Graphene oxide (GO) has attracted remarkable attention as a potential material in the fabrication of next-generation membranes with high water permeability and efficient purification. Herein, an easy and effective means of modifying GO lamellar with a phytic acid (PhA) molecule as both an inserter and a surface modifier was developed to fabricate high-performance GO-based membranes. As a result, the addition of PhA to the GO membrane enhanced hydrophilicity and enlarged the interlamellar spacing. The optimal GP-10 composite membrane displayed a high average pure water flux of 6.31 L m–2 h–1 bar–1 under an ultralow pressure nanofiltration condition, which was about 18.6 times higher than that of 0.34 L m–2 h–1 bar–1 for pure GO membrane. At the same time, it possessed the ability to reject different charged dye molecules with a rejection rate higher than 99.88%. In addition, the composite membrane also showed good structural stability under different pH conditions. This study not only provides a method to simply design GO-based membranes by introducing multifunctional small molecules but also sheds light on using such GO composite membranes in practical water separation applications.

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Nano-Si can alleviate the structural damage caused by volume expansion while ensuring high reversible lithium storage capacity. However, the abundant specific surface area and unique unbonded electronic properties at the surface of the nanoparticles make them suffer from complex surface side reactions and an agglomeration phenomenon. Here, strategies based on surface modification are developed to enhance the performance of nano-Si anodes. Through the in situ grafting of the SiOC coating, a stable and high-energy Si–O–Si covalent bond is formed between the core–shell, making the core–shell as a whole and avoiding the formation of dead silicon. In addition, it was verified by experiments and density functional theoretical calculations that the introduction of the covalent bond redistributed the electrons on the nano-Si surface, and the interface composed of electron-less silicon and electron-rich oxygen elements ensured high adsorption capacity to the electrolyte and structural stability after the introduction of lithium ions, thus ensuring efficient cycling capacity.

It is necessary to design a scalable composite material with a rational structure for Li-ion batteries and electromagnetic wave absorption. Herein, we developed a modified precursor-driven method of spacerassisted oxidation to prepare heterogeneous multi-interface SiOC-based composite ceramic nanoparticles. The outstanding structural design regulated by the ratio of raw materials tailored its functional potential in the fields of Li-ion batteries and electromagnetic wave absorption. The addition of a small amount of iron-sol produced small-sized ceramic nanoparticles bridged by carbon ribbons, which can provide efficient charge transfer kinetics and volumetric buffering capacity. Used in Li-ion battery anodes, it exhibited a specific discharge capacity of 514.4 mAh/g after 1000 cycles at a current density of 0.5 A/g with durable long cycling performance. In addition, the addition of high iron-sol induced the formation of porous core−shell nanoparticles and performed excellent electromagnetic wave absorption ability. The ceramic nanoparticles with carbon content of about 30% had the lowest reflection loss in the X-band of −55.5 dB, and the effective absorption range was 8.48−12.4 GHz, which basically covered the entire X-band. This strategy enriches the preparation and application of multifunctional composite ceramic nanoparticles.