Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

Open Call for submissions: Mechanoluminescence

10 Jun 2025

By Rose Wedgbury Ph.D., Development Editor.

We are delighted to announce this open call for papers to contribute to a themed collection for Journal of Materials Chemistry C and RSC Mechanochemistry on Mechanoluminescence, guest edited by Prof. Dr. Robert Göstl (University of Wuppertal, Germany), Prof. Wai-Yeung Wong (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China) and Prof. Xinxing Zhang (Sichuan University, China).

Please consider contributing to this open call for papers for our upcoming themed collection on Mechanoluminescence to be published in Journal of Materials Chemistry C and RSC Mechanochemistry.

Submissions should fit within the scope of Journal of Materials Chemistry C and RSC Mechanochemistry. Please see the journals’ websites for more information on the journal’s scope, standards, article types and author guidelines.

This call for papers is open for the following article types:

Communications
Full papers

Open for Submissions until 24 October 2025

If you would like to contribute to this themed collection, you can submit your article directly to the online submission service for Journal of Materials Chemistry C or RSC Mechanochemistry. Please mention that this submission is a contribution to the Mechanoluminescence collection in the “Themed issues” section of the submission form and add a “Note to the Editor” that this is from the Open Call. The Editorial Office reserves the right to check suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of both the journal and the collection, and inclusion of accepted articles in the final themed issue is not guaranteed.

Please also note that all submissions will be subject to initial assessment and rigorous peer review to meet the usual high standards of Journal of Materials Chemistry C and RSC Mechanochemistry.

Meet the Guest Editors

Prof. Dr. Robert Göstl (University of Wuppertal, Germany)

Robert Göstl studied chemistry at the Humboldt University of Berlin. There, he obtained his diploma degree in 2011 and his doctoral degree in 2014. Afterwards, he pursued his postdoctoral research at the Eindhoven University of Technology until 2016. At the DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials and the RWTH Aachen University he was leading an independent research group until 2024 when he became Professor for Sustainable Macromolecular Chemistry at the University of Wuppertal. He was distinguished for his career achievements by the German Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the American Chemical Society. The Capital magazine selected him as Top 40 under 40.

Prof. Wai-Yeung Wong (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China)

Wai-Yeung Wong (Raymond) obtained his B.Sc. (Hons.) and Ph.D. degrees from The University of Hong Kong. After postdoctoral works at Texas A&M University (Advisor: Prof. F. A. Cotton) and the University of Cambridge (Advisors: Profs. The Lord Lewis and P. R. Raithby), he joined Hong Kong Baptist University from 1998 to 2016 and he now works at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University as the Dean of Faculty of Science and Chair Professor of Chemical Technology. He was awarded the RSC Chemistry of the Transition Metals Award, FACS Distinguished Young Chemist Award, State Natural Science Award from China, Croucher Senior Research Fellowship and RGC Senior Research Fellow Award, among others. His research focuses on organometallic and materials chemistry, especially aiming at developing multifunctional molecules and polymers for organic optoelectronics, energy science and metal-based nanomaterials. He has served as the Associate Editor for the Journal of Materials Chemistry C from 2013 to 2022. He is currently the Chairman of Hong Kong Chemical Society and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2023, he was elected as the Foreign Member of the European Academy of Sciences.

Prof. Xinxing Zhang (Sichuan University, China)

Xinxing Zhang received his Ph.D. degree in 2010 from Sichuan University. Currently, he is a professor of State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Polymer Research Institute of Sichuan University. Prof. Zhang’s research interests include functional polymer composites and flexible devices with a focus on the interfacial dynamic bonds, including the development of mechanically robust sensors, actuators, energy devices and self-healing materials enabled by interfacial dynamic bonds.

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Congratulations to the poster prize winners of Symposium D at E-MRS Spring 2025

09 Jun 2025

By Rose Wedgbury Ph.D., Development Editor.

EES Solar and Journal of Materials Chemistry A were proud to support Symposium D of E-MRS Spring 2025 with poster prizes. The Symposium focused on Next-Generation Solar Technologies: unconventional materials and sustainable innovations for photovoltaic, photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic systems. The organisers included: Francesco Lamberti, Francesca de Rossi, Luigi Angelo Castriotta, Matteo Bonomo, Salvador Eslava and Teresa Gatti (seen in the image below).

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The winner of the Journal of Materials Chemistry A poster prize was Kun Woong Lee (Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea) with the poster titled: A Study on VO2 Protective Layer Deposition and Defect Inactivation of BiVO4 Photoelectrodes via Photoelectrochemical Transition Metal Engineering.

