Materials Horizons Blog

Celebrating the exceptional work published in Materials Horizons

Our annual Outstanding Paper Award celebrates some of the exceptional work published in Materials Horizons and Nanoscale Horizons, and the authors behind those articles. The winners were chosen by the Editorial and Advisory Boards based on the science presented and the work’s potential future impact, from papers published in 2021.

Please join us in congratulating the winners of the 2021 Outstanding Paper Award and we hope that you enjoy reading their outstanding articles as much as we did.

Materials Horizons Outstanding Article 2021

Biohybrid plants with electronic roots via in-vivo polymerization of conjugated oligomers

Daniela Parker, Yohann Daguerre, Gwennaël Dufil, Daniele Mantione, Eduardo Solano, Eric Cloutet, Georges Hadziioannou, Torgny Näsholm, Magnus Berggren, Eleni Pavlopoulou and Eleni Stavrinidou
Mater. Horiz., 2021, 8, 3295-3305

Materials Horizons Outstanding Article Runner-up 2021

Van der Waals solid solution crystals for highly efficient in-air photon upconversion under subsolar irradiance

Riku Enomoto, Megumi Hoshi, Hironaga Oyama, Hideki Agata, Shinichi Kurokawa, Hitoshi Kuma, Hidehiro Uekusa and Yoichi Murakami
Mater. Horiz., 2021, 8, 3449-3456

Materials Horizons Outstanding Review 2021

Catalytic Methods for Chemical Recycling or Upcycling of Commercial Polymers

Sophia C. Kosloski-Oh, Zachary A. Wood, Yvonne Manjarrez, Juan Pablo de los Rios and Megan E. Fieser
Mater. Horiz., 2021, 8, 1084-1129

Celebrating the exceptional work published in Materials Horizons

Our annual Outstanding Paper Award celebrates some of the exceptional work published in Materials Horizons and Nanoscale Horizons, and the authors behind those articles. The winners were chosen by the Editorial and Advisory Boards based on the science presented and the work’s potential future impact, from papers published in 2020.

Read the Editorial about our winning papers and authors

Please join us in congratulating the winners of the 2020 Outstanding Paper Award and we hope that you enjoy reading their outstanding articles as much as we did.

Materials Horizons Outstanding Article 2020
An ambient-stable and stretchable ionic skin with multimodal sensation Binbin Ying, Qiyang Wu, Jianyu Li and Xinyu Liu Mater. Horiz., 2020, 7, 477–488
Materials Horizons Outstanding Article runner-up 2020
Stretchable, self-healing and tissue-adhesive zwitterionic hydrogels as strain sensors for wireless monitoring of organ motions Xinjie Pei, Hua Zhang, Yang Zhou, Linjie Zhou and Jun Fu Mater. Horiz., 2020, 7, 1872–1882
Materials Horizons Outstanding Review 2020
Evolution of self-healing elastomers, from extrinsic to combined intrinsic mechanisms: a review Saul Utrera-Barrios, Raquel Verdejo, Miguel A. López-Manchado and Marianella Hernández Santana Mater. Horiz., 2020, 7, 2882–2902

Read more about the prize winners and their research in our Editorial. Our sister journal Nanoscale Horizons has also announced its Outstanding Paper Award winners.  You can read all of the Materials Horizons and Nanoscale Horizons 2020 Outstanding Papers in our joint themed online collection:

Read the collection

With kind regards,

Dr Michaela Mühlberg
Executive Editor, Materials Horizons

Materials Horizons and Nanoscale Horizons are pleased to announce a free Webinar series featuring scientific talks from Editorial and Community Board Members on a range of topics.

RSC Desktop Seminars are an ongoing initiative from the Royal Society of Chemistry to bring cutting-edge research directly to you! Now, more than ever, there is a crucial need for sharing research, and each seminar in this series will feature presentations from Editorial and Community Board members of Materials Horizons and Nanoscale Horizons.

