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Lithium metal is considered a "Holy Grail" of anode materials for highenergy-density batteries. However, both dendritic lithium deposition and infinity dimension change during long-term cycling have extremely restricted its practical applications for energy storage devices. Here, a thermal infusion strategy for prestoring lithium into a stable nickel foam host is demonstrated and a composite anode is achieved. In comparison with the bare lithium, the composite anode exhibits stable voltage profiles (200 mV at 5.0 mA cm −2 ) with a small hysteresis beyond 100 cycles in carbonate-based electrolyte, as well as high rate capability, significantly reduced interfacial resistance, and small polarization in a full-cell battery with Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 or LiFePO 4 as counter electrode. More importantly, in addition to the fact that lithium is successfully confined in the metallic nickel foam host, uniform lithium plating/stripping is achieved with a low dimension change (merely ≈3.1%) and effective inhibition of dendrite formation. The mechanism for uniform lithium stripping/ plating behavior is explained based on a surface energy model.

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Light-weight nanocomposites filled with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are developed for their significant potentials in electromagnetic shielding and attenuation for wide applications in electronics, communication devices, and specific parts in aircrafts and vehicles. Specifically, the introduction of a second phase into/onto CNTs for achieving CNT-based heterostructures has been widely pursued due to the enhancement in either dielectric loss or magnetic loss. In this work, ferroferric oxide (Fe(3)O(4)) was selected as the phase in multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-based composites for enhancing magnetic properties to obtain improved electromagnetic attenuation. A direct comparison between the two-phase heterostructures (Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs) and polyaniline (PANI) coated Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs, namely, three-phase heterostructures (PANI/Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs), was made to investigate the interface influences of Fe(3)O(4) and PANI on the complex permittivity and permeability separately. Compared to PANI/Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs, Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs exhibited enhanced magnetic properties coupled with increased dielectric properties. Interfaces between MWCNTs and heterostructures were found to play a role in the corresponding properties. The evaluation of microwave absorption of their wax composites was carried out, and the comparison between Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs and PANI/Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs with respect to highly efficient microwave absorption and effective absorption bandwidth was discussed.

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