Aqueous zinc‐ion batteries hold attractive potential for large‐scale energy storage devices owing to their prominent electrochemical performance and high security. Nevertheless, the applications of aqueous electrolytes have generated various challenges, including uncontrolled dendrite growth and parasitic reactions, thereby deteriorating the Zn anode's stability. Herein, inspired by the superior affinity between Zn2+ and amino acid chains in the zinc finger protein, a cost‐effective and green glycine additive is incorporated into aqueous electrolytes to stabilize the Zn anode. As confirmed by experimental characterizations and theoretical calculations, the glycine additives can not only reorganize the solvation sheaths of hydrated Zn2+ via partial substitution of coordinated H2O but also preferentially adsorb onto the Zn anode, thereby significantly restraining dendrite growth and interfacial side reactions. Accordingly, the Zn anode could realize a long lifespan of over 2000 h and enhanced reversibility (98.8%) in the glycine‐containing electrolyte. Furthermore, the assembled Zn||α‐MnO2 full cells with glycine‐modified electrolyte also delivers substantial capacity retention (82.3% after 1000 cycles at 2 A g‐1), showing promising application prospects. This innovative bio‐inspired design concept would inject new vitality into the development of aqueous electrolytes.
Herein, inspired by natural sunflower heads’ properties increasing the temperature of dish‐shaped flowers by tracking the sun, a novel hybrid heterostructure (MoS2/Ni3S2@CA, CA means carbon nanowire arrays) with the sunflower‐like structure to boost the kinetics of water splitting is proposed. Density functional theory (DFT) reveals that it can modulate the active electronic states of NiMo atoms around the Fermi‐level through the charge transfer between the metallic atoms of Ni3S2 and MoMo bonds of MoS2 to boost overall water splitting. Most importantly, the finite difference time domain (FDTD) could find that its unique bio‐inspired micro‐nano light‐trapping structure has high solar photothermal conversion efficiency. With the assistance of the photothermal field, the kinetics of water‐splitting is improved, affording low overpotentials of 96 and 229 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for HER and OER, respectively. Moreover, the Sun‐MoS2/Ni3S2@CA enables the overall alkaline water splitting at a low cell voltage of 1.48 and 1.64 V to achieve 10 and 100 mA cm−2 with outstanding catalytic durability. This study may open up a new route for rationally constructing bionic sunflower micro‐nano light‐trapping structure to maximize their photothermal conversion and electrochemical performances, and accelerate the development of nonprecious electrocatalysts for overall water splitting.
Bio‐Inspired Light‐Trapping Nano‐Structures
With the assistance of the photothermal field on sunflower‐like honeycomb, the kinetics of water‐splitting is improved through the construction of bio‐inspired light‐trapping heterostructures with sunflower‐like honeycomb. The unique light‐trapping structure has high solar photothermal conversion efficiency according finite difference time domain (FDTD) results. Meanwhile, the density functional theory (DFT) results reveals that the modulated surface electron density of hybrid heterostructures could optimize the free energies of various intermediates. More details can be found in article number 2205431 by Meng Li and co‐workers.
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