I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea. My research focuses on developing high-performance BiVO4 photoanodes for photoelectrochemical water splitting. I am truly honored to have received the poster prize at this E-MRS meeting.

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The winner of the EES Solar poster prize was Sunwoo Kim (Kyungpook National University, Republic of Korea) with the poster titled: Grain Boundary Passivation for Wide Bandgap Sub-cell of Perovskite Tandem Solar cells using Inorganic Potassium Lead Halide.

I am currently pursuing an integrated M.S.-Ph.D. program in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Kyungpook National University, South Korea, where I also completed my bachelor’s degree. My research focuses on next-generation high-efficiency and high-stability perovskite tandem solar cells. I am passionate about advancing sustainable photovoltaic technologies through innovative materials and device engineering.

Congratulations to these poster prize winners at Symposium D of E-MRS Spring 2025!

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Call for papers: Advanced aqueous batteries

05 Jun 2025

By Geraldine Hay, Deputy Editor.

We are delighted to announce an open call for papers to our new themed collection in Journal of Materials Chemistry A focusing on advanced aqueous batteries!

Guest Editors: Veronica Augustyn (NC State University, USA), Xiulei (David) Ji (Oregon State University, USA), Netanel Shpigel (Ariel University, Israel) and Jang Wook Choi (Seoul National University, Republic of Korea)

The need for safe, low cost, and sustainable energy storage for large-scale applications motivates the search for advanced aqueous rechargeable batteries. The field is rapidly advancing due to new understanding of aqueous electrochemical interfaces and interphases and the development of new electrode materials and electrolytes. The field’s connection to materials chemistry lies in the design, synthesis, and understanding of electrode and electrolyte materials, involving mechanisms such as ion-insertion coupled electron transfer and electrodeposition/electrodissolution. To this end, this themed collection of Journal of Materials Chemistry A aims to provide a platform for recent developments in the design, synthesis, characterization, and understanding of advanced aqueous batteries.

Open for submissions until 7 October 2025

If you are interested in contributing to this collection, please submit directly via our online submission portal . Please mention that this submission is a contribution to the ‘Advanced aqueous batteries’ collection in the “Themed collection” section of the submission form and add a “Note to the Editor” that this is from the open call.

This open call is considering primary research only.

If you have any questions about the collection or the submissions process, please do contact the Editorial Office at materialsa-rsc@rsc.org and they will be able to assist.

Submissions to the journal should fit within the scope of Journal of Materials Chemistry A – Please see the journal’s website for more information on the journal’s scope, standards, article types and author guidelines. All manuscripts will undergo the normal initial assessment and peer review processes, if appropriate, in line with the journal’s high standards, managed by the journal editors. Accepted manuscripts will be added to the online collection as soon as they are published and they will be featured in a regular issue of the relevant journal. Please note that peer review or acceptance are not guaranteed.

Your institute may have a Read & Publish agreement in place with the Royal Society of Chemistry. This means that you may be able to publish gold open access for free in all the hybrid journals we publish – maximising the visibility and impact of your article to the broadest possible audience. Your institution’s agreement may already include the article processing charge for publishing as a corresponding author. Check here to find out more and to see if your institution has an R&P deal in place.

Did you know?

Our themed collections are built by collaboration between our Guest Editors and expert Associate Editors. Our Guest Editors guide the scope and curate the contributions in our collections but all submissions are handled through initial assessment and peer review by our team of in-house Editors and external Associate Editors. This means that as an author you receive a consistent experience, and as a reader you can trust the quality of the science being presented.

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Call for papers: sustainable catalysis

21 May 2025

By Hannah Kerr, Deputy Editor.

We are delighted to announce an open call for papers to our new themed collection focusing on sustainable catalysis!

Guest Editors: Prof. Mario J. Muñoz-Batista (University of Granada, Spain), Prof. Bo Weng (Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Prof. Choe Earn Choong (Kwangwoon University, South Korea), Prof. Asim Bhaumik (School of Materials Sciences, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India), Prof. Damien Debecker (University of Louvain, Belgium)

You are welcome to submit an article within the scope before 28 November 2025

Both Journal of Materials Chemistry A and Materials Advances are happy to receive contributions to this collection.

