The practical application of high-capacity transition-metal sulfide anodes has been hampered by the poor rate capability and cycling performance. As recently reported in Matter, Yang and co-workers have developed a robust micro-truss structural Cu1.81S material with excellent mechanical strength for high-performance sodium-ion batteries.

In this issue of Chem, Kondo and co-workers report a facile soft-chemical method for the preparation of layered, electrically conductive hydrogen boride, which is short-range order but amorphous as a result of the geometrical frustration of the terminal B–H bonds. This work offers an alternative route to two-dimensional (2D) boron materials.