Demixing the miscible liquids: toward biphasic battery electrolytes based on the kosmotropic effect

Abstract

Exploring new electrolyte chemistry beyond conventional single-phase battery electrolytes is needed to fulfill heterogeneous requirements of anodes and cathodes. Here, we report a biphasic liquid electrolyte (BLE) based on kosmotropic...

Special Devices for Zinc-Ion Battery: Structure, Mechanism, and Application

“…(c) Schematic depicting the structural change of aqueous electrolytes induced by the chaotropic/kosmotropic effects and its influence on the miscibility/immiscibility with nonaqueous solvents . Reproduced with permission from ref . Copyright 2022, The Royal Society of Chemistry.…”

“…Near-neutral aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) have recently received great attention due to their intrinsic safety, low cost, environmental friendliness, nontoxicity, and high abundancy of metallic zinc. − Therefore, ZIBs, as the complement to lithium-ion batteries, are considered to be an excellent candidates for large-scale energy storage. Most importantly, because of the easy preparation and strong adaptability of ZIBs, many special configuration devices have been developed (Figure ), such as photorechargeable ZIBs, − self-charging ZIBs, − stretchable ZIBs, , biocompatible ZIBs, ,− decoupling ZIBs, − micro-ZIBs, − etc. These devices greatly expand the application scenarios of ZIBs, such as small autonomous sensing devices, health monitoring devices, wearable energy storage devices, etc.…”

Thermochromic smart windows with broad-range customizable responsive temperature via the Hofmeister effect

“…The Hofmeister effect is the well-known concept that specific ions can interact preferentially with H 2 O to “make” or “break” adjacent hydration shells around the hydrophilic functional groups on materials such as PNIPAM and affect their aggregation states, including solubility and stability. 31–35 We speculate that this Hofmeister effect can be adapted to alter the hydration structure of PNIPAM-derived polymer chains in a predictable and controllable manner to realize continuous modulation of the T r of developed smart windows. Therefore, in this work, we propose a novel avenue of customizing the T r of thermochromic smart windows based on the Hofmeister effect to tune the low critical solution temperature (LCST) of PNIPAM-derived TRMs (Fig.…”

Reunderstanding aqueous Zn electrochemistry from interfacial specific adsorption of solvation structures

“…Although great progress has been made in alleviating the interface issue of cathodes and anodes by regulating the bulk characteristics of electrolytes, including their solvation structure, 16,17 conductivity, 18,19 viscosity, 20,21 and stable temperature interval, 22–24 understanding of the reaction mechanism in the level of the faradaic process at the EEI is still incomplete. In fact, desolvation and adsorption of charge carriers proceed at the electrical double layer (EDL) of the EEI, making it the center of electrochemical energy transfer, which should be paid more attention.…”