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

Sustainable catalysis can be defined as a multidisciplinary approach that integrates environmental, economic, and social factors to develop catalytic processes that are viable over the long term. This field focuses on creating and utilizing catalysts that enhance the efficiency and selectivity of chemical reactions while minimizing environmental impact and promoting resource conservation. Key aspects include the development of materials using environmentally friendly synthesis techniques or waste-derived materials, transforming waste into valuable resources, and addressing critical environmental challenges. Additionally, sustainable catalysis emphasizes the synergistic use of energy, optimizing processes to reduce energy consumption and enhance overall efficiency.

This includes, but is not limited to, the use of electro-catalytic, photo-catalytic, piezoelectric, sonocatalytic, mechanochemical, and enzymatic catalysis schemes, as well as combinations of these energy forms to achieve synergistic effects. In this collection, we welcome perspectives, review articles and full papers on any of these topics.

There are no costs associated with publishing in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, unless you wish to publish your work open access. Get in touch if you would like more information.

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 APC for Materials Advances is £2100. 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.

Get to know the Guest Editors

	Prof. Mario J. Muñoz-Batista University of Granada, Spain https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1419-0592 Mario J. Muñoz-Batista is a Professor at the University of Granada. He obtained his PhD in Applied Chemistry from the Autonomous University of Madrid – Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry (CSIC). His research expertise lies in the development of innovative methods for material preparation and the mathematical modelling of energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable chemical processes. His work spans a broad range of applications, from effluent treatment to novel pathways for chemical production, fuel generation, and the development of emerging energy vectors, with a strong emphasis on catalytic processes and waste valorization. He has authored more than 110 SCI-indexed articles (h-index = 37), holds two patents, and has contributed to several books and book chapters. He also serves in editorial roles for various leading journals in his field.
	Prof. Bo Weng Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8337-219X Dr. Bo Weng is currently a professor at the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Fuzhou University, China, in 2018. Following his doctorate, he pursued postdoctoral research at Xiamen University and KU Leuven, supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (Individual Fellowships) and the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO) Postdoctoral Fellowships. His research primarily focuses on photocatalysis and photo-assisted AOPs for environmental remediation. He has published 84 papers, achieving an h-index of 38 and 5556 citation (Google Scholar). As the first author or corresponding author, I have published 46 papers including *Nature Review Clean Technology,* *Nature Communications, Angewandte Chemie – International Edition (x3), Advanced Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, Chem* et al. I am invited to serve as the Editorial Board Member of NPJ Clean Water (JCR Q1 IF 10.4), Scientific Reports (JCR Q1 IF3.8), Carbon Energy (JCR Q1 IF 19.5), Next-generation advisors of Chem (JCR Q1 IF 19.1), Youth Editorial Board Member of Chinese Chemical Letters (JCR Q1 IF 9.4), EcoMat (JCR Q1 IF 10.4), EcoEnergy, and Guest editor of Chem, Advanced Functional Materials, Carbon Energy, ChemSusChem, RSC Materials Advances et al.
	Prof. Choe Earn Choong Kwangwoon University, South Korea https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3921-778X Choe Earn Choong is a Research Professor in the Environmental Engineering Department Kwangwoon University, South Korea. In 2018, she received the Ph.D in Environmental Engineering from the University Malaya, Malaysia. Her research interests in developing nanomaterials include advanced oxidation catalysts, plasma catalysts, and adsorbents for water and wastewater treatment. She has published more than 50 scientific papers and was granted 10 patents in the nanomaterial’s development for water treatment. In addition, she is one of the editors for Separation and Purification Technology and Journal of Water Process Engineering.
	Prof. Asim Bhaumik School of Materials Sciences, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4907-7418 Prof. Asim Bhaumik received his PhD in Chemistry in 1997 from National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India. Then he was JSPS Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Tokyo during 1997-1999. After that he moved to Toyota Central R & D Labs Nagoya, Japan during 1999-2001 as Associate Researcher. Then he joined Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, India where he is currently a Senior Professor. His area of research interest includes designing novel microporous and mesoporous materials for several frontline applications like gas storage (H₂/CO₂), adsorptive removal of heavy metal ions and other pollutants from contaminated water, heterogeneous catalysis for the synthesis of fine chemicals, CO₂ utilization reactions for the synthesis of fuels and chemicals, CO₂ reduction, synthesis of biofuels, electrochemical water splitting and CO₂ photoreduction. He has published over 530 original research articles with citations over 28500. He is in the Associate Editor of Green Chemistry and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).
	Prof. Damien Debecker University of Louvain, Belgium https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6500-2996 Damien Debecker and his team develop innovative catalytic materials for sustainable chemistry applications. They target three main objectives: (i) the upgrading of biomass and bio-based platform chemicals (glycerol, lignocellulose and lignin-derived monomers, ethanol, short carboxylic acids, triglycerides, sugars, etc.) to valuable molecules, (ii) the capture of CO2 and its conversion, and (iii) greener organic synthesis processes using enzymes, hybrid catalysis approaches and process integration. To do so, they implement ad-hoc strategies to immobilize enzymes into/onto catalytically active solid materials. Another important line of research of the Debecker lab is the utilization of (reactive) spray drying techniques to manufacture original catalytic materials.

