Chemical Reviews

Soft robots powered by sustainable energy abundantly available on Earth, such as heat, humidity, sunlight, osmotic potential, pH variation, triboelectricity, and wind, represent a promising shift toward eco-friendly and autonomous robotic systems. Efficiency depends on selecting and engineering responsive materials that directly transform environmental stimuli into mechanical actuation and motion…

Ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) has grown from an extension of olefin metathesis into a powerful, modular platform for synthesizing precision macromolecules. In this review, we explore the evolution and current landscape of strain-driven ROMP, beginning with historical and mechanistic foundations. A central focus is placed on the concept of ring strain─its theoretical basis, thermod…

The past decade has witnessed groundbreaking developments in metalloenzyme-catalyzed free radical transformations, which were previously unknown or uncommon in native metalloenzymology. Guided by mechanistic understandings from organic, organometallic, and biochemistry, an array of radical reactions has been developed using various metalloprotein catalysts based on first-row transition metal cofa…

Immune receptors are modular sensors that detect molecular changes indicating infection, cell/tissue damage, oncogenic transformation, or exposure to allergens, and the signals they transmit initiate and regulate immune responses. These transmembrane receptors are often composed of one or more single-spanning membrane proteins and are modular in two important aspects. First, many immune receptors…

The growing demand for renewable energy has spurred the development of efficient electrochemical systems. Transition metal-based materials serve as key electrode materials due to their tunable structures and redox activity, with electrochemical reconstruction playing a critical role in modulation of their properties. A deep understanding of the evolution of active sites and local environments is …

The growing reliance on batteries in modern society highlights the crucial role of separators in energy storage devices. As the demand for high-performance batteries increases, developing advanced separators─guided by a deep understanding of physical phenomena and structure-property relationships─becomes critical for next-generation energy storage systems. Recent developments in separator technol…

Hydrovoltaic electricity generators (HEGs) have emerged as a class of distinctive green energy harvesters that convert the energy of ubiquitous water, including moisture and liquid water, into electricity through water-induced interfacial processes at solid-gas and solid-liquid interfaces. While early studies primarily focused on empirical material screening, recent advances have increasingly dem…

Colloidal inorganic nanocrystals (NCs), especially semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), serve as versatile building blocks for solution-processable electronics, optoelectronics, and photonics. As the field moves toward integrated, system-level applications, such as QD light emitting diode (QLED) displays, precise patterning of colloidal NCs in two- (2D) and three-dimensions (3D) while preserving the…

The replacement of aromatic rings with saturated molecular frameworks is a recent development encapsulated by the motto "escape from flatland" and conceptualized through the use of saturated benzene bioisosteres. This Review summarizes the application of the smallest bicyclic and spirocyclic ring systems as saturated scaffolds, focusing on applications in constructing bioactive molecules. We disc…

The scalable integration of single-crystalline nanomaterials remains a critical challenge in modern materials science, involving precise control of crystal nucleation, growth, and long-range ordered assembly throughout material processing. This Review highlights emerging strategies for inducing ordered nanomaterial assembly by constructing preferred nucleation sites. In the context of micro/nanop…

The liquid-solid interface plays a fundamental role in a wide range of phenomena, including reaction kinetics, charge transfer, and fluid behavior. However, the underlying physicochemical mechanisms governing these interfacial interactions remain a topic of ongoing debate. Recently, the concept of the triboelectric nanogenerator probe (TENG probe) has been introduced to investigate the charge tra…

Heterogeneous catalysis relies on advanced, tunable materials offering structurally defined active sites and large accessible surface areas. Among the various material types, two-dimensional nanomaterials with high aspect ratios feature a high fraction of exposed atoms and thus efficient atom utilization. After more than a decade since the first report of MXene synthesis, these two-dimensional tr…

Hierarchical self-assembly, wherein simple molecular components undergo multiple, ordered organization steps, underlies the construction of complex functional architectures in biological systems and has inspired advances in artificial supramolecular chemistry. In this context, hierarchically assembled metallosupramolecular architectures (HAMSAs) have emerged as versatile platforms that combine en…

Jet-based printing techniques and direct ink writing have emerged as complementary, convergent technologies serving as key platforms in additive manufacturing for functional nano- to microscale architectures. This review highlights how these approaches enable fine feature resolution and three-dimensional structures in advanced electronics and biointerfacing applications. The interplay of fluid me…

Mechanochemical activation occurs through the direct coupling of mechanical force with a chemical reaction coordinate, distorting reactant molecules from their equilibrium geometries. Understanding how this distortion reshapes the potential energy surface and, more importantly, connecting that understanding to experimentally measured mechanochemical reaction rates is a significant and inherently …

The rapid growth of worldwide computing power has transformed <i>in silico</i> chemistry into a discipline that is integrated into the daily work of many chemists. Nowadays, researchers find it increasingly straightforward to predict a wide range of molecular properties and chemical processes at reasonable computational cost. The resulting abundance of data generated by quantum chemistry, molecul…

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have been widely applied to investigate various physical and chemical processes in aqueous and interfacial environments, which are crucial for the design of energy materials and for understanding several chemical processes at the heart of life itself. However, the applicability of MD simulations has been constrained by several inherent challenges, including the…

Progress in chemistry has been driven by the streamlining of inverse problem-solving methods. In the history of chemistry, several revolutionary technologies have led to leaps forward: the establishment of atomistic theory in the 19th century, structural analysis by spectroscopy in the 20th century, and the development of simulation by theoretical chemistry. Currently, chemistry is about to make …

Large-scale battery manufacturing requires understanding the fundamental principles of materials and interfaces and relies on advanced techniques for detailed interrogation. Despite advancements in the industrial scale production and their associated quality control tools, challenges such as electrode heterogeneity, internal defects, and large-scale material waste (e.g., scrap) can hamper manufac…

Photocatalytic overall water splitting using cocatalyst-modified photocatalysts faces a significant challenge to achieve highly efficient performance in pure water, as the back reaction─where the evolved H₂ and O₂ recombine back into H₂O─is also catalyzed by the cocatalysts. Overlayers on modified photocatalysts have been reported to prevent the back reaction and …