A Strategy Inspired by the Cicada Shedding Its Skin for Synthesizing the Natural Material NaFe₃S₅·2H₂O (Adv. Sci. 21/2023)

Synthesizing the Natural Material NaFe3S5·2H2O In article number 2301324 by Hanqing Dai, Wei Wei, Guoqi Zhang, Ruiqian Guo, and co-workers, a systematic approach for synthesizing NaFe3S5·2H2O (NFS) with water–oxygen stability by the high-pressure hydrothermal method is presented. An analogy to cicada molting as a strategy for preparing unstable natural materials in water–oxygen conditions is also proposed. The limitations of the high-pressure hydrothermal method are broken through, which hold significant scientific implications for its potential application in synthesizing lunar and Martian minerals. This work provides fundamental data of the NFS and a general route to synthesize newly discovered minerals based solely on their chemical formula.