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Congratulations to the winners at Chem4Energy

13 May 2025

By Rose Wedgbury Ph.D., Development Editor.

Congratulations to the winners of the prizes at the Chem4Energy 2025 conference sponsored by Materials Horizons; Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C; and Materials Advances.

Poster winner

Rotondwa Mphephu, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Poster Title: Ruthenium complexes of pyrazolyl-pyridine complexes as catalyst precursors for formic acid dehydrogenation

My name is Rotondwa Mphephu, a third-year PhD student in Chemistry at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). My research focuses on the dehydrogenation of formic acid mediated by pyrazolyl-pyridine ruthenium(II) complexes, contributing to the development of sustainable hydrogen storage systems. I was awarded the Poster Prize at the Chem4Energy Conference, held in Namibia from 7 April to 10 May 2025, in recognition of my innovative work in the field of catalysis and energy research.

Oral winners

Dina Thole, University of Limpopo, South Africa

Oral Presentation Title: Metal-organic framework modified carbon nanotubes for hydrogen production from formic acid

Dina Thole obtained her M.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Limpopo, South Africa, in 2022. She is currently a Ph.D. student at the same university. Her research interests focus on metal-organic framework/metal oxide for hydrogen production with carbon dioxide capture and conversion. She has presented part of her Ph.D. research work at various local and international conferences. Recently, she received an award of the Best oral Presenter at the Chem4Energy 2025 conference at Protea hotel, Walvis Bay, Namibia. This award is sponsored by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Hilaria Hakwenye, University of Namibia, Namibia

Oral Presentation Title: Chicken eggshells as heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production from E.spicatum seeds oil

Hilaria Hakwenye is a Senior Technologist in the Physics, Chemistry, and Materials Science Department at the University of Namibia and a PhD student in the same department. Hilaria is a Master’s Degree holder in Analytical Chemistry with research interests in environmental science and sustainable energy. Her current research is focused on producing biodiesel from non-edible seed oil using CaO derived from eggshell waste. The study aims to address two crucial environmental issues: the excessive use of fossil resources and pollution by using eggshells as a source of CaCO₃/CaO. In addition, using non-edible oil as feedstock for biodiesel production will minimize the impact of edible oil usage as feedstock on the food system. Hilaria’s PhD work is under the supervision of Prof. Rahman Ateeq and Prof. Veikko Uahengo, both from the same department.

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Call for papers: Organic transistors and related devices

13 May 2025

By Rosie Hague, Editorial Assistant.

We are delighted to announce an open call for papers to our new themed collection in Materials Advances focusing on organic transistors!

Guest Editors: Professor Tsuyoshi Michinobu (Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan), Professor Prashant Sonar (Queensland University of Technology, Australia), Dr. Waner He (Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan)

You are welcome to submit an article within the scope before 30 November 2025

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

The Guest Editors aim to highlight recent advances in organic transistors and related devices, with a particular focus on organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs), and organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs). The collection will explore technological and material innovations that are propelling the development of high-performance, flexible, wearable, and environmentally sustainable electronics. Topics of interest include molecular design strategies, materials synthesis, charge transport, and device engineering. The collection also welcomes contributions on emerging applications such as sensing, logic circuits, neuromorphic computing, and biomedical diagnostics. By bridging material innovation with device performance, this issue aims to accelerate the practical implementation of next-generation organic electronics and foster interdisciplinary collaboration across physics, chemistry, and materials science.

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

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 APC for Materials Advances is £2100. 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.

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Emerging Thermoelectric Materials

13 May 2025

By Rosie Hague, Editorial Assistant.

Read the new collection in Materials Advances

We are delighted to introduce our new themed collection focusing on Emerging Thermoelectric Materials.