Each 90 to 120-min webinar will feature scientific talks as well as dedicated time for questions & answers. The schedule for the series will be as follows:

Wednesday, 25 November 2020 (7am GMT; 15:00 CST; 16:00 JST)

Find out more & register

“Machine learning accelerated design of new functional material” – Professor Jinlan Wang (Southeast University, China)

Thursday, 3 December 2020 (08:00 GMT; 13:30 IST; 19:00 AEDT)

Find out more & register

“Soft Gold Elastronics for Connected Healthcare” – Professor Wenlong Cheng (Monash University, Australia)

“Smart Sensors for Environmental Monitoring and Healthcare” – Professor Ritu Gupta (IIT Jodhpur, India)

Thursday, 10 December 2020 (07:00 GMT; 15:00 CST; 17:00 AEST; 18:00 AEDT)

Find out more & register

“The interaction between micelles and cells: Small changes in the nanoparticle shells have big impacts” – Professor Martina Stenzel (University of New South Wales, Australia)

“Emerging trends in oral drug delivery using stimuli responsive nanomedicine” – Dr Amirali Popat (The University of Queensland, Australia)

Thursday, 17 December 2020 (08:00 GMT; 16:00 CST; 17:00 JST)

Find out more & register

“Sub-1nm Ultrathin Nanocrystals” – Professor Xun Wang (Tsinghua University, China)

“Metal-Organic Frameworks for Polymer Recognition and Separation” – Dr Nobuhiko Hosono (University of Tokyo, Japan)

“Stability of Photocatalysts” – Dr Mengye Wang (Sun Yat-Sen University, China)

We hope you will be able to join us for some of the events in this Desktop Seminar Series.

Best wishes,

Dr Michaela Mühlberg
Executive Editor, Materials Horizons
Dr Charlotte Marshall
Managing Editor, Nanoscale Horizons

Outstanding Reviewers for Materials Horizons in 2019

We would like to highlight the Outstanding Reviewers for Materials Horizons in 2019, as selected by the editorial team, for their significant contribution to the journal. The reviewers have been chosen based on the number, timeliness and quality of the reports completed over the last 12 months.

We would like to say a big thank you to those individuals listed here as well as to all of the reviewers that have supported the journal. Each Outstanding Reviewer will receive a certificate to give recognition for their significant contribution.

We would also like to thank the Materials Horizons board and the materials chemistry community for their continued support of the journal, as authors, reviewers and readers.

If you would like to become a reviewer for our journal, just email us with details of your research interests and an up-to-date CV or résumé. You can find more details in our author and reviewer resource centre

You have gained interesting research results in the field of laser material processing and want to discuss them with experts from all over the world? If so, submit an abstract for the 11^th CIRP Conference on Photonic Technologies [LANE 2020] until January 24, 2020.

Especially recent developments in the field of

Laser Material Processing

• Beam sources & components
• Laser beam welding, brazing & soldering
• Laser beam cutting & drilling
• Surface treatment & forming
• Laser assisted processes

including

• Experimental results
• Simulation & modeling
• Sensing & control
• Laser safety

and the Emerging Technologies

• Additive Manufacturing
• Precision processing with ultrashort laser pulses
• Fast laser beam manipulation
• Laser material processing in the visible wavelength range
• E-Mobility/Batteries

are of interest.

In order to give a detailed overview, LANE aims not only at scientific contributions, but integrates the industrial perspective and their relevance for application, as well. It takes place from September 06-10, 2020 in Fürth, Germany. Visit the conference website for more information: https://www.lane-conference.org

Materials Horizons is delighted to support the conference with two prizes for the best talks.

We would like to highlight the Outstanding Reviewers for Materials Horizons in 2018, as selected by the editorial team, for their significant contribution to the journal. The reviewers have been chosen based on the number, timeliness and quality of the reports completed over the last 12 months.

We would like to say a big thank you to those individuals listed here as well as to all of the reviewers that have supported the journal. Each Outstanding Reviewer will receive a certificate to give recognition for their significant contribution.

