New paper published in Water Research in collaboration with Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (Navid Saeidi & Anett Georgi). Electrosorption is an emerging approach for removing and concentrating trace organic contaminants from water, including PFAS and pharmaceuticals, by combining conductive adsorbents with electrical control. This Making Waves article argues that such systems should not simply borrow terminology and performance metrics from capacitive deionization, because trace-organic removal is often governed by adsorption affinity, selectivity, pore accessibility, and controlled release rather than charge-storage capacity. We propose a clearer terminology and reporting framework centered on metrics such as adsorption coefficients, breakthrough behavior, recovery, and enrichment to support better comparison between studies and accelerate the rational design of electrosorption technologies for water treatment.

New collaborative work with University of Granada (Silvia Ahualli) published in RSC Energy Advances. This study explores an electrochemical route for selective lithium recovery from saline water using lithium manganese oxide, whose spinel structure can reversibly intercalate lithium ions under controlled cell voltages. By combining lithium manganese oxide with polyelectrolyte coatings, the work links ion selectivity, release dynamics, and electrode durability in both LiCl and mixed LiCl/NaCl solutions. Lithium uptake increased strongly with applied voltage, reaching values above 40 mg/g at 1.2 V, while the soft-electrode design maintained lithium selectivity even under challenging sodium-rich conditions.

New collaborative paper published in RSC Energy Advances. This study addresses one of the central challenges of lithium-sulfur batteries: capacity fading caused by polysulfide migration and incomplete confinement in carbon hosts. The team engineered a microporous carbon with a pore size of about 1.2 nm to host both short- and long-chain polysulfides, then further tuned the carbon structure through urea and nickel sulfate treatments. The nickel sulfate-treated carbon-sulfur cathode showed improved cycling stability, reaching 72% capacity retention at C/20 and 96% retention at C/10 after 100 cycles, demonstrating a practical route to more stable Li-S battery cathodes. Our work was featured on the front cover

New collaborative paper published in Battery Energy on “Intraparticular inhomogeneity limits capacity in lithium sulfur batteries with carbonate electrolyte”. This work shows that the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries with carbonate electrolytes is strongly governed by how the cathode-electrolyte interphase (CEI) forms inside nanoporous carbon host particles during the first discharge. Using cryogenic electron microscopy together with electrochemical analysis, we found that the CEI is not a uniform surface film but develops heterogeneously into the particle, leaving larger particles with inactive interior regions and therefore lower sulfur utilization. The results show that reducing carbon particle size improves capacity and rate performance, while also providing clear design guidelines for more efficient solid-state Li-S cathodes. Collaborative work with the groups of Christian Prehal and Alen Vizintin.

New paper published in Polymer Chemistry on cellulose-based membranes. The collaborative work demonstrates how tailored linear and star-shaped block copolymers can be assembled around cellulose fibers to create hierarchical porous structures, which can then be chemically modified to adjust surface polarity, wettability, and water permeance. This approach opens a versatile route toward functional, cellulose-based porous materials for future membrane, filtration, and separation applications.

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.

New paper published in ACS Applied Energy Materials. This collaborative work explores the electrochemical pathway behind cathode-electrolyte interphase (CEI) formation in Li-S batteries operated with carbonate-based electrolytes. By using microporous carbon-sulfur cathodes and tracking the first discharge, we propose an electrochemical nucleophilic mechanism in which polysulfides and solvent molecules react inside confined pores, forming a CEI that is largely LiF-rich. This interphase effectively seals carbon pores, limits further solvent intrusion, and can improve cycling stability – offering new design principles for more practical carbonate-based Li-S systems. Authors: Francisco J. García-Soriano, Jan Jerovsek, Santiago A. Maldonado-Ochoa, Fabian Vaca Chávez, Delvina Japhet Tarimo, Bostjan Genorio, Marc Florent, Teresa J. Bandosz, Robert Dominko, Christian Prehal, Alen Vizintin.