Featured Reviews in Nanochemistry 2026

Dear Colleagues,

Since the discovery of fullerenes (C60 buckyballs) in 1985, carbon nanotubes in 1991, and the isolation of graphene in 2004, nanomaterials have driven transformative innovations across multiple scientific and technological fields. Materials with characteristic dimensions in the 1–100 nm range exhibit unique physical, chemical, and biological properties that differ significantly from their bulk counterparts. These distinctive properties have enabled breakthroughs in optoelectronics, catalysis, energy conversion and storage, environmental remediation, sensing, bioimaging, and drug delivery, etc., profoundly reshaping both academic research and industrial innovation. With the exponential growth of publications in nanomaterials and the speedy expansion of their application areas, it has become more and more challenging for researchers to comprehensively track and understand their developments, even within a single specialized subfield.

The proposed Special Issue, 'Featured Reviews in Nanochemistry 2026', aims to address this challenge, by assembling authoritative review articles from leading experts.  These coherent reviews will provide critical opinions of recent progress, highlight major scientific achievements and challenges, and identify future directions. By bringing high-quality and in-depth review papers together in a single collection, the issue will offer readers a consolidated perspective on the important breakthroughs in nanomaterials research.

The Special Issue will emphasize, on but is not limited to, the following: advanced synthetic methodologies for nanomaterials, design and functionalization of  nanomaterials, and emerging applications. The applications cover optoelectronic, catalytic, energy, environmental, biomedical, etc. Sustainable and green synthesis, scalable production and reproducibility, environmental impact, and in situ and operando characterization techniques are also included. In addition, theoretical modeling, simulations, and data-driven approaches, including artificial intelligence in nanomaterials discovery and optimization are also integrated.

Through these featured review contributions, the Special Issue will demonstrate nanochemistry continuously as a dynamic and highly interdisciplinary field that bridges atomic-scale design with macroscopic performance. The collected articles will provide valuable navigation for researchers across physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, and biomedical fields, and help readers to explore next-generation nanomaterials and technologies.

Prof. Dr. Yucheng Lan
Prof. Dr. Xi Ling
Guest Editors

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