Advances in anode current collectors with a lithiophilic gradient for lithium metal batteries.

The practical application of lithium metal batteries (LMBs) is inevitably associated with serious safety risks due to the uncontrolled growth of lithium dendrites. Thus, to inhibit the formation of lithium dendrites, many researchers have focused on constructing three-dimensional porous current collectors with a high specific surface area. However, the homogeneous structure of porous collectors does not effectively guide the deposition of lithium metal to the bottom, leading to a phenomenon known as "top-growth." Recently, the construction of 3D porous current collectors with a lithiophilic gradient has been widely reported and regarded as an effective approach to inhibit lithium top-growth, thus improving battery safety. In this review, we summarize the latest research progress on such anode current collector design strategies, including surface modification of different base materials, design of gradient structures, and field factors, emphasizing their lithium-affinity mechanism and the advantages and disadvantages of different collector designs. Finally, we provide a perspective on the future research directions and applications of gradient affinity current collectors.

A Simple Phenyl Group Introduced at the Tail of Alkyl Side Chains of Small Molecular Acceptors: New Strategy to Balance the Crystallinity of Acceptors and Miscibility of Bulk Heterojunction Enabling Highly Efficient Organic Solar Cells.

Research on fused-ring small-molecular-acceptors (SMAs) has deeply advanced the development of organic solar cells (OSCs). Compared to fruitful studies of ladder-type cores and end-caps of SMAs, the exploration of side chains is monotonous. The widely utilized alkyl and aryl side chains usually produce a conflicting association between SMAs' crystallinity and miscibility. Herein, a fresh idea about the modification of side chains is reported to explore the subtle balance between the crystallinity and miscibility. Specifically, a phenyl is introduced to the tail of the alkyl side chain whereby a new acceptor IDIC-C4Ph is reported. Moderately weakened crystallinity is observed, while maintaining preferred absorption profiles and face-on orientations. Concurrently, remarkably improved heterojunction morphologies and stacking orientations are detected. PBDB-T:IDIC-C4Ph devices exhibit greater efficiency of 11.50% than devices from alky and aryl modified acceptors. Notably, the as-cast OSCs of PBDB-TF:IDIC-C4Ph reveal outstanding FF over 76% with the best efficiency up to 13.23%. The annealed devices reveal further increased efficiency exceeding 14% with the state of the art FF of 78.32%. Overall, an effective but easily navigable approach is demonstrated to modulate the crystallinity of SMAs toward synergistically improved morphologies and molecular orientations of bulk heterojunction enabling highly efficient OSCs.

The protection of 4,4'-diphenylmethane-bis(methyl) carbamate from Cortex Mori on advanced glycation end product-induced endothelial dysfunction: via inhibiting AGE formation or blocking AGEs-RAGE axis?

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) were implicated in the pathogenesis of endothelial dysfunction in diabetic vascular complications. Our previous study found that a novel compound 4,4'-diphenylmethane-bis(methyl) carbamate (CM1) from Cortex Mori (Morus alba L.) could attenuate AGE-induced endothelial dysfunction. The present study was conducted to explore the possible protective mechanisms of CM1 on AGE-induced endothelium damage. In binding experiments, fluorescence quenching and fluorescence polarization assays showed no significant difference or changes of AGEs on fluorescence intensity and polarization in the absence/presence of CM1. In AGE formation experiments, CM1 was incubated with AGE precursor compounds methylglyoxal (MGO), glyceraldehydes (Glycer) and glycolaldehyde (Glycol) in the formation system. However, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis showed no new conjugated compounds formed in the reaction system. The results of ELISA analysis also showed that CM1 did not inhibit the AGE formation. However, the pretreatment with CM1 could significantly decrease AGE or high-mobility group box-1 (HMGB1, a ligand of RAGE)-induced cytotoxicity, apoptosis and reactive oxygen species (ROS) in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). Our results suggested that CM1 might block the AGEs-RAGE signal transduction rather than inhibit AGE formation or bind to AGEs and change its structure to prevent endothelial dysfunction in diabetic vascular complications.