Professor Antonio di Bartolomeo, Universita degli Studi di Salerno, ORCID: 0000-0002-3629-726X
Professor Dr Stefan Bon, University of Warwick, ORCID: 0000-0001-5156-3901
Professor Jonas Croissant, University of New Mexico, ORCID: 0000-0003-0489-9829
Professor Lorenzo Di Bari, Universita degli Studi di Pisa, ORCID: 0000-0003-2347-2150
Dr Shaolong Gong, Wuhan University, ORCID: 0000-0002-1166-9047
Professor Weida Hu, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, ORCID: 0000-0001-5278-8969
Dr Ville Jokinen, Aalto-yliopisto, ORCID: 0000-0001-6347-7461
Dr Dominik Konkolewicz, Miami University, ORCID: 0000-0002-3828-5481
Dr Igor Perepichka, Bangor University, ORCID: 0000-0001-6672-3103
Dr Michal Piasecki, Uniwersytet Humanistyczno-Przyrodniczy im Jana Dlugosza w Czestochowie, ORCID: 0000-0003-1040-8811

We would also like to thank the Materials Horizons board and the materials community for their continued support of the journal, as authors, reviewers and readers.

If you would like to become a reviewer for our journal, just email us with details of your research interests and an up-to-date CV or résumé. You can find more details in our author and reviewer resource centre

We are delighted to see the support from the community as you continue to contribute outstanding articles showcasing new concepts of exceptional significance to the materials science readership.

To celebrate the materials science community’s excellent work, we have picked out some content highlights for 2018 so far, which we would like to share with you. All articles are free to access until the end of June – we hope you enjoy reading them.

Reviews

Photocatalytic fixation of nitrogen to ammonia: state-of-the-art advancements and future prospects

Xingzhu Chen, Neng Li, Zhouzhou Kong, Wee-Jun Ong and Xiujian Zhao

Materials Horiz., 2018, 5, 9-27

Metal–organic framework-derived one-dimensional porous or hollow carbon-based nanofibers for energy storage and conversion

Chaohai Wang, Yusuf Valentino Kaneti, Yoshio Bando, Jianjian Lin, Chao Liu, Jiansheng Li and Yusuke Yamauchi

Materials Horiz., 2018, 5, 394-407

Communications

Photoelectrochemical response of carbon dots (CDs) derived from chitosan and their use in electrochemical imaging

De-Wen Zhang, Nikolaos Papaioannou, Naomi Michelle David, Hui Luo, Hui Gao, Liviu Cristian Tanase, Thibault Degousée, Paolo Samorì, Andrei Sapelkin, Oliver Fenwick, Maria-Magdalena Titirici and Steffi Krause

Materials Horiz., 2018, 5, 423-428

An alternative route to single ion conductivity using multi-ionic salts

Sumanth Chereddy, Parameswara Rao Chinnam, Vijay Chatare, Stephen Patrick diLuzio, Mallory P. Gobet, Steven G. Greenbaum and Stephanie L. Wunder

Materials Horiz., 2018, 5, 461-473

Translation of protein charge and hydrophilicity to materials surface properties using thermal treatment in fluorous media

Li-Sheng Wang, Sanjana Gopalakrishnan, Yi-Wei Lee, Jiaxin Zhu, Stephen S. Nonnenmann and Vincent M. Rotello

Materials Horiz., 2018, 5, 268-274

Band engineering in Mg₃Sb₂ by alloying with Mg₃Bi₂ for enhanced thermoelectric performance

Kazuki Imasato, Stephen Dongmin Kang, Saneyuki Ohno and G. Jeffrey Snyder

Materials Horiz., 2018, 5, 59-64

Janus DNA orthogonal adsorption of graphene oxide and metal oxide nanoparticles enabling stable sensing in serum

Biwu Liu, Lingzi Ma, Zhicheng Huang, Hao Hu, Peng Wu and Juewen Liu

Materials Horiz., 2018, 5, 65-69

At Materials Horizons, our reviewing standards are set extremely high to ensure we only publish first reports of new concepts across the breadth of materials research. Our impact factor of 10.706* is testament to the exceptionally significant work of our community.

Contact us: materialshorizons-rsc@rsc.org

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Click here for 2018 Highlights in our sister-journal Nanoscale Horizons or sign up to our newsletters for more regular journal-specific updates.

We are delighted to share with you some of the most popular articles that were published in Materials Horizons in 2017.

Last year our Materials Horizons community published a larger number of articles of exceptional significance than ever before. We hope you enjoy reading this selection of some of the most highly cited* and most frequently downloaded articles from 2017.

