Good electrical conductivity, strong catalytic activity, high interaction with lithium polysulfides (LIPSs), simple method, and low cost should be considered for the design and preparation of high-performance electrochemical catalysts that catalyze the conversion of LIPSs. In this work, we designed a bimetallic alloyed multifunctional interlayer with multiple adsorption/catalysis sites. The interwoven carbon fibers derived from bacterial cellulose (BC) not only contribute to reducing metal ions to metals but also confine the growth of Co–Fe alloys formed in situ. The metal supported on carbon is very effective for the conversion of LIPSs due to its high adsorption and catalytic sites. In addition, the synergistic effect between Fe and Co species leads to excellent bifunctional catalytic activity. Through detailed electrochemical analysis and theoretical calculations, we revealed that CoFe@CNFs has superior electrocatalytic activity, and the lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries with a catalytic interlayer can deliver satisfactory rate and cycle performance. At a high current density of 2C, the discharge capacity can still reach 627 mAh g–1. At a current density of 1C, the Coulombic efficiency is maintained at a level close to 100% during the whole cycle process and a satisfying low capacity decay of 0.08% per cycle. More importantly, even if the ambient temperature drops to 0 °C, the Li–S battery using the interlayer can still be charged and discharged normally and shows acceptable discharge capacity, which shows that it has good rate kinetics.
Hollow nanomaterials provide abundant reaction sites and facilitate tolerance for volume changes during the charging- discharging process, which is potential candidates for alkaline ion storage. In this work, hollow CuO...
Smart foams with tunable foamability exhibit superb applications in many fields such as colloidal and interface science. Herein, we have synthesized an azobenzene-containing surfactant with excellent photoresponsiveness by a simple thiol-maleimide click reaction between thioglycolic acid and 4-(N-maleimide) azobenzene (MAB). The structure and the photoresponsive behavior of the novel surfactant are characterized. Depending on the solution concentration, the synthesized surfactant demonstrated various speeds for the trans/cis photoisomerization varying from 9 to 24 s for the given concentration range and excellent reversible photoisomerization cycling stability (more than 20 cycles) upon light irradiation. Based on these conformational switches, a series of phototriggered obvious surface properties (e.g., critical micelle concentration (CMC), surface tension (γ), and surface excess concentration (Γ)) changes of the surfactant are achieved. More specifically, the smart foam system with tunable foamability is realized. As-formed smart foams with rapid photocontrolled reversible foaming/defoaming transition and excellent cycling stability make them very attractive candidates for applications in wastewater treatment, green textile, oil extraction, and emulsification.
(2 of 12)electrodes, low Coulombic Efficiency, and severe capacity decay. Therefore, developing remarkable components of batteries for addressing these challenges is significantly urgent. Separators, as the bridge between cathode and anode presented on electrolyte, exhibit considerable potential in simultaneously retarding the negative effect of LiPSs to cathode and anode. [11][12][13][14] Nevertheless, it is difficult for the traditional polypropylene (PP) separator to promote the adsorption and conversion of LiPSs, which is ascribed to its electronic insulativity. [15] Impressively, the introduction of active materials with outstanding catalytic performance as separator coatings can boost the kinetical conversion between LiPSs and Li 2 S 2 /Li 2 S, and propel adsorption to LiPSs for relieving shuttle effect, which is regarded as a suitable route to construct high-performance Li-S batteries.Single-atom catalysts (SACs) play a vital role in the energy and catalysis fields as they are characterized to be almost 100% atomic utilization and unique electronic structure, showing great prospect in high-performance Li-S batteries. [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] The catalytic performance of SACs is extremely dependent on the local microenvironments of central metal, that is, the local coordination configuration involving coordination atoms species, number, and bond length. [23][24][25] Up to now, the reported SACs to improve Li-S batteries mainly focus on the conventional metal-nitrogen-carbon catalysts supported on carbon-based supports; however, the nonpolar metal-N 4 coordination is difficult to efficiently absorb LiPSs. [10,15] Recently, both theoretical and experimental reports suggest that asymmetrically coordinated environment of SACs may highly influence the catalytic performance, which is attributed to the disordered electronic redistribution and irregular geometric structure optimizing the adsorption and conversion for intermediates. [26][27][28] However, the tunable asymmetrical coordination of central metal atoms to kinetically accelerate LiPSs conversion and strengthen LiPSs adsorption for ultrastable Li-S batteries has barely been reported. Thus, the delicate construction of isolated metal sites on ideal supports with asymmetrically coordinated configuration to meet high-efficiency requirement is promising but challenging for Li-S batteries.MXenes, emerging 2D materials, represent the novel family of transition metal carbides, nitrides, or carbon nitrides. [29][30][31] The general formula of MXenes is M n+1 X n T x , where M means the transition metal, X represents the C and/or N elements, and T x represents the surface groups (O, OH, F, and so on), reflecting its compositional variability. [32][33][34][35] Benefitting from
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