Alkali-metal-embedded carbon materials with high electrical conductivity and large accessible surface areas: new chemistry turns hypothesis into reality.

Alkali-metal-embedded carbon materials, produced through the newly discovered Hu's reaction between alkali metals based on thermodynamic prediction, address a longstanding challenge in carbon materials: structural defects, while often unavoidable in highly catalytic carbon, generally impede electron transport. Remarkably, these materials exhibit an unusual combination of high electrical conductivity and large accessible surface areas with abundant structural defects, a combination that is difficult to achieve simultaneously in other carbon materials. These unique characteristics make them promising carbon materials for a broad range of electrical energy and environmental applications, bridging the gap between conceptual design and practical implementation. This feature article reviews the advancements, with emphasis on their synthesis and design strategies, resulting structures and properties, and device performance. Their applications in solar cells, including dye-sensitized solar cells and perovskite solar cells, as well as in electrochemical energy storage and water treatment technologies, including electric double-layer capacitors and capacitive deionization, are comprehensively discussed. Finally, the remaining challenges and future opportunities for the development and practical applications of alkali-embedded carbon materials are highlighted.