Precisely Constructing Orbital-Coupled Fe─Co Dual-atom Sites for High-Energy-Efficiency Zn-Air/Iodide Hybrid Batteries.

Rechargeable Zn-air batteries (ZABs) are promising for energy storage and conversion. However, the high charging voltage and low energy efficiency hinder their commercialization. Herein, these challenges are addressed by employing precisely constructed multifunctional Fe-Co diatomic site catalysts (FeCo-DACs) and integrating iodide/iodate redox into ZABs to create Zinc-air/iodide hybrid batteries (ZAIHBs) with highly efficient multifunctional catalyst. The strong coupling between the 3d orbitals of Fe and Co weakens the excessively strong binding strength between active sites and intermediates, enhancing the catalytic activities for oxygen reduction/evolution reaction and iodide/iodate redox. Consequently, FeCo-DACs exhibit outstanding bifunctional oxygen catalytic activity with a small potential gap (ΔE = 0.66 V) and outstanding stability. Moreover, an outstanding catalytic performance toward iodide/iodate redox is obtained. Therefore, FeCo-DAC-based ZAIHBs exhibit high energy efficiency of up to 75% at 10 mA cm-2 and excellent cycling stability (72% after 500 h). This research offers critical insights into the rational design of DACs and paves the way for high-energy efficiency energy storage devices.

Interfacial Rivet to Fill Structural Defects: A Spacer Engineering Gift for 3D Solar Cells.

The combination of 2D and 3D perovskites to passivate surfaces or interfaces with a high concentration of defects shows great promise for improving the efficiency of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Constructing high-quality perovskite film systems by precisely modulating 2D perovskites with good morphologies and growth sites on 3D perovskite films remains a formidable challenge due to the complexity of spacer-engineered surface reactions. In this study, phase-pure 2D (HA)2(MA)n-1PbnI3n+1 perovskites with a controlled number of layers (n) are separated on a large scale and exploited as interface rivets to optimize 3D perovskite films, resulting in tunable film structural defects and grain boundaries. The optimized PSCs system benefits from a reduction in non-radiative recombination, resulting in improved optical performance, higher mobility, and lower trap density. The corresponding device achieves a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of more than 25%, especially for voltage (VOC) and fill factor (FF). The quality and uniformity of the perovskite films are further confirmed using large-area devices with an active area of 14 cm2, which exhibits a PCE of more than 21.24%. The high-quality thin-film system based on the 2D perovskites presented herein provides a new perspective for improving the efficiency and stability of PSCs.

Strain Engineering and Halogen Compensation of Buried Interface in Polycrystalline Halide Perovskites.

Inverted perovskite solar cells based on weakly polarized hole-transporting layers suffer from the problem of polarity mismatch with the perovskite precursor solution, resulting in a nonideal wetting surface. In addition to the bottom-up growth of the polycrystalline halide perovskite, this will inevitably worse the effects of residual strain and heterogeneity at the buried interface on the interfacial carrier transport and localized compositional deficiency. Here, we propose a multifunctional hybrid pre-embedding strategy to improve substrate wettability and address unfavorable strain and heterogeneities. By exposing the buried interface, it was found that the residual strain of the perovskite films was markedly reduced because of the presence of organic polyelectrolyte and imidazolium salt, which not only realized the halogen compensation and the coordination of Pb2+ but also the buried interface morphology and defect recombination that were well regulated. Benefitting from the above advantages, the power conversion efficiency of the targeted inverted devices with a bandgap of 1.62 eV was 21.93% and outstanding intrinsic stability. In addition, this coembedding strategy can be extended to devices with a bandgap of 1.55 eV, and the champion device achieved a power conversion efficiency of 23.74%. In addition, the optimized perovskite solar cells retained 91% of their initial efficiency (960 h) when exposed to an ambient relative humidity of 20%, with a T80 of 680 h under heating aging at 65 °C, exhibiting elevated durability.

Realizing Unassisted Photo-Charging of Zinc-Air Batteries by Anisotropic Charge Separation in Photoelectrodes.

Solar rechargeable zinc-air battery is a promising approach for capturing and storing intermittent solar energy through photoelectrochemical reactions. However, unassisted photo-charging of zinc-air batteries is challenging due to suboptimal carrier accumulation on photoelectrodes, resulting in sluggish reaction kinetics. Here, unassisted photo-charging of zinc-air battery is achieved by investigating anisotropic photogenerated charge separation on a series of representative semiconductors (ZnIn2 S4 , TiO2 , and In2 O3 ), among which the exceptional anisotropic charge separation on a ZnIn2 S4 photoelectrode is revealed based on anisotropic charge diffusion capabilities. The charge separation is facet-dependent, which is observed using Kelvin probe force microscopy, verifying a cause-and-effect relationship between the photo-charge accumulation on photoelectrodes and their photo-charging performance in zinc-air batteries. This work achieves an unassisted photo-charging current density of 1.9 mA cm-2 with a light-to-chemical energy conversion efficiency of 1.45%, highlighting the importance of anisotropic semiconductors for unassisted photo-charging of zinc-air batteries via efficient photogenerated charge separation.

Surgical management of spinal "Subpial" lipomas.

BACKGROUND: This study reports five cases of subpial lipomas via a new grouping method with respect to the cases' distinctive magnetic resonance imaging characteristics to provide insight into the management of this entity. METHOD: From January 2013 to December 2014, five cases of pathologically diagnosed subpial lipomas that received surgical treatment in our department were included. The clinical histories and medical records were carefully reviewed, and the radiological characteristics were periodically inspected after surgery. The preoperative radiology and symptoms were reviewed with regard to outcome. RESULTS: All five patients were confirmed as having lipomas based on their histological results. Total removal was achieved in one patient only, with partial removal in the other four patients. Neurological deterioration was observed in all patients immediately after surgery, with a typically lower McCormick score. Two of the patients returned to preoperative level one year later. Based on radiological traits, the lipomas could be divided into "simple" and "invasive." The syrinx formation and neurological recovery were different between these two kinds of lipoma. CONCLUSION: Surgery for subpial lipomas without dysraphisms is frequently accompanied by neurological deterioration, temporally or permanently. Thus, this new classification of subpial lipomas into "simple" and "invasive" based on radiological traits may be valuable for making better surgical decisions.