Incorporating passive radiative cooling structures into personal thermal management technologies could effectively defend human against the intensifying global climate change. We show that large scale woven metafabrics can provide high emissivity (94.5%) in the atmospheric window and reflectivity (92.4%) in the solar spectrum because the hierarchical-morphology design of the randomly dispersed scatterers throughout the metafabric. Through scalable industrial textile manufacturing routes, our metafabrics exhibit excellent mechanical strength, waterproofness, and breathability for commercial clothing while maintaining efficient radiative cooling ability. Practical application tests demonstrated the human body covered by our metafabric could be cooled down ~4.8°C lower than that covered by commercial cotton fabric. The cost-effectiveness and high-performance of our metafabrics present great advantages for intelligent garments, smart textiles, and passive radiative cooling applications.
Two-dimensional atomic crystals, such as two-dimensional oxides, have attracted much attention in energy storage because nearly all of the atoms can be exposed to the electrolyte and involved in redox reactions. However, current strategies are largely limited to intrinsically layered compounds. Here we report a general strategy that uses the surfaces of water-soluble salt crystals as growth templates and is applicable to not only layered compounds but also various transition metal oxides, such as hexagonal-MoO3, MoO2, MnO and hexagonal-WO3. The planar growth is hypothesized to occur via a match between the crystal lattices of the salt and the growing oxide. Restacked two-dimensional hexagonal-MoO3 exhibits high pseudocapacitive performances (for example, 300 F cm−3 in an Al2(SO4)3 electrolyte). The synthesis of various two-dimensional transition metal oxides and the demonstration of high capacitance are expected to enable fundamental studies of dimensionality effects on their properties and facilitate their use in energy storage and other applications.
Integrating a battery‐type electrode to build a hybrid supercapacitor is a promising approach to improve the overall energy density of a supercapacitor‐type energy storage device without sacrificing its power output. However, this strategy is usually achieved at the expense of cycling lifespan. In this work, a hybrid supercapacitor comprising Zn foil and porous carbon derived from chemical activated graphene (aMEGO) is developed, and the trade‐off between energy density and cycling life is well‐balanced by the utilization of 3 m Zn(CF3SO3)2 electrolyte with high Zn stripping/plating efficiency. Such a hybrid supercapacitor demonstrates an energy density of 106.3 Wh kg−1 and a power density of 31.4 kW kg−1, and significantly a wide operation voltage of 1.9 V is achieved in aqueous electrolyte. Benefitting from the high Zn stripping/plating efficiency, the Zn‐aMEGO hybrid‐supercapacitor also exhibits an ultralong cycling life up to 80 000 cycles with capacity retention of 93%, which is comparable to that of conventional electrochemical double‐layer capacitors.
A Schottky barrier can be formed at the interface between a metal electrode and a semiconductor. The current passing through the metal-semiconductor contact is mainly controlled by the barrier height and barrier width. In conventional nanodevices, Schottky contacts are usually avoided in order to enhance the contribution made by the nanowires or nanotubes to the detected signal. We present a key idea of using the Schottky contact to achieve supersensitive and fast response nanowire-based nanosensors. We have illustrated this idea on several platforms: UV sensors, biosensors, and gas sensors. The gigantic enhancement in sensitivity of up to 5 orders of magnitude shows that an effective usage of the Schottky contact can be very beneficial to the sensitivity of nanosensors.
Supports can widely affect or even dominate the catalytic activity, selectivity, and stability of metal nanoparticles through various metal-support interactions (MSIs). However, underlying principles have not been fully understood yet, because MSIs are influenced by the composition, size, and facet of both metals and supports. Using Ru/TiO2 supported on rutile and anatase as model catalysts, we demonstrate that metal-support interfacial compatibility can critically control MSI modes and catalytic performances in CO2 hydrogenation. Annealing Ru/rutile-TiO2 in air can enhance CO2 conversion to methane resulting from enhanced interfacial coupling driven by matched lattices of RuOx with rutile-TiO2; annealing Ru/anatase-TiO2 in air decreases CO2 conversion and converts the product into CO owing to strong metal-support interaction (SMSI). Although rutile and anatase share the same chemical composition, we show that interfacial compatibility can basically modify metal-support coupling strength, catalyst morphology, surface atomic configuration, MSI mode, and catalytic performances of Ru/TiO2 in heterogeneous catalysis.
2D materials have demonstrated good chemical, optical, electrical, and magnetic characteristics, and offer great potential in numerous applications. Corresponding synthesis technologies of 2D materials that are highquality, high-yield, low-cost, and time-saving are highly desired. Salt-assisted methods are emerging technologies that can meet these requirements for the fabrication of 2D materials. Herein, the recent process for the salt-assisted synthesis of 2D materials and their typical applications are summarized. First, the properties of salt crystals and molten salts are briefly introduced, and then some examples of 2D materials synthesis with the assistance of salt as well as their representative applications are presented. The underlying mechanisms of salts with different states on the formation of 2D morphology are discussed to aid in the rational design of synthetic route of 2D materials. At last, the challenges and future perspectives for salt-assisted methods are briefly described. This review provides guidance for the controllable synthesis of 2D materials based on the salt-assisted approaches.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201908486.MoO 3 , and LaNb 2 O 7 ), [14][15][16] layered double hydroxides (LDHs, e.g., Mg 6 Al 2 (OH) 16 CO 3 •4H 2 O), [17] hexagonal-boron nitride (h-BN), [2,18] transition metal halides (such as MoCl 2 and CrCl 3 ), [19] black phosphorus, [20] graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ), [5] MXene (such as Ti 2 C and Ti 3 CN), [21][22][23][24][25] and clays (for instance, [(Mg 3 )(Si 2 O 5 ) 2 (OH) 2 ] and [(Al 2 )(Si 3 Al) O 10 (OH) 2 ]K). [19] Notably, many nonlayered structure species can also form 2D morphology with specific synthetic methods, largely expanding the 2D family (such as hexagonal-MoO 3 (h-MoO 3 ), hexagonal-WO 3 (h-WO 3 ), [15] transition metal nitrides (TMNs), [26,27] and transition metal phosphides (TMPs)). [28] To exploit the applications of 2D materials, the development of a synthetic method should be prioritized. Currently, synthesis processes of 2D materials could be divided into two categories, naming the top-down and bottom-up approaches. [29][30][31] Generally, exfoliation is the most common top-down method to produce monolayer or few-layer 2D materials. [19,32] Graphene was first prepared by mechanical exfoliation of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite with sellotape in 2004. [33] The exfoliation can weaken the interlayer Van der Waals force for bulk materials with layered crystal structures while maintain the covalent bonding in plane to produce monolayer or few-layer nanosheets. Although the productivity based on this method is limited due to the low efficiency, the exfoliation approach provides a new synthesis methodology for 2D materials. A series of studies on liquid exfoliation have been conducted by Coleman and co-workers. [19,34,35] By sonicating the bulk material in an appropriate solvent with similar interface energy, 2D material ink can be prepared. After the liq...
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