Guest Edited by Krishna Nama Manjunatha & Shashi Paul (Emerging Technologies Research Centre, De Montfort University, UK), Satyajit Sahu, (IIT Jodhpur, India) and Mona Zebarjadi (University of Virginia, USA)

A small selection of the papers are featured below:

	First-principles modelling of the thermoelectric properties of n-type CaTiO₃, SrTiO₃ and BaTiO₃ Alveena Z. Khan, Joseph M. Flitcroft & Jonathan M. Skelton Mater. Adv., 2024,5, 652-664
	Thermally-induced charge carrier population control on graphene nanoribbons Tiago de Sousa Araújo Cassiano, Geraldo Magela e Silva & Pedro Henrique de Oliveira Neto Mater. Adv., 2024,5, 4668-4678
	Thermoelectric signature of d-orbitals in tripod-based molecular junctions Oday A. Al-Owaedi, Hussein Neama Najeeb, Ahmed Kareem Obaid Aldulaimi, Nathera Hussin Alwan, Mohammed Shnain Ali, Majed H. Dwech & Muneer A. AL-Da’amy Mater. Adv., 2024,5, 9781-9791

We hope you enjoy reading the full themed collection here.

Did you know?

At Materials Advances, our themed collections are built by collaboration between our Guest Editors and expert Associate Editors. Our Guest Editors guide the scope and curate the contributions in our collections but all submissions are handled through peer review by our team of resident Associate Editors. This means that as an author you receive a consistent experience, and as a reader you can trust the quality of the science being presented.

If you have an idea for a topical collection in your research field, we’d love to hear from you! Get in touch here.

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Open call for papers: Supramolecular Peptide and Protein Systems

07 May 2025

By Dr Zifei Lu, Assistant Editor.

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to a new themed collection on Supramolecular Peptide & Protein Systems: from Design to Applications to be published in Materials Advances by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Promotional slide of 'Supramolecular Peptide & Protein Systems' Materials Advances themed collection with photos of Guest Editors and submission deadline (30 Nov 2025).

Materials Advances publishes quality research across the breadth of materials science. The journal is indexed in all major indexes, with an impact factor of 5.2 (2023 Journal Citation Reports, Clarivate Analytics).

We invite a broad range of submissions, including original research articles, reviews, and perspectives. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

Rational design strategies for supramolecular peptide/protein systems using computational tools to predict and guide assembly behavior.
Characterization methods for studying self-assembly, stability, and molecular interactions.
Therapeutic applications such as peptide-based drug delivery systems, immunotherapies, and protein mimetics.
Materials science applications include biomaterials, tissue engineering scaffolds, and sensors.
Nanotechnology, including peptide/protein-based nanomaterials, molecular machines, and nanoelectronics.
Diagnostic applications involving biosensors, diagnostic agents, and biomolecule detection.
Sustainability, with an emphasis on biodegradable materials and bio-based production methods.

Submit before 30th November 2025.

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

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.

This themed collection is Guest Edited by:

Dr Daniela Kalafatovic (University of Rijeka)

ORCID: 0000-0002-9685-1162

Dr Ana M. Garcia (University of Castilla La Mancha)

ORCID: 0000-0003-0482-849X

Dr Veronica Dodero (Bielefeld University)

ORCID: 0000-0001-7937-1880

Dr Ivan R. Sasselli (Materials Physics Center (CFM/MPC), CSIC-UPV/EHU)

ORCID: 0000-0001-6062-2440

Dr Jacek Wychowaniec (AO Research Institute Davos)

ORCID: 0000-0002-6597-5242

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Perspective on the technologies of OLEDs – Open Call for Submissions

29 Apr 2025

By Rose Wedgbury Ph.D., Development Editor.

Submit your research until 23 July 2025

We are delighted to announce this open call for papers to contribute to a themed collection for Journal of Materials Chemistry C entitled Perspective on the technologies of OLEDs, guest edited by Professors Chihaya Adachi (Kyushu University, Japan), Subrata Ghosh (IIT Mandi, India), P. Rajamalli (Indian Institute of Science, India) and Eli Zysman-Colman (University of St Andrews, UK).

Scope

The last two decades have been revolutionary to the OLED industry as its quantum efficiency has increased more than twentyfold thanks to their exclusive properties such as low power consumption, flexibility, color purity, high efficiency, etc. OLEDs are being explored in many sectors, including consumer electronics, automotive, and biomedical applications. Despite several advantages, a few challenges, including short lifetime and production costs, remain a bottleneck for replacing the present display technology in different sectors. The OLED technology bridges various disciplines from material science and device physics to consumer electronics and healthcare applications.

