Kang Xu ,and Guosheng Shao*

We are pleased to announce the creation of a new column“Frontier Outlook,”which aims to inspire discussions over a series of frontier and even controversial topics that are of high interest to the readers in the fields of Energy and Environmental Materials.In each column,we invite a prominent expert,who will share his/her opinions,comments,or perspectives on a selected topic.

The inauguration column in this issue features the contribution from Prof.Roling and his colleagues at Philipps-Universitat Marburg,Germany.Facing the increasing diversity of new electrolyte systems that often venture into regimes beyond conventions,Prof.Roling and colleagues proposed a new quantification that classifies electrolytes not only by ion transport but also by mass transport,thus breaching the confinement imposed by the traditional definitions of “strong” and“weak”electrolytes.