Aqueous zinc (Zn) batteries (AZBs) are widely considered as a promising candidate for next‐generation energy storage owing to their excellent safety features. However, the application of a Zn anode is hindered by severe dendrite formation and side reactions. Herein, an interfacial bridged organic–inorganic hybrid protection layer (Nafion‐Zn‐X) is developed by complexing inorganic Zn‐X zeolite nanoparticles with Nafion, which shifts ion transport from channel transport in Nafion to a hopping mechanism in the organic–inorganic interface. This unique organic–inorganic structure is found to effectively suppress dendrite growth and side reactions of the Zn anode. Consequently, the Zn@Nafion‐Zn‐X composite anode delivers high coulombic efficiency (ca. 97 %), deep Zn plating/stripping (10 mAh cm−2), and long cycle life (over 10 000 cycles). By tackling the intrinsic chemical/electrochemical issues, the proposed strategy provides a versatile remedy for the limited cycle life of the Zn anode.

The lithium–sulfur (Li–S) battery is considered a promising candidate for the next generation of energy storage system due to its high specific energy density and low cost of raw materials. However, the practical application of Li–S batteries is severely limited by several weaknesses such as the shuttle effect of polysulfides and the insulation of the electrochemical products of sulfur and Li2S/Li2S2. Here, by doping nitrogen and integrating highly dispersed cobalt catalysts, a porous carbon nanocage derived from glucose adsorbed metal–organic framework is developed as the host for a sulfur cathode. This host structure combines the reported positive effects, including high conductivity, high sulfur loading, effective stress release, fast lithium‐ion kinetics, fast interface charge transport, fast redox of Li2Sn, and strong physical/chemical absorption, achieving a long cycle life (86% of capacity retention at 1C within 500 cycles) and high rate performance (600 mAh g−1 at 5C) for a Li–S battery. By combining experiments and density functional theoretical calculations, it is demonstrated that the well‐dispersed cobalt clusters play an important role in greatly improving the diffusion dynamics of lithium, and enhance the absorption and conversion capability of polysulfides in the host structure.

Flexible lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) can be seamlessly integrated into flexible devices, such as flexible displays, wearable devices, and smart cards, to provide power for steady operation under mechanical deformation. An ideal flexible battery should have high flexibility, high energy density, and high power density simultaneously, which are often in conflict with each other. In this Perspective, we analyze the flexible batteries based on structural designs from both the component level and device level. Recent progress in flexible LIBs, including advances in porous structures for battery components, superslim designs, topological architectures, and battery structures with decoupling concepts, is reviewed. In the end, perspectives on the future of flexible batteries are presented and discussed.

Aqueous Zn‐MnO2 batteries using mild electrolyte show great potential in large‐scale energy storage (LSES) application, due to high safety and low cost. However, structure collapse of manganese oxides upon cycling caused by the conversion mechanism (e.g., from tunnel to layer structures for α‐, β‐, and γ‐phases) is one of the most urgent issues plaguing its practical applications. Herein, to avoid the phase conversion issue and enhance battery performance, a structurally robust novel phase of manganese oxide MnO2H0.16(H2O)0.27 (MON) nanosheet with thickness of ≈2.5 nm is designed and synthesized as a promising cathode material, in which a nanosheet structure combined with a novel H+/Zn2+ synergistic intercalation mechanism is demonstrated and evidenced. Accordingly, a high‐performance Zn/MON cell is achieved, showing a high energy density of ≈228.5 Wh kg−1, impressive cyclability with capacity retention of 96% at 0.5 C after 300 cycles, as well as exhibiting rate performance of 115.1 mAh g−1 at current rate of 10 C. To the best current knowledge, this H+/Zn2+ synergistic intercalation mechanism is first reported in an aqueous battery system, which opens a new opportunity for development of high‐performance aqueous Zn ion batteries for LSES.

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The rapid development of flexible and wearable electronics proposes the persistent requirements of high-performance flexible batteries. Much progress has been achieved recently, but how to obtain remarkable flexibility and high energy density simultaneously remains a great challenge. Here, a facile and scalable approach to fabricate spine-like flexible lithium-ion batteries is reported. A thick, rigid segment to store energy through winding the electrodes corresponds to the vertebra of animals, while a thin, unwound, and flexible part acts as marrow to interconnect all vertebra-like stacks together, providing excellent flexibility for the whole battery. As the volume of the rigid electrode part is significantly larger than the flexible interconnection, the energy density of such a flexible battery can be over 85% of that in conventional packing. A nonoptimized flexible cell with an energy density of 242 Wh L is demonstrated with packaging considered, which is 86.1% of a standard prismatic cell using the same components. The cell also successfully survives a harsh dynamic mechanical load test due to this rational bioinspired design. Mechanical simulation results uncover the underlying mechanism: the maximum strain in the reported design (≈0.08%) is markedly smaller than traditional stacked cells (≈1.1%). This new approach offers great promise for applications in flexible devices.

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The results demonstrate potential benefits of our method for enhancing expert's performance because it quickly localizes the infarct and detects cases missed by experts, and it is to be considered as an aid in the emergency department because it substantially outperforms novice readers (100% vs 27%) in infarct detection on NCCT.