Through this themed collection, Journal of Material Chemistry C provides a unique opportunity to share your research with an interdisciplinary audience and fill the existing knowledge gap to overcome the remaining challenges.

Guest Editors

Professor Chihaya Adachi (Kyushu University, Japan)

Chihaya Adachi is a distinguished professor at Kyushu University and director of Kyushu University’s Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics Research (OPERA). He is also director of the Fukuoka i³ center for Organic Photonics and Electronics Research. He obtained his doctorate in Materials Science and Technology in 1991 from Kyushu University and held positions as at the Chemical Products R&D Center at Ricoh Co., the Department of Functional Polymer Science at Shinshu University, the Department of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University, and Chitose Institute of Science and Technology before returning to Kyushu University as a professor. Adachi’s research combines the areas of chemistry, physics, and electronics to advance the field of organic light-emitting materials and devices from both the materials and device perspectives through the design of new molecules with novel properties, the study of processes occurring in individual materials and complete devices, and the exploration of new device structures, and he has co-authored over 750 research papers. He received the Thomson Reuters Research Front Award in 2016, the Nishina Memorial Prize in 2017, and the Nagoya Silver Medal in 2019. Recently, he has been selected as a Highly Cited Researcher for the period of 2018-2024 and awarded a Purple Ribbon Medal by the Japanese government in 2023 and the SID Jan Rajchman Prize in 2025.

Professor Subrata Ghosh (IIT Mandi, India)

Subrata Ghosh received his doctoral degree from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati in the area of organic synthesis. After spending several years in Bar-Ilan University, Case Western Reserve University and University of Leipzig for his postdoctoral studies, he joined Indian Institute of Technology Mandi in 2010 as Assistant Professor. He was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship in 2008. Currently he is serving IIT Mandi as Professor in the School of Chemical Sciences. Along with his interest in contemporary research, he has a passion for teaching. His research interests include organic synthesis, and functional materials for optoelectronics, surface patterning and imaging applications.

Professor P. Rajamalli (Indian Institute of Science, India)

Dr. P. Rajamalli is an Assistant Professor at MRC, Indian Institute of Science, India. She completed her Ph.D. in 2012, from Indian Institute of Technology Madras on luminescent self-assemblies and their application in various fields. After completing her Ph.D., she did her first post-doc at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. In 2017, she received Marie Curie Fellowship and did her second post-doc at University of St Andrews, UK. Currently, she is working on organic light-emitting diodes, primarily focusing on thermally activated delayed fluorescent emitters, hyperfluorescent devices, and luminescent dendrimers.

Professor Eli Zysman-Colman (University of St Andrews, UK)

Eli Zysman-Colman obtained his Ph.D. from McGill University in 2003 under the supervision of Prof. David N. Harpp as an FCAR scholar, conducting research in physical organic sulfur chemistry. He then completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one in supramolecular chemistry with Prof. Jay Siegel at the Organic Chemistry Institute, University of Zurich as an FQRNT fellow and the other in inorganic materials chemistry with Prof. Stefan Bernhard at Princeton University as a PCCM fellow. He joined the department of chemistry at the Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada as an assistant professor in 2007. In 2013, he moved to the University of St Andrews in St Andrews, UK, where he is presently Professor of Optoelectronic Materials, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, holder of an EPSRC open fellowship and the inaugural holder of the St Andrews innovation fellowship. He is a past holder of a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship. His research program focuses on the rational design of: (I) materials for organic light emitting diode (OLED) and light-emitting electrochemical cell (LEEC) device architectures; (II) sensing materials; (III) optical imaging agents; and (III) photocatalyst development for use in organic synthetic reactions.

Submit to Journal of Materials Chemistry C

Please consider contributing to this open call for papers for our upcoming themed collection entitled Perspective on the technologies of OLEDs to be published in Journal of Materials Chemistry C.

Open for Submissions until 23 July 2025

Submissions to the journal should contain chemistry in a materials context and should fit within the scope of Journal of Materials Chemistry C. Please see the journal’s website for more information on the journal’s scope, standards, article types and author guidelines.

This call for papers is open for the following article types:

Communications
Full papers

If you would like to contribute to this themed collection, you can submit your article directly to the online submission service for Journal of Materials Chemistry C. Please mention that this submission is a contribution to the Perspective on the technologies of OLEDs collection in the “Themed issues” section of the submission form and add a “Note to the Editor” that this is from the Open Call. The Editorial Office reserves the right to check suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of both the journal and the collection, and inclusion of accepted articles in the final themed issue is not guaranteed.

