Due to their small footprint and flexible siting, rechargeable batteries are attractive for energy storage systems. A super-valent battery based on aluminium ion intercalation and deintercalation is proposed in this work with VO2 as cathode and high-purity Al foil as anode. First-principles calculations are also employed to theoretically investigate the crystal structure change and the insertion-extraction mechanism of Al ions in the super-valent battery. Long cycle life, low cost and good capacity are achieved in this battery system. At the current density of 50 mAg−1, the discharge capacity remains 116 mAhg−1 after 100 cycles. Comparing to monovalent Li-ion battery, the super-valent battery has the potential to deliver more charges and gain higher specific capacity.

A significant enhancement of thermoelectric performance in layered oxyselenides BiCuSeO was achieved. The electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient of BiCu(1-x)SeO (x = 0-0.1) indicate that the carriers were introduced in the (Cu(2)Se(2))(2-) layer by Cu deficiencies. The maximum of electrical conductivity is 3 × 10(3) S m(-1) for Bicu(0.975)Seo at 650 °C, much larger than 470 S m(-1) for pristine BiCuSeO. Featured with very low thermal conductivity (∼0.5 W m(-1) K(-1)) and a large Seebeck coefficient (+273 μV K(-1)), ZT at 650 °C is significantly increased from 0.50 for pristine BiCuSeO to 0.81 for BiCu(0.975)SeO by introducing Cu deficiencies, which makes it a promising candidate for medium temperature thermoelectric applications.

The p-type Cu2O/n-type TaON heterojunction nanorod array passivated with ultrathin carbon sheath as a surface protection layer is excellent in photoelectrochemical water splitting.

A quantitative description of specific ion effects is an essential and focused topic in colloidal and biological science. In this work, the dynamic light scattering technique was employed to study the aggregation kinetics of colloidal particles in the various alkali ion solutions with a wide range of concentrations. It indicated that the activation energies could be used to quantitatively characterize specific ion effects, which was supported by the results of effective hydrodynamic diameters, aggregation rates and critical coagulation concentrations. At a given concentration of 25 mmol L(-1), the activation energies for Li(+) are 1.2, 5.7, 28, and 126 times as much for Na(+), K(+), Rb(+), and Cs(+), respectively. Most importantly, the activation energy differences between two alkali cation species increase sharply with decrease of electrolyte concentrations, implying the more pronounced specific ion effects at lower concentrations. The dominant role of electrolyte cations during the aggregation of negatively charged colloidal particles was confirmed by alternative anions. Among the various theories, only the polarization effect can give a rational interpretation of the above specific ion effects, and this is substantially supported by the presence of strong electric fields from montmorillonite surfaces and its association mainly with electrolyte cations and montmorillonite particles. The classical induction theory, although with inclusion of electric field, requires significant corrections because it predicts an opposite trend to the experimentally observed specific ion effects.