Editorial: Materials with multidisciplinary applications Free

It’s my pleasure to introduce the second issue of Emerging Materials Research journal for 2024. This issue contains 9 papers, which cover the materials in the multidisciplinary applications such as electromagnetic wave absorption, food packaging, phase change materials for renewable energy, solid propellants, shape recovery, simulations, and so on.

Unlike the coated electromagnetic wave absorption materials, the porous structure in graphene aerogel can improve the impedance match and increase the reflection times of electromagnetic wave in the material, facilitating the attenuation of electromagnetic wave. However, the common problem is its poor elasticity and compressibility. Lu et al.1 fabricated an ultralight graphene aerogel with both compressibility and electromagnetic wave absorption performance by controlling the aerogel structure through changing reduction temperature, reducing agent content and ammonia concentration. They confirmed the significance of appropriate pore size in the electromagnetic wave absorption materials with 3D structures.

As a semicrystalline polymer with flexibility, lightweight, low-cost, high dielectric strength and charge-storage capacity, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) is applied in the textile, packaging and biomedicine. As a cellulose derivative by inserting a carboxymethyl (-CH₂COOH) group into the cellulose chain, carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) with excellent biodegradability and biocompatibility is widely used in the pharmaceutical and food. Abead et al.2 studied the structural and optical properties of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) blend films cured by UV irradiation. The results showed that the UV irradiation could increase the amorphous phase and strengthen the stability of blend films as well as change their optical band gap, which made these films a good candidate for the optoelectronic applications.

In the field of renewable energy, as a new clean and recyclable heat-storage technology, phase change materials (PCMs) have attracted extensive attentions by relying on latent heat to store heat. However, the leakage of organic PCMs severely limits their applications. To deal with this, Su et al.3 developed an effective method by loading the decanoic acid, a fatty acid PCM, on the porous expanded dickite to create a composite PCM, which exhibited an enhanced responsiveness to ambient temperature.

The catalysts play a vital role for reducing the decomposition temperature of nitro compounds, which are often used oxidants in the solid propellants for missiles and rockets. The reduction of decomposition temperature of nitro compounds could significantly facilitate the combustion performance of solid propellants. Therefore, Wang et al.4 prepared a metal-organic framework-199 (MOF-199) contained Cu element for catalyzing the thermal decomposition of hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-striazine (RDX). They found that the different crystal planes of MOF-199 had the different catalytic performance on the thermal decomposition of RDX and the defects and holes with exposed more catalytic active sites benefited the catalytic performance.

We also have three papers related to the metal and metal alloy. Syed Bava Bakrudeen and Jeyasimman5 studied the effect of manganese (Mn) and chromium (Cr) contents on the microstructure and shape recovery behavior of iron-manganese-silicon-nickel-chromium (Fe-xMn-5Si-5Ni-yCr) alloys. Hu et al.6 studied the influence of molybdenum (Mo) on the-phase precipitation behavior of super-austenitic stainless steel. Yilmaz et al.7 proposed a novel copper-based cooling system to solve the weld decay problem that was induced by the carbide precipitation in the HAZ of TIG welding of AISI 304 steel pipes.

Besides, Chaudhary et al.8 utilized the Solar Cell Capacitance Simulator (SCAPS) software to an antimony (III) selenide (Sb₂Se₃) solar cell with different electron transport layers (ETLs). Lv et al.9 introduced the mechanochemical effects of elasticity and plasticity into a peridynamic (PD) corrosion model for explore the mechanics and kinetics of electrochemistry.

The contents of this issue are full of diversity and I hope you’ll enjoy the scientific and technical information in your research.