Please also note that all submissions will be subject to initial assessment and rigorous peer review to meet the usual high standards of Journal of Materials Chemistry C.

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2025 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship – nominations are open!

22 Apr 2025

By Natalie Cotterell, Development Editor.

Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship 2025

Nominate your candidate by 5 June 2025

Do you know an outstanding early-career researcher in materials chemistry who deserves recognition? We are delighted to announce that nominations are now OPEN for the prestigious 2025 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship. Nominate your candidate by 5 June 2025 to be considered for the 2025 Lectureship award.

Established in 2010, this international lectureship honours early-career scientists who have made significant contributions to the field of materials chemistry, with previous recipients including Christopher Bettinger, Henry Snaith, Maria Escudero-Escribano, Jovana Milić and last year’s winner Raphaële Clément.

Eligible candidates must be in the early stage of their independent career in materials chemistry research, typically within 10 years of completing their PhD or within 5 years of their independent career and must have made significant contributions to the materials chemistry field. We require a letter of recommendation from the nominator and an additional supporting letter from a referee to support the candidate’s nomination.

For more information and details on eligibility criteria and how to nominate a candidate, please visit the Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship webpage.

Celebrating our 2024 Lectureship winner and runners-up

Check out our interview with our 2024 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship winner, Dr Raphaële Clément (University of California, Santa Barbara, United States) and our runners-up, Dr Maxx Arguilla (University of California, Irvine, United States) and Dr Phillip Milner (Cornell University, United States).

2024 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship winner: Dr Raphaële Clément

Dr Raphaële Clément is an Associate Professor in the Materials Department at UC Santa Barbara. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2016 from the University of Cambridge, working under the supervision of Prof. Dame Clare Grey. She then joined the group of Prof. Gerbrand Ceder as a postdoc at UC Berkeley. Since 2018, the Clément group at UC Santa Barbara is interested in establishing materials design rules, and in optimizing materials processing approaches to advance electrochemical energy storage. The group’s expertise lies in the development and deployment of magnetic resonance and magnetometry techniques (experimental and computational) for the study of battery materials and beyond, with an emphasis on real-time, operando analysis.

Dr Clément will be giving her Lectureship presentation at MC-17 in Edinburgh in July 2025. Register now to not miss out!

How did you feel when you were announced as the winner of the 2024 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship?

I was thrilled. This is a wonderful recognition of the group’s hard work over the years. I have been fortunate to work with talented students and postdocs, so this award goes to them too.

Which of your JMC publications are you most proud of and why?

This paper lead by a former student, Dr. Elias Sebti, is a textbook example of the impact of materials synthesis and processing on structure and properties. This is a study of a new class of Na-ion solid conductors, where solid-state NMR was key to understanding their complex defect and polymorphic landscape, and ion transport processes. I am proud of it because this was a complicated puzzle and we solved it!

Do you have any advice for Early-Career researchers who wish to be nominated for the 2025 JMC Lectureship award?

Don’t give up! There are many talented Early Career researchers out there, and only one receives the Lectureship every year. I applied several times and this paid off.

2024 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship runner-up: Dr Maxx Q. Arguilla

Maxx Q. Arguilla obtained his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of the Philippines Diliman, cum Laude, in 2011. After a one-year junior instructor position at UPD, he moved to the US and completed his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from The Ohio State University with Professor Joshua Goldberger in 2017. He then moved to MIT as postdoctoral fellow in Professor Mircea Dinca’s group, where he focused on the growth of one-dimensional van der Waals crystals and the evolution of their physical properties as they transform into ultrathin nanowires and on establishing the fundamental anisotropic physical properties of two-dimensional metal-organic frameworks. In July 2020, Professor Arguilla joined the UC Irvine Department of Chemistry as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. His research is focused on the discovery and chemical understanding of several classes of crystalline solid state materials comprising of sub-nanometer-thick inorganic chains that are held together by weak van der Waals (vdW) or ionic interactions.

How did you feel when you were announced as a runner-up of the 2024 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship?

Receiving the runner-up award for the 2024 JMC lectureship was a great honor for me, especially being alongside Prof. Clément and Prof. Milner who are both materials chemists whose work I truly admire!

