Carbon aerogel (CA) microlattices exhibits a controllable macrostructure by 3D printing as well as an interconnected porous microstructure from GP gel and presents a desirable areal and volumetric capacitance with high mass loading.
High photo-to-heat conversion efficiency and excellent desalination performance are both urgent requirements for solar evaporators in actual applications. However, due to the limitation of single structure and material, the traditional...
Excellent thermal insulating materials are highly demanded in various applications including buildings, aerospace and sport equipment. However, in practical applications, the performance of thermal insulating materials usually deteriorates under diverse temperature and humidity conditions. Therefore, it is highly essential to construct a bulk material that exhibits outstanding thermal insulation performance under extremely humid and hot environment. In this work, we have conceived a green and effective strategy to fabricate a superhydrophobic and compressible polyvinylidene fluoride/ polyimide (PVDF/PI) nanofiber composite aerogel via electrospinning and freeze-drying technique. Interestingly, the PVDF nanofibers and PI nanofibers function as the hydrophobic fibrous framework and mechanical support skeleton, respectively, forming a robust three-dimensional framework with good mechanical flexibility. The PVDF/PI aerogel possesses outstanding superhydrophobic feature (water contact angle of 152°) and low thermal conductivity (31.0 mW m −1 K −1) at room temperature. Significantly, even at 100% relative humidity (80°C), the PVDF/PI aerogel still exhibits a low thermal conductivity of only 48.6 mW m −1 K −1 , which outperforms the majority of commercial thermal insulating materials. Therefore, the novel PVDF/PI aerogel is promising as an excellent thermal insulating material for the applications in high-temperature and humid environment.
Lithium–sulfur (Li–S)
batteries are clean energy
conversion devices with high theoretical energy densities and specific
capacities. However, Li–S batteries exhibit poor cycling stability
during the practical test, mainly because of the detrimental shuttle
effect of intermediate lithium polysulfides (LiPSs). Here, we report
a common and scalable strategy to prepare freestanding membranes of
MnO2 sheet arrays anchored on natural cotton-derived hollow
carbon fibers (MnO2/HCFs), which as interlayers can mitigate
shuttling of LiPSs and thus boost the durabilities of Li–S
batteries. By combining ultraviolet–visible absorption and
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, we find that a MnO2/HCF
interlayer can trap the LiPSs through chemical interactions between
LiPSs and MnO2. With a MnO2/HCF interlayer,
the Li–S battery shows a satisfactory capacity of 970 mA h
g–1 at 1 A g–1 with a capacity
decay of merely 0.12% per cycle over 500 cycles.
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