Experiment: Synthesis of BiOI microspheres:0.728 g Bi(NO 3 ) 3 •5H 2 O in 20 mL absolute ethanol in 100 mL flask and 0.249 g KI in 40 mL distilled water were prepared first. After completion of dissolution, KI solution was added drop-wise into the Bi(NO 3 ) 3 •5H 2 O solution with stir. Adjust the pH of the mixture to 7 by adding 1.5 M NH3•H2O, then, put the mixture in oil bath maintained at 80 for 3 h. The precipitates were collected by centrifugation, washed several times with distilled water and ethanol and finally dried in an oven overnight at 60 C. Finally, BiOI microspheres (diameter: 2~4 µm) were obtained. Characterization of BiOI microspheres:The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images ( Figure S1A to Bi-O bond while the peak at 532.1 eV can be attributed to the hydroxyl groups on the surface of sample. The XPS spectrum of I 3d is shown in Figure 2C(d).The peaks with binding energy

In this work, we demonstrate cerium (Ce) based metal−organic frameworks (MOFs) combined with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to form Ce-MOF/CNT composites as separator coating material in the Li−S battery system, which showed excellent electrochemical performance even under high sulfur loading and much better capacity retention. At the sulfur loading of 2.5 mg/ cm 2 , initial specific capacity of 1021.8 mAh/g at 1C was achieved in the Li−S cell with the Ce-MOF-2/CNT coated separator, which was slowly reduced to 838.8 mAh/g after 800 cycles with a decay rate of only 0.022% and the Coulombic efficiency of nearly 100%. Even at a higher sulfur loading of 6 mg/cm 2 , the cell based on Ce-MOF-2/CNT separator coating still exhibited excellent performance with initial specific capacity of 993.5 mAh/g at 0.1 C. After 200 cycles, the specific capacity of 886.4 mAh/g was still retained. The excellent performance is ascribed to the efficient adsorption of the Ce-MOF-2 to Li 2 S 6 species and its catalytic effect toward conversion of polysulfides, resulting in suppressed shuttle effect of polysulfides in the Li−S batteries.

The vertical composition distribution and crystallinity of photoactive layers are considered to have critical roles in photovoltaic performance. In this concise contribution, the layer-by-layer (LBL) solution process is used to fabricate efficient polymer solar cells. The results show that the vertical composition distribution can be finely regulated via employing solvent additive 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO). The favorable vertical component distribution in tandem with improved crystallinity induced by DIO contributes to the efficient exciton dissociation, charge transportation and extraction, and limited charge recombination loss. Therefore, the optimized LBL devices yield an efficiency of 16.5%, which is higher than that of the control bulk heterojunction solar cells with an efficiency of 15.8%. Importantly, the ternary solar cells based on PM6/ Y6:PC 71 BM LBL active layers demonstrate a promising efficiency of >17%, which is the record efficiency for LBL solar devices reported to date. These findings make clear that the solvent additive-assisted LBL solution process has broader implications for the further optimization of solar cells.

HIGHLIGHTS• Recent advances of micro/nanomotors in the field of cancer-targeted delivery, diagnosis, and imaging-guided therapy are summarized.• Challenges and outlook for the future development of micro/nanomotors toward clinical applications are discussed.ABSTRACT Micro/nanomotors have been extensively explored for efficient cancer diagnosis and therapy, as evidenced by significant breakthroughs in the design of micro/nanomotors-based intelligent and comprehensive biomedical platforms. Here, we demonstrate the recent advances of micro/nanomotors in the field of cancer-targeted delivery, diagnosis, and imaging-guided therapy, as well as the challenges and problems faced by micro/nanomotors in clinical applications. The outlook for the future development of micro/nanomotors toward clinical applications is also discussed. We hope to highlight these new advances in micro/nanomotors in the field of cancer diagnosis and therapy, with the ultimate goal of stimulating the successful exploration of intelligent micro/nanomotors for future clinical applications.