This award is special to me and my group as it recognizes our contributions in understanding the chemistry and physics of emergent 1D and quasi-1D solids that approach the sub-nanometer-thick regime. This was especially important for us, having started during the challenging times of the pandemic as many have thought these would be very challenging and almost impossible to create and study. Personally, this recognition was special as it came from one of the family of materials chemistry journals that I have followed consistently since my formative years during my graduate studies and has continuously shaped the science that I do in my independent career. Moreover, the previous awardees and runners-up are also materials scientists that I look up to and aspire to emulate. Most importantly, this award is truly a recognition of the tremendous collective effort of the members of my group and our network of collaborators who have dedicated their time, effort, and creativity in exploring an unusual and understudied class of low-dimensional solids.

Which of your JMC publications are you most proud of and why?
Among my publications at JMC and RSC, I am most proud of my first paper in JMCC (J. Mater. Chem. C, 2017, 5, 11259-11266) where I demonstrated how micro-Raman spectroscopy can be used a probe to study the composition- and stacking-dependence of the Raman-active phonon modes in layered honeycomb Zintl phase tetrelides and their 2D van der Waals deintercalation products. This is a paper that I wrote when I was a senior graduate student but the approach that I have taken in this work has shaped how we use micro-Raman spectroscopy in my group as an enabling tool to probe the structure, lattice dynamics, and stimulus-sensitive response of various classes of low-dimensional solids, especially approaching atomic scale thicknesses. The results that we covered in this report laid ground to several fundamental studies in my independent career, such as our discovery of pronounced thermochromic behavior the helical crystal, InSeI (Advanced Materials, 2024, 36, 21, 2312597), as well as in the strong quantum confinement of Sb₂S₃ grown within single-walled carbon nanotubes and boron nitride nanotubes (Chemical Science, 2024, 15, 10464–10476).

Do you have any advice for Early-Career researchers who wish to be nominated for the 2025 JMC Lectureship award?
While many of our projects are hypothesis-driven, the most unusual results that we found in our materials systems arose from curiosity-driven research. In classes of materials where our chemical intuition is limited, there is a large, untapped opportunity to explore ideas that do not necessarily conform to the scientific norms in various fields. Thus, if there is an advice that I can give to early-career researchers, it would be to follow their scientific curiosities as these could lead to surprising discoveries that can accelerate (or change) the course of the field!

2024 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship runner-up: Dr Phillip Milner

Phillip Milner (Phill) graduated from Hamilton College in 2010 with B.A.s in Chemistry and Mathematics, and went on to pursue his Ph.D. in Chemistry with Prof. Stephen Buchwald at MIT. There, Phill developed Pd-catalyzed fluorination and 11C-cyanation reactions of (hetero)aryl halides. Upon graduating from MIT in 2015, Phill joined the group of Prof. Jeffrey Long at the University of California, Berkeley, where he designed amine-functionalized metal–organic frameworks for CO2 capture. In 2018, Phill joined the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University, where his research is focused broadly at the intersection of organic, inorganic, and materials chemistry. Phill is a member of the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) and the Cornell Energy Systems Institute (CESI), a Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability Faculty Fellow, and a field member in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Phill was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2024.

Which of your JMC publications are you most proud of and why?

It’s difficult to pick, but I would probably go with: Tristan A. Pitt, Haojun Jia, Tyler J. Azbell, Mary E. Zick, Aditya Nandy, Heather J. Kulik, Phillip J. Milner*. “Benchmarking Nitrous Oxide Adsorption and Activation in Metal–Organic Frameworks Bearing Coordinatively Unsaturated Metal Centers.” J. Mater. Chem. C, 2024, 12, 3164–3174. This project was spearheaded by a fantastic graduate student, Tristan Pitt, as part of his rotation project in our lab. It also sparked our on-going collaboration with Heather Kulik using theory to understand reactivity within metal-organic frameworks. All around a great in-depth study of a difficult problem (how to activate nitrous oxide using MOFs).

Do you have any advice for Early-Career researchers who wish to be nominated for the Lectureship award?

I would encourage folks to go after difficult problems and identify ways in which they can uniquely contribute to materials science. Working on the same problem in the same way as everyone else is a great way to boost your h-index but it does not help you stand out as a unique voice in the community. I always encourage students in my lab at least to think about how to be indispensable – the one person who can solve a particular problem in a new way.

At which upcoming conferences may our community meet you?

I will be at the Nanoporous Materials Gordon Research Conference in August, and Pacifichem in December!

We look forward to receiving nominations for the 2025 Lectureship award. If you have any questions about eligibility or the selection process, please get in touch with materials-rsc@rsc.org.

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