High-Efficiency Electromagnetic Interference Shielding from Highly Aligned MXene Porous Composites via Controlled Directional Freezing.

Lightweight porous composite materials (PCMs) with outstanding electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding performances are ideal for aerospace, artificial intelligence, military, and other fields. Herein, a three-dimensional Ti3C2Tx MXene/sodium alginate (SA)/carbon nanotubes (CNTs) (MSC) PCMs was prepared by a controlled directional freezing process. This method constructs a directionally ordered porous structure, which can make the incident electromagnetic waves reflect and scattered several times in the PCMs. The introduction of CNTs into the MSC PCMs can form three-dimensional conductive networks with MXene, thus improving the conductivity and further improving the electromagnetic shielding performance. Furthermore, the SA with abundant hydrogen bonding can strengthen the interlayer interaction between MXene and CNTs. Profiting from the controlled directional freezing and highly aligned porous structure, the MSC PCMs with 75 wt % CNTs exhibit ultrahigh conductivity of 1630 S m-1, an ultrahigh EMI shielding effectiveness of 48.0 dB in X-band for electromagnetic waves incident perpendicular to the hole growth direction, and compressive strength of 72.3 kPa. The as-prepared MSC PCMs show excellent EMI shielding and mechanical properties and have significant applications in the preparation of an entirely novel type of EMI shielding materials with an absorption-based mechanism.

ZnS spheres assembled from nanoparticles confined in bagasse-based carbon nanosheets for enhanced potassium storage.

Transition metal zinc sulfide (ZnS) is a promising anode material for potassium ion batteries due to its rich abundance and high capacity (conversion/alloy dual mechanism), while still suffering the drawbacks of sluggish kinetics process and structural degradation, which restrict its practical application. Herein, ZnS spheres assembled from nanoparticles embedded in carbon nanosheets (ZnS/C@C) were synthesized with alkali-activated agricultural waste bagasse as the carbon precursor. The removal of lignin and hemicellulose by pre-treatment of bagasse with alkali solutions opens ionic diffusion channels and promotes adsorption of Zn2+by bagasse, which is crucial for the growth of ZnS in bagasse sheets and the suppression of ZnS particle size during hydrothermal processes. Benefiting from the synergistic effects between robust embedded structure, carbon conductive network and the nanoscale nature of ZnS, the ZnS/C@C exhibited enhanced performance with high capacity (374.7 mA h g-1at 0.2 A g-1) and rate performance (195.9 mA h g-1at 2.0 A g-1). Kinetic studies further demonstrate that ZnS/C@C electrodes possess faster K+transport kinetics and lower interfacial impedance. This work provides a reference for the construction of robust embedded carbon composite structures based on surface control of agricultural waste.

Dual modification of BiVO4 photoanode by enriching bulk and surface oxygen vacancies for enhanced photoelectrochemical performance.

The introduction of oxygen vacancies (Ov) into photoanodes has been considered an effective method to enhance the photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting performance. The efficiency of water splitting is related to light absorption, charge separation to the electrode surface, and charge injection into the electrolyte. However, introducing Ov from a single level cannot meet the above objectives. In this work, we present the fabrication of BiVO4 (BVO) photoanodes with bulk and surface Ov, and their respective roles in the PEC performance have been studied. The bulk OV of the photoanode could increase the carrier density and improve the separation efficiency of photogenerated electrons and holes. The surface Ov provide abundant surface active sites, and enhance the charge injection efficiency. Charge separation efficiency of the nitrogen-treated BVO (N:BVO) (69.1 % at 0.75 V vs RHE and 85.1 % at 1.23 V vs RHE) has a noticeable increase compared with that of BVO (51.2 % at 0.75 V vs RHE and 64.6 % at 1.23 V vs RHE), nevertheless, only a minor enhancement of charge injection efficiency (from 49.1 % to 56.5 % at 1.23 V vs RHE). After the deposition of NiFeOOH, the photoanodes present superior charges injection efficiency in the whole range of applied potential. The as-synthesized N:BVO/U-NiFeOOH photoanode exhibits a photocurrent density of 5.52 mA·cm-2 at 1.23 V vs RHE with a 97 % Faradaic efficiency for O2/H2 evolution. Thus, there is a synergistic effect between the bulk OV and surface OV on the BVO photoanode, exhibiting highly promoted PEC water splitting activity relative to the individual OV decorated BVO for oxygen evolution reaction, which provides a promising strategy for fabricating efficient solar water splitting systems.

