To further improve the catalytic carbonization efficiency of polymer composites for the formation of compact protective layers in the combustion process, a novel type of Fe-CNTs was prepared in large scale.

Hard carbon anodes are the most promising candidates for sodium-ion batteries due to lower sodium-embedded platform and higher specific capacity. However, pure hard carbon carbons usually show very low initial coulombic efficiency, low electronic conductance, et al. Herein, hard carbon-soft carbon (HC-SC) composites composed of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) blooming on porous hard carbon, which were synthesized through thermal decomposition of zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) composite. This unique structure could greatly promote the sodium-ion diffusion and electron transport due to the increased electrode/ electrolyte contact area and enlarged pores. As expected, the HC-SC delivers a high capacity (306.8 mAh g À 1 at 500 mA g À 1), impressive cycling stability (256.8 mAh g À 1 after 1000 cycles) and enhanced rate performance (144.9 mAh g À 1 at 20 C), which are far superior to those of both individual hard carbon and soft carbon. This encouraging performance may benefit from the synergistic effect of the modified defect concentration and interlayer distance in hard carbon by soft carbon, as well as the unique hierarchical structure. This work provides an exemplary strategy to develop optimized carbon materials for sodium-ion batteries.

Exploring a general method for synthesizing 2D compounds with high accessible surface area and nano‐thickness as advanced electrocatalysts is essential yet challenging. Herein, a self‐assembly induced reverse micelle templating method followed by topochemical transformation is developed to synthesize a series of cobalt‐based compounds with varied anions and similar ultrathin 2D structures. Electrocatalytic behaviors for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are systematically investigated, which demonstrate enhanced performances of ultrathin 2D compounds than their agglomerated counterparts. Among them, 2D CoP is particularly prominent. The overpotential of 144 mV at 10 mA cm−2, together with superb stability, place it among the best single‐phase phosphide HER catalysts reported thus far. Theoretical calculation and experimental results demonstrate the favorable valence electronic structure with moderate hydrogen adsorbability and good intracrystalline conductivity, as well as the homogeneous ultrathin 2D configuration with sufficiently exposed active sites and shortened intracrystalline electron transport route, are the dominant reasons that 2D CoP exhibits optimal electrocatalytic activity for HER. This study presents a novel and extendable strategy for synthesizing various 2D metal‐based compounds with valuable insights into the modulation essence of advanced electrocatalysts.

A novel strategy was proposed for the simultaneous preparation of a high performance flexible Zn2GeO4/CC electrode. The as-formed composites exhibited high reversible lithium storage capacity, long cyclability, and excellent rate capability.

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A sulfur–hydrazine hydrate chemistry-based method is reported here to integrate the sulfur and N-doped reduced graphene oxide to obtain S@N-rGO composite with 76% sulfur. The as-obtained S@N-rGO composite displays a good rate capability and excellent stability.

The reasonable design of electrode materials is crucial for tuning the electrochemical performances of advanced energy storage systems. Co-Ni-Se nanosheets uniformly growing on butterfly-wing-derived carbon framework (Co-Ni-Se/BWCF) with strong anchoring,...

To address low electrical conductivity of sulfur and “poly‐sulfide shuttle” for constructing sulfur hosts with excellent cyclic stability, CoSnO3/CNTs composites are successfully synthesized by combining CoSnO3 cubes and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) via coprecipitation and annealing process. CoSnO3 cubes are bound by continuous carbon nanotube networks, with high specific surface area and vast mesoporous. CoSnO3 with multiple polar active sites has a strong chemical adsorption effect on lithium polysulfide, suppressing the shuttle effect. The carbon nanotubes have continuous conductive networks, which can provide physical confinement with polysulfides and good electrical conductivity. Through the effective combination of advantages of CoSnO3 and carbon nanotubes, CoSnO3/CNTs/S exhibits excellent sulfur storage performance. The maximum discharge capacity of CoSnO3/CNTs/S is 453.3 mAh g−1 at a current density of 0.2 C. After 500 cycles, the discharge specific capacity is still 377.7 mAh g−1. The simple synthesis of CoSnO3/CNTs/S with long cycle life provides a new direction for the future LSBs cathode material research.