A new type of amino polar binder with 3D network flexibility structure for high energy Li-S batteries is synthesized and successfully used with commercial sulfur powder cathodes. The binder shows significant performance improvement in capacity retention and high potential for practical application, which arouse the battery community's interest in the commercial application of high energy Li-S battery.

A sustainable route from the biomass byproduct okara as a natural nitrogen fertilizer to high-content N-doped carbon sheets is demonstrated. The as-prepared unique structure exhibits high specific capacity (292 mAh g(-1) ) and extremely long cycle life (exceeding 2000 cycles). A full battery is devised for the practical use of materials with a flexible/wearable LED screen.

An ultrahigh pyridinic N-content-doped porous carbon monolith is reported, and the content of pyridinic N reaches up to 10.1% in overall material (53.4 ± 0.9% out of 18.9 ± 0.4% N content), being higher than most of previously reported N-doping carbonaceous materials, which exhibit greatly improved electrochemical performance for potassium storage, especially in term of the high reversible capacity. Remarkably, the pyridinic N-doped porous carbon monolith (PNCM) electrode exhibits high initial charge capacity of 487 mAh g at a current density of 20 mA g , which is one of the highest reversible capacities among all carbonaceous anodes for K-ion batteries. Moreover, the K-ion full cell is successfully assembled, demonstrating a high practical energy density of 153.5 Wh kg . These results make PNCM promising for practical application in energy storage devices and encourage more investigations on a similar potassium storage system.

The high solubility of long-chain lithium polysulfides and their infamous shuttle effect in lithium sulfur battery lead to rapid capacity fading along with low Coulombic efficiency. To address above issues, we propose a new strategy to suppress the shuttle effect for greatly enhanced lithium sulfur battery performance mainly through the formation of short-chain intermediates during discharging, which allows significant improvements including high capacity retention of 1022 mAh/g with 87% retention for 450 cycles. Without LiNO-containing electrolytes, the excellent Coulombic efficiency of ∼99.5% for more than 500 cycles is obtained, suggesting the greatly suppressed shuttle effect. In situ UV/vis analysis of electrolyte during cycling reveals that the short-chain LiS and LiS polysulfides are detected as main intermediates, which are theoretically verified by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Our strategy may open up a new avenue for practical application of lithium sulfur battery.

Sodium-ion battery (SIB) is especially attractive in cost-effective energy storage device as an alternative to lithium-ion battery. Particularly, metal phosphides as potential anodes for SIBs have recently been demonstrated owing to their higher specifi c capacities compared with those of carbonaceous materials. Unfortunately, most reported metal phosphides consist of irregular particles ranged from several hundreds nanometers to tens of micrometers, thus delivering limited cyclic stability. This paper reports the sodium storage properties of additive-free Cu 3 P nanowire (CPNW) anode directly grown on copper current collector via an in situ growth followed by phosphidation method. Therefore, as a result of its structure features, CPNW anode demonstrates highly stable cycling ability with an ≈70% retention in capacity at the 260th cycle, whereas most reported metal phosphides have limited cycle numbers ranged between 30 and 150. Besides, the reaction mechanism between Cu 3 P and Na is investigated by examining the intermediate products at different charge/discharge stages using ex situ X-ray diffraction measurements. Furthermore, to explore the practical application of CPNW anode, a pouch-type Na + full cell consisting of CPNW anode and Na 3 V 2 (PO 4 ) 3 cathode is assembled and characterized. As a demonstration, a 10 cm × 10 cm light-emmiting diode (LED) screen is successfully powered by the Na + full cell. Figure 6. a) Schematic representation of the pouch-type CPNW/NVP Na + full cell. b) Cycling performance of the CPNW/NVP Na + full cell at current densities of 600 mA g −1 . c,d) Optical images showing a fl exible LED screen powered by the pouch-type CPNW/NVP Na + full cell. wileyonlinelibrary.com

