In electrochemical devices, such as batteries, traditional electric double layer (EDL) theory holds that cations in the cathode/electrolyte interface will be repelled during charging, leaving a large amount of free solvents. This promotes the continuous anodic decomposition of the electrolyte, leading to a limited operation voltage and cycle life of the devices. In this work, we design a new EDL structure with adaptive and passivating properties. It is enabled by adding functional anionic additives in the electrolyte, which can selectively bind with cations and free solvents, forming unique cation-rich and branch-chain like supramolecular polymer structures with high electrochemical stability in the EDL inner layer. Due to this design, the anodic decomposition of ether-based electrolytes is significantly suppressed in the high voltage cathodes and the battery shows outstanding performances such as super-fast charging/discharging and ultra-low temperature applications, which is extremely hard in conventional electrolyte design principle. This unconventional EDL structure breaks the inherent perception of the classical EDL rearrangement mechanism and greatly improve electrochemical performances of the device.

A fluorinated amide molecule with two functional segments, namely, an amide group with a high donor number to bind lithium ions and a fluorine chain to expel carbonate solvents and mediate the formation of LiF, was designed to regulate the interfacial chemistry. As expected, the additive preferably appears in the first solvation sheath of lithium ions and is electrochemically reduced on the anode, and thus an inorganic-rich solid electrolyte interphase is generated. The morphology of deposited lithium metal evolves from brittle dendrites into a granular shape. Consequently, the Li||LiFePO 4 cell shows an excellent capacity retention of 92.7% at a high rate of 5 C after 800 cycles. Besides, the Li||LiNi 0.8 Co 0.1 Mn 0.1 O 2 cell succeeds to maintain 98.1% of the initial capacity after 100 cycles at 1 C. Our designing of N,Ndiethyl-2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropionamide (denoted as DETFP) highlights the importance of a "high donor number" and may shed light on the design principles of electrolytes for high performance batteries.

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High-pressure Raman scattering experiments were performed on the zircon-type RCrO4 (R=Nd, Dy) compounds with the space group I41/amd by using diamond anvil cell techniques at room temperature. These two compounds exhibit similar Raman behaviors. Pressure-induced structural phase transitions were observed at the onset of 1.3 and 4.1 GPa for R=Nd and Dy, respectively. Moreover, pressure-released Raman spectra indicate that the structural transitions are irreversible. The high-pressure new phases were convincingly confirmed to be the scheelite structure in I41/a symmetry based on the same Raman vibrations between the pressure-released DyCrO4 and the scheelite-type DyCrO4 synthesized at 6 GPa and 450 °C. In addition, we also calculated the bulk moduli according to Errandonea’s method as well as the mode Grüneisen parameters of RCrO4.