New paper published in Chemistry of Materials. This constitutes collaborative work between the Universität Salzburg (Michael Elsaesser, Saeid Borhani, Gregor Zickler), the Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology (INP Greifswald) e.V. (Antje Quade), and us (Stefanie Arnold, Le Thao). Congratulations to Stefanie Arnold for her debut as last-and-corresponding author!

The work has now been featured on the cover of the journal. Our paper reports a scalable synthesis of iron-loaded carbon spherogels with tunable iron content, where uniformly distributed iron nanoparticles are embedded in a porous, conductive carbon framework to create lithium-ion battery electrodes with high capacity and strong cycling stability. It shows that these materials can reach capacities up to 1190 mAh/g with Coulombic efficiencies above 99% over 300 cycles, and that the best performance comes from balancing iron redox activity with the structural stability of the carbon host rather than simply maximizing iron loading. Our work matters because it positions iron-loaded carbon spherogels as a more sustainable, cobalt-free and nickel-free route to high-performance conversion-type battery electrodes, addressing a central materials challenge in next-generation energy storage. 

New paper published in Desalination on position-resolved ion concentration from operando X-ray transmission. This collaborative work introduces position-resolved operando synchrotron X-ray transmission to directly map local ion concentration changes inside a working capacitive deionization (CDI) cell – separating contributions from the flow channel electrolyte and the two nanoporous electrodes. Using a CsCl model electrolyte, we show how flow rate creates strong spatial gradients along the channel and how ionophobic ultramicropores (< ~0.7 nm) can dominate performance by promoting counter-ion adsorption and higher charge efficiency. Authors: Max V. Rauscher, Richard Kohns, Malina Seyffertitz, Sebastian Stock, Sylvio Haas, Christian Prehal, Nicola Hüsing, Oskar Paris.

New paper published in ACS Energy Letters on interlayer-tailored Alkyl-MXenes for selective electrochemical lithium-ion extraction. The paper reports a two-step electrochemical lithium-ion extraction strategy using interlayer-tailored Ti₃C₂T_x MXene electrodes. By pre-intercalating long-chain organic molecules (hexadecylamine, HDA, and decyltrimethylammonium, C10), the MXene interlayer environment is tuned to favor Li⁺ over competing Na⁺, improving both selectivity and extraction rates. In the demonstrated conditions, the HDA-intercalated MXene shows 2.2 mmol/L Li uptake with suppressed Na uptake (<0.2 mmol/L), and both HDA-Ti₃C₂T_x and C10-Ti₃C₂T_x maintain nearly 100% lithium purity over 50 cycles. Co-authors: Cansu Kök, Karamullah Eisawi, Jean G. A. Ruthes, Burcu Tan, Antje Quade, Michael Naguib. We are grateful to be featured on the Supporting Cover.