Focus

Thermoresponsive polymers with lower critical solution temperature: from fundamental aspects and measuring techniques to recommended turbidimetry conditions
Qilu Zhang, Christine Weber, Ulrich S. Schubert and Richard Hoogenboom

Review

Metal organic framework based catalysts for CO2 conversion
James W. Maina, Cristina Pozo-Gonzalo, Lingxue Kong, Jürg Schütz, Matthew Hill and Ludovic F. Dumée

Heteroatom-doped graphene as electrocatalysts for air cathodes
Huijuan Cui, Zhen Zhou and Dianzeng Jia

Atomic layer deposition for nanomaterial synthesis and functionalization in energy technology
Xiangbo Meng, Xinwei Wang, Dongsheng Geng, Cagla Ozgit-Akgun, Nathanaelle Schneider and Jeffrey W. Elam

Metal-organic frameworks: a novel host platform for enzymatic catalysis and detection
Effrosyni Gkaniatsou, Clémence Sicard, Rémy Ricoux, Jean-Pierre Mahy, Nathalie Steunou and Christian Serre

Communication

Searching for promising new perovskite-based photovoltaic absorbers: the importance of electronic dimensionality
Zewen Xiao, Weiwei Meng, Jianbo Wang, David B. Mitzi and Yanfa Yan

Quaternisation-polymerized N-type polyelectrolytes: synthesis, characterisation and application in high-performance polymer solar cells
Zhicheng Hu, Rongguo Xu, Sheng Dong, Kai Lin, Jinju Liu, Fei Huang and Yong Cao

Functional conductive nanomaterials via polymerisation in nano-channels: PEDOT in a MOF
Tiesheng Wang, Meisam Farajollahi, Sebastian Henke, Tongtong Zhu, Sneha R. Bajpe, Shijing Sun, Jonathan S. Barnard, June Sang Lee, John D. W. Madden, Anthony K. Cheetham and Stoyan K. Smoukov

Efficient triplet–triplet annihilation upconversion in binary crystalline solids fabricated via solution casting and operated in air
Kenji Kamada, Yusuke Sakagami, Toshiko Mizokuro, Yutaka Fujiwara, Kenji Kobayashi, Kaishi Narushima, Shuzo Hirata and Martin Vacha

Programming 2D/3D shape-shifting with hobbyist 3D printers
Teunis van Manen, Shahram Janbaz and Amir A. Zadpoor

Check out our most recent articles from 2018…

At Materials Horizons, our reviewing standards are set extremely high to ensure we only publish first reports of new concepts across the breadth of materials research. Our impact factor of 10.706** is testament to the exceptionally significant work of our community.

Contact us: materialshorizons-rsc@rsc.org

Follow us: Homepage | Twitter | Facebook | Blog | E-alerts | RSS

*Web of Science (February 2018) © Clarivate Analytics.
**2016 Journal Citation Reports (June 2017) © Clarivate Analytics.

A new and highly controllable technique to manufacture functional gradient nanocomposites has been reported in a recent article, published in Materials Horizons. The technique enables smooth and programmable stiff-to-compliant (or compliant-to-stiff) transitions within micro-scale regions.

This technique, developed by Dr. Zhengzhi Wang and colleagues at Wuhan University, is based on a typical two-step process:

1. Use a magnetic field to generate a desired concentration gradient of magnetic-responsive nano-reinforcements inside a polymer matrix in liquid state.
2. Polymerize and solidify the redistributed polymer nanocomposites.

Using this technique, Wang et al. fabricated various biomimetic interfaces and surfaces and found that the functional gradient designs, with reduced stress concentrations, simultaneously improved the mechanical strength and durability over an order of magnitude compared with the traditional homogeneous counterparts.

The magnetically-actuated functional gradient nanocomposites can be further integrated into advanced additive manufacturing techniques to create a wide range of functional heterogeneous materials with unprecedented combinations of mechanical properties.

TEM image of functional gradient nanocomposites for compliant-stiff-compliant transitions

Mengye Wang is a member of the Community Board for Materials Horizons. Currently, she works as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Applied Physics at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She has a keen interest in advanced materials for environmental and energy applications, including photocatalysis and electrocatalysis.