Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

Materials Advances is delighted to announce an open call for papers to our new themed collection focusing on polymer electrolyte membrane electrolyzers!

If you are interested in contributing to this collection, please get in touch with the Editorial Office by email.

This themed collection is Guest Edited by:

• Dr Shahid Zaman, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
• Professor Min Wang, China University of Petroleum (East China)

The growing demand for clean, renewable energy has intensified the need for efficient and sustainable technologies to produce hydrogen from water. Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzers — encompassing both proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers (PEMWEs) and anion exchange membrane water electrolyzers (AEMWEs) — are emerging as promising solutions for green hydrogen production due to their high efficiency, scalability, and ability to integrate with intermittent renewable energy sources. However, to fully unlock the potential of these technologies, significant advancements in materials design and engineering are required.

This collection will be structured around two main themes:

1. Research focusing on electrocatalyst materials and methods
2. Materials development for cell components

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Material and methods for OER and HER electrocatalyst fabrication
• Research on PEM electrolyzer components developments, including membranes, ionomers, porous transport layers, gas diffusion layers and bipolar plates
• Catalyst layer fabrication, materials, methods and methodologies for PEM water electrolyzer cells.

We are happy to consider both review articles and primary research work.

Submit your article before 28 February 2026.

Publishing open access with RSC journals unlochttps://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/maks the full potential of your research – bringing increased visibility, wider readership and higher citation potential to your work. As a not-for-profit organisation serving the chemical sciences community, we ensure that our article processing charge (APC) remains the most competitive of major publishers. More details can be found here and the standard APC for Materials Advances is £2,100 (+local taxes if applicable). There is a 15% RSC member and RSC open access agreement discount available (applicable to full price only). You can also use our journal finder tool to check if your institution currently has an agreement with the RSC that may entitle you to a discount of the APC.

Additional submission information

Please add a “note to the editor” in the submission form when you submit your manuscript to say that this is a submission for the themed collection polymer electrolyte membrane electrolyzers.

The Editorial Office and Guest Editors reserve 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. Accepted manuscripts will be added to the online collection as soon as they are online, and they will be published in a regular issue of Materials Advances.

Materials Advances is delighted to announce an open call for papers to our new themed collection focusing on amorphous materials!

If you are interested in contributing to this collection, please get in touch with the Editorial Office by email.

This themed collection is Guest Edited by:

• Professor Shuai Wei, Aarhus University
• Professor Juejun Hu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Dr Yanwen Sun, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Amorphous materials, broadly defined as condensed matter without crystalline structures, have become subjects of increasing interest in the twenty-first century. Philip W. Anderson once observed that “Randomness and disorder could result in generic properties that are utterly different from those of merely somewhat impure regular materials”. Amorphous materials exemplify this principle, inhabiting a realm of intrinsic complexity from structural disorder and often being intertwined with the problems of nonequilibrium or far-from-equilibrium behaviors. This broad category encompasses a wide range of systems including, but not limited to, oxide glasses, amorphous metals, chalcogenide and metalloids, molecular systems, polymers, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and even amorphous ice. Research in amorphous materials not only searches for new phenomena and new types of theories for “the deepest puzzle” in condensed matter science, but also is indispensable for technological innovations, spanning displays, mechanical components, electronic and photonic computing circuits, biomedicine and drug delivery vehicles, energy storage devices, and beyond.

This themed collection on Amorphous Materials invites contributions from research communities of amorphous materials across disciplines including physics, chemistry, and materials engineering. It aims to bring together diverse perspectives from various fields to highlight current frontiers and future directions in the research of amorphous materials. The scope includes:

• Various types of amorphous materials, including, not limited to, oxide and geological glasses, amorphous metals, chalcogenide and metalloids, molecular systems, polymers, MOFs, and amorphous ice and aqueous system
• Dynamics, relaxations, aging, property drifting, ultrastable glasses, rejuvenations
• Phase transitions, glass transitions, crystallizations, melting, phase switching, polyamorphism,
• Emerging experimental techniques, including in-situ, operando, atomic- and nano-scales, multiscale, ultrafast, time-resolved, pump-probe, pulse/photo-excited
• Properties including mechanical, electronic, optical, vibrational, thermodynamical, and kinetic properties
• Structure-property relationships
• Materials in extreme conditions, high pressure, high voltage, external fields, and superheating, supercooling
• Theories, models, simulations, machine learning, and novel computational methods
• Applications of amorphous solids in functional devices

We are happy to consider both review articles and primary research work. If you are interested in contributing to this collection, please get in touch with the Editorial Office.

Submit your article before 28 February 2026.

Publishing open access with RSC journals unlocks the full potential of your research – bringing increased visibility, wider readership and higher citation potential to your work. As a not-for-profit organisation serving the chemical sciences community, we ensure that our article processing charge (APC) remains the most competitive of major publishers. More details can be found here and the standard APC for Materials Advances is £2,100 (+local taxes if applicable). There is a 15% RSC member and RSC open access agreement discount available (applicable to full price only). You can also use our journal finder tool to check if your institution currently has an agreement with the RSC that may entitle you to a discount of the APC.

Additional submission information

Please add a “note to the editor” in the submission form when you submit your manuscript to say that this is a submission for the themed collection amorphous materials.

The Editorial Office and Guest Editors reserve 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. Accepted manuscripts will be added to the online collection as soon as they are online, and they will be published in a regular issue of Materials Advances.