Synthetic micro/nanomotors (MNMs) are a particular class of micrometer or nanometer scale devices with controllable motion behavior in solutions by transferring various energies (chemical, optical, acoustic, magnetic, electric, etc.) into mechanical energy. These tiny devices can be functionalized either chemically or physically to accomplish complex tasks in a microcosm. Up to now, MNMs have exhibited great potential in various fields, ranging from environmental remediation, nanofabrication, to biomedical applications. Recently, light-driven MNMs as classic artificial MNMs have attracted much attention. Under wireless remote control, they can perform reversible and repeatable motion behavior with immediate photoresponse. Photocatalytic micro/nanomotors (PMNMs) based on photocatalysts, one of the most important light-driven MNMs, can utilize energy from both the external light source and surrounding chemicals to achieve efficient propulsion. Unlike other kinds of MNMs, the PMNMs have a unique characteristic: photocatalytic property. On one hand, since photocatalysts can convert both optical and chemical energy inputs into mechanical propulsion of PMNMs via photocatalytic reactions, the propulsion generated can be modulated in many ways, such as through chemical concentration or light intensity. In addition, these PMNMs can be operated at low levels of optical and chemical energy input which is highly desired for more practical scenarios. Furthermore, PMNMs can be operated with custom features, including go/stop motion control through regulating an on/off switch, speed modulation through varying light intensities, direction control through adjusting light source position, and so forth. On the other hand, as superoxide radicals can be generated by photocatalytic reactions of activated photocatalysts, the PMNMs show great potential in environment remediation, especially in organic pollutant degradation. In order to construct more practical PMNMs for future applications and further extend their application fields, the ideal PMNMs should be operated in a fully environmentally friendly system with strong propulsion. In the past decade, great progress in the construction, motion regulation, and application of PMNMs has been achieved, but there are still some challenges to realize the perfect system. In this Account, we will summarize our recent efforts and those of other groups in the development toward attractive PMNM systems. First, we will illustrate basic principles about the photocatalytic reactions of photocatalysts and demonstrate how the photocatalytic reactions affect the propulsion of PMNMs. Then, we will illustrate the construction strategies for highly efficient and biocompatible PMNMs from two key aspects: (1) Improvement of energy conversion efficiency to achieve strong propulsion of PMNMs. (2) Expansion of the usable wavelengths of light to operate PMNMs in environment-friendly conditions. Next, potential applications of PMNMs have been described. In particular, environment remediation has taken major att...

Synthetic micro-nanomotors fueled by glucose are highly desired for numerous practical applications due to the biocompatibility of their required fuel. However, currently all of the glucose-fueled micro/nanomotors are based on enzyme-catalytic driven mechanisms, which usually suffer from strict operation conditions and weak propulsion characteristics that greatly limit their applications. Here, we report a highly efficient glucose-fueled cuprous oxide@N doped carbon nanotube

A lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery is regarded as the most promising candidate for next generation energy storage systems, because of its high theoretical specific capacity (1675 mA h g) and specific energy (2500 W h kg), as well as the abundance, low cost and environmental benignity of sulfur. However, the soluble polysulfides LiS (4 ≤ x ≤ 8) produced during the discharge process can cause the so-called "shuttle effect" and lead to low coulombic efficiency and rapid capacity fading of the batteries, which seriously restrict their practical application. Using porous materials as hosts to immobilize the polysulfides is proved to be an effective strategy. In this article, a dual functional cage-like metal-organic framework (Cu-MOF), Cu-TDPAT, combining the Lewis basic sites from the nitrogen atoms of the ligand HTDPAT with the Lewis acidic sites from Cu(ii) open metal sites (OMSs), was employed as the sulfur host in a Li-S battery for lithium ions and polysulfide anions (S). In addition, the size of nano-Cu-TDPAT was also optimized by microwave synthesis to reduce the internal resistance of the batteries. The electrochemical test results showed that the optimized Cu-TDPAT material can efficiently confine the polysulfides within the MOF, and the resultant porous S@Cu-TDPAT composite cathode material with the size of 100 nm shows good cycling performance with a reversible capacity of about 745 mA h g at 1C (1C = 1675 mA g) after 500 cycles, to the best of our knowledge, which is higher than those of all reported S@MOF cathode materials. The DFT calculation and XPS data indicate that the good cycling performance mainly results from the dual functional binding sites (that is, Lewis acid and base sites) in nanoporous Cu-TDPAT, providing the comprehensive and robust interaction with the polysulfides to overcome their dissolution and diffusion into the electrolyte. Clearly, our work provides a good example of designing MOFs with suitable interaction sites for the polysulfides to achieve S@MOF cathode materials with excellent cycling performance by multiple synergistic effects between nanoporous host MOFs and the polysulfides.

Aqueous Zn‐metal batteries are the most promising system for large‐scale energy storage due to their high capacity, high safety, and low cost. The Zn‐metal anode, however, suffers from continuous parasitic reactions, random dendrite growth, and sluggish kinetics in aqueous electrolytes. Herein, a high donor number solvent, tetramethylurea (TMU), is introduced as electrolyte additive to enable highly reversible Zn‐metal anode, where the TMU can 1) preferentially adsorb on the Zn surface to inhibit Zn corrosion and suppress parasitic reaction, 2) solvate with Zn2+ and exclude the H2O from Zn2+ solvation sheath to weaken water activity significantly, and 3) contribute to form an inorganic‐organic bilayer solid electrolyte interphase to enable homogeneous and rapid Zn2+ transport kinetic for dendrite‐free Zn deposition. Benefiting from these three merits, the resulting aqueous electrolyte demonstrates a highly reversible Zn plating/stripping cycling in a Zn||Ti asymmetric cell for over 1200 cycles and in a Zn||Zn symmetric cell for over 4000 h. As a proof‐of‐concept, the aqueous Zn‐metal full cells assembled with various state‐of‐the‐art cathodes also deliver excellent cycling performance even with a 10 µm thin Zn anode, favoring the practical application.