Self-assembly of amphiphilic block copolymer in water suffers from the undesired encapsulation of hydrophobic reactive motifs in core-forming block, which deteriorates the performance as aqueous catalysts. This problem can be circumvented by polymerisation-induced self-assembly (PISA). Herein, we report a new strategy for one-pot synthesis of reactive block copolymer nanoparticles whose hydrophobic reactive motifs decorate surrounding core-shell interfaces. We demonstrate fast RAFT aqueous dispersion polymerisation of a commercial available specialty monomer, diacetone acrylamide (DAAM), under visible light irradiation at 25 o C. PISA is induced by polymerisation via sequentially dehydration, phase separation and reaction acceleration, and thus complete conversion in 30 min. Replacement of minimal DAAM by NH3 + -monomer induces slight hydration of the core-forming block, and thus a low polydispersity of resultant statistic-block copolymer. Moreover, simultaneous in situ self-assembly and chain growth favours adjustment of newly-added NH3 + -units outward to core-shell interfaces while the major DAAM units collapse to hydrophobic PISA-cores. Both lead to timely and selective self-assembly into the new reactive nanoparticles whose NH3 + -motifs decorate surrounding core-shell interfaces. These nanoparticles well suit fabrication of advanced nanoreactors whose hydrophobic dative metal centres decorate surrounding interfaces via simultaneous imine conversion and Zn(II)-coordination. Such PISA-nanostructures endow hydrophobic metal centres with huge and accessible specific surface area and are stabilized by water-soluble shells. Therefore, this strategy holds fascinating potentials for the fabrication of metalloenzyme-inspired aqueous catalysts.Enzyme inspired interface-decorated media-accessible reactive nanoparticles are now available via PISA by aqueous dispersion RAFT of commodity-DAAM with minimal NH 3 + -monomer.

Two novel isostructural lanthanide metal-organic frameworks (Ln-MOFs), [Ln2(BPDC)(BDC)2(H2O)2]n (Ln = Eu (1) and Tb (2)), have been successfully synthesized via a mixed ligand approach using 2,2'-bipyridine-3,3'-dicarboxylic acid (H2BPDC) and 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid (H2BDC) under hydrothermal conditions. Structural analysis shows that two lanthanide ions are 4-fold linked by two κ(1)-κ(1)-μ2 carboxylates from BDC(2-) and the other two κ(2)-κ(1)-μ2 carboxylates from BPDC(2-) to form a binuclear core. The binuclear units are further connected by BDC(2-) and BPDC(2-) to build a three-dimensional framework possessing tfz-d topology with the short (Schläfli) vertex symbol {4(3)}2{4(6)·6(18)·8(4)}. Moreover, isostructural doped Ln-MOFs [Eu(2x)Tb2(1-x)(BPDC)(BDC)2(H2O)2]n (x = 0.1 (1a), 0.3 (1b), 0.5 (1c), 0.7 (1d), and 0.9 (1e)) were also successfully synthesized. Thermal gravimetric analyses (TGA) reveal high thermal stability of these Ln-MOFs. Luminescent measurements indicate that the characteristic sharp emission bands of Eu(3+) and Tb(3+) ions are simultaneously observed in 1a-e. Further luminescent studies reveal that 1, 2, and 1a not only display a high-sensitivity sensing function with respect to fluoride but also exhibit significant solvent-dependent luminescent response to small-molecule pollutants, such as formaldehyde, acetonitrile, and acetone.

Driven by the intensified demand for energy storage systems with high-power density and safety, all-solid-state zinc-air batteries have drawn extensive attention. However, the electrocatalyst active sites and the underlying mechanisms occurring in zinc-air batteries remain confusing due to the lack of in situ analytical techniques. In this work, the in situ observations, including X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy, of a heteroatom-doped carbon air cathode are reported, in which the chemisorption of oxygen molecules and oxygen-containing intermediates on the carbon material can be facilitated by the electron deficiency caused by heteroatom doping, thus improving the oxygen reaction activity for zinc-air batteries. As expected, solid-state zinc-air batteries equipped with such air cathodes exhibit superior reversibility and durability. This work thus provides a profound understanding of the reaction principles of heteroatom-doped carbon materials in zinc-air batteries.