Multifunctional Integrated Interdigital Microsupercapacitors and Self-Powered Iontronic Tactile Pressure Sensor for Wearable Electronics.

Multifunctionality and self-powering are key technologies for next-generation wearable electronics. Herein, an interdigitated MXene/TiS2-based self-powered intelligent pseudocapacitive iontronic sensor system is designed, realizing integration of energy storage and pressure-sensitive sensing function into one device. The intercalation of TiS2 nanosheet can effectively prevent self-stacking of MXene and results in mesoporous cross-linked framework, therefore exposing more active sites and broadening the electron/ion transport channels. The pressure sensing performance together with developed all-solid-state microsupercapacitor is explored systematically. When applied in a symmetrical microsupercapacitor, it presents a satisfactory energy density of 31.6 Wh/kg at 400 W/kg and 79.8% capacitance retention after 10 000 cycles. Meanwhile, with MXene/TiS2//MXene/TiS2 interdigitated structure as flexible self-powering pressure sensor, it illustrates outstanding pressure-sensing response toward external pressure, realizing accurate and continuous detection of human body motion signals. It is believed that this work proposes a feasible strategy by integrating pressure-sensing with a self-powering function for the next-generation self-powered E-skin electronics.

Ultrathin Carbon-Coated Porous TiNb2O7 Nanosheets as Anode Materials for Enhanced Lithium Storage.

TiNb2O7 has been considered as a promising anode material for next-generation high power lithium ion batteries for its relatively high theoretical capacity, excellent safety and long cycle life. However, the unsatisfactory electrochemical kinetics resulting from the intrinsic sluggish electron transport and lithium ion diffusion of TiNb2O7 limit its wide application. Morphology controlling and carbon coating are two effective methods for improving the electrochemical performance of electrode materials. Herein, an ultrathin carbon-coated porous TiNb2O7 nanosheet (TNO@C) is successfully fabricated by a simple and effective approach. The distinctive sheet-like porous structure can shorten the transport path of ions/electrons and provide more active sites for electrochemical reaction. The introduction of nanolayer carbon can improve electronic conductivity and increase the specific surface area of the porous TiNb2O7 nanosheets. Based on the above synergistic effect, TiNb2O7@C delivers an initial discharge capacity of 250.6 mAh g-1 under current density of 5C and can be maintained at 206.9 mAh g-1 after 1000 cycles with a capacity retention of 82.6%, both of which are superior to that of pure TiNb2O7. These results well demonstrate that TiNb2O7@C is a promising anode material for lithium ion batteries.

A superficial sulfur interfacial control strategy for the fabrication of a sulfur/carbon composite for potassium-sulfur batteries.

Potassium-sulfur batteries in carbonate-based electrolytes cannot work well due to side reactions between polysulfide ions and ester molecules. Currently, removing superficial sulfur is an effective way to solve this issue. Here, we successfully achieved the deep encapsulation of sulfur and removal of superficial sulfur by a simple filtration-washing approach. As expected, the obtained products exhibited improved electrochemical stability and are promising candidates for better potassium-sulfur batteries.

N/S-Co-Doped Porous Carbon Sheets Derived from Bagasse as High-Performance Anode Materials for Sodium-Ion Batteries.

Heteroatom doping is considered to be an efficient strategy to improve the electrochemical performance of carbon-based anode materials for Na-ion batteries (SIBs), due to the introduction of an unbalanced electron atmosphere and increased electrochemical reactive sites of carbon. However, developing green and low-cost approaches to synthesize heteroatom dual-doped carbon with an appropriate porous structure, is still challenging. Here, N/S-co-doped porous carbon sheets, with a main pore size, in the range 1.8-10 nm, has been fabricated through a simple thermal treatment method, using KOH-treated waste bagasse, as a carbon source, and thiourea, as the N and S precursor. The N/S-co-doped carbon sheet electrodes possess significant defects, high specific surface area, enhanced electronic conductivity, improved sodium storage capacity, and long-term cyclability, thereby delivering a high capacity of 223 mA h g-1 at 0.2 A g-1 after 500 cycles and retaining 155 mA h g-1 at 1 A g-1 for 2000 cycles. This work provides a low-cost route to fabricate high-performance dual-doped porous carbonaceous anode materials for SIBs.