.

This themed collection will highlight the development and use of biochemical sensors within complex biological, environmentally relevant samples in uses such as water quality monitoring, air pollution detection, soil contamination assessment, and biodiversity monitoring, thereby enhancing our understanding of environmental health. This collection will showcase the following:

• The use of novel nanomaterials such as nanoparticles, nanocomposites and nanostructures in environmental sensing application.
• The detection of a wide range of environmentally relevant analytes, including heavy metals, organic pollutants, and biological agents.
• Utilisation of innovative techniques to develop nanosensors that exhibit enhanced sensitivity, specificity, and stability. These methods encompass both top-down and bottom-up approaches, self-assembly techniques, and advanced processes like nanolithography.
• Refinement of transduction mechanisms to convert analyte-receptor interactions into measurable signals, which can be electrical, optical, electrochemical, or mechanical, to enhance the overall performance of the sensors.
• Strategies to tailor the surfaces of nanomaterials, improving their capacity to recognize specific analytes and facilitating selective detection in complex environmental contexts.
• The integration and miniaturization of nanosensors into portable, wearable, or distributed sensing platforms enable real-time monitoring of environmental parameters.

This themed collection will include all manuscript types: original research papers, communications, perspectives and review articles. If authors are interested in submitting a review article, please send an outline proposal to the editors at esnano-rsc@rsc.org for approval and official invitation.

Article publication online and in issues will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the RSC Publishing platform and promoted as a web-based thematic collection, to permit readers to consult and download individual contributions from the entire series.

The submission deadline is 31^st January 2026.

If you’re interested, we invite you to submit your research today, quoting ‘ENSENS25’ in the ‘Comments to the Editor’ when submitting your manuscript.

Manuscripts should be submitted via the Royal Society of Chemistry’s online submission service and the Editorial Office informed by email. The Editorial Office reserves the right to check suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of the collection and inclusion of accepted articles in the collection is not guaranteed. All manuscripts will be subject to the journal’s usual peer review process.

For more information on the scope of Environmental Science: Nano and our author guidelines, please visit our website at rsc.li/esnano or email us at esnano-rsc@rsc.org.

In case you missed it, in August we launched Environmental Science: Nano’s Advanced Materials themed collection!

Advanced Materials are produced through rational design. Precise control of material composition and internal structure can also be achieved through advanced manufacturing approaches. By intent, Advanced Materials have exceptional mechanical, electrical, optical, or magnetic properties or other functionalities that differentiate them from conventional materials. These properties enable self-repair, produce stimulus responsive changes in shape, transform energy and many other emergent phenomena. While not all Advanced Materials are nano-enabled, many Advanced Materials are reliant upon nanoscale particles and/or nanoscale phenomena to facilitate their desired performance.

Explore this collection highlighting contributions that address the environmental aspects of Advanced Material production, usage, and disposal.

Guest Editors Wendel Wohlleben, Jerome Rose, Mark Wiesner, and Peter Vikesland discuss the importance of advanced materials towards sustainability in their Editorial.

We hope you enjoy our Advanced Materials collection!

Environmental Science: Nano Editorial team

We are delighted to announce Environmental Science: Nano’s Nanocircular economy themed collection!

The circular economy is a framework put forth to rebalance society’s relationship with materials and their underlying resources. The three principles, (1) eliminate waste, (2) circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and (3) regenerate nature, are straightforward in theory but complex in practice. Achieving a truly circular material is challenged by the many dimensions of the system that supports its generation, use, and reuse. Nonetheless, there is global movement towards adoption of circular resources, materials, and product systems. Given that nanomaterials are fully integrated into the global material ecosystem, they are inherent to this transition away from linear to circular materials. To date, it is yet to be realized how unique properties of the nano-scale can be leveraged to advance and accelerate this transition.

This special collection highlights the range of opportunities for nanomaterials to underline advancements in circular technologies and resource flows. The works included in this collection merely scratch the surface and illuminate the vast future potential to support, and even accelerate, the circular materials transition. We hope that this collection of papers elucidates new avenues for inquiry and inspires new research directions for nanomaterials to shepherd new horizons for circular materials.

We sincerely hope you enjoy reading the broad range of papers featured in this collection.

In addition to the Open Access papers in this collection, all articles will be free to read until the beginning of March 2025.

Guest editors Leanne Gilbertson and Peter Vikesland discuss the Nanocircular economy in their Editorial.

We hope you enjoy our Nanocircular economy collection!

Environmental Science: Nano Editorial team

We have been delighted to celebrate Environmental Science: Nano’s 10^th anniversary in 2024!

This special collection celebrates members of our community who have supported our journal over the last decade, including those who have served on our Editorial and Advisory boards as well as authors, outstanding reviewers and Emerging Investigators that have helped shape the journal to where it is today. We are honoured that the authors in this collection continue to share their latest discoveries and perspectives with us.

In particular, we are grateful that Changlun Chen and Chunjiang An, who published in our very first issue, have returned to give us their perspectives on nanoscale composites for uranium remediation and oil spill nanotechnology.

We sincerely hope you enjoy reading the broad range of papers featured in this collection.

In addition to the Open Access papers in this collection, all articles will be free to read until February 2025.

Editor in Chief Peter Vikesland discusses the 10^th anniversary of the journal in their Editorial.

We hope you enjoy our 10^th Anniversary collection!

Environmental Science: Nano Editorial team