Industrial scale production of fibre batteries by a solution-extrusion method.

Fibre batteries are of significant interest because they can be woven into flexible textiles to form compact, wearable and light-weight power solutions1,2. However, current methods adapted from planar batteries through layer-by-layer coating processes can only make fibre batteries with low production rates, which fail to meet the requirements for real applications2. Here, we present a new and general solution-extrusion method that can produce continuous fibre batteries in a single step at industrial scale. Our three-channel industrial spinneret simultaneously extrudes and combines electrodes and electrolyte of fibre battery at high production rates. The laminar flow between functional components guarantees their seamless interfaces during extrusion. Our method yields 1,500 km of continuous fibre batteries for every spinneret unit, that is, more than three orders of magnitude longer fibres than previously reported1,2. Finally, we show a proof-of-principle for roughly 10 m2 of woven textile for smart tent applications, with a battery with energy density of 550 mWh m-2.

Textile Display for Electronic and Brain-Interfaced Communications.

Textile displays are poised to revolutionize current electronic devices, and reshape the future of electronics and related fields such as biomedicine and soft robotics. However, they remain unavailable due to the difficulty of directly constructing electroluminescent devices onto the textile-like substrate to really display desired programmable patterns. Here, a novel textile display is developed from continuous electroluminescent fibers made by a one-step extrusion process. The resulting displaying textile is flexible, stretchable, three-dimensionally twistable, conformable to arbitrarily curved skins, and breathable, and can dynamically display a series of desired patterns, making it useful for bioinspired electronics, soft robotics, and electroluminescent skins, among other applications. It is demonstrated that these displaying textiles can also communicate with a computer and mouse brain for smart display and camouflage applications. This work may open up a new direction for the integration of wearable electroluminescent devices with the human body, providing new and promising communication platforms.

A Li-Air Battery with Ultralong Cycle Life in Ambient Air.

The Li-air battery represents a promising power candidate for future electronics due to its extremely high energy density. However, the use of Li-air batteries is largely limited by their poor cyclability in ambient air. Herein, Li-air batteries with ultralong 610 cycles in ambient air are created by combination of low-density polyethylene film that prevents water erosion and gel electrolyte that contains a redox mediator of LiI. The low-density polyethylene film can restrain the side reactions of the discharge product of Li2 O2 to Li2 CO3 in ambient air, while the LiI can facilitate the electrochemical decomposition of Li2 O2 during charging, which improves the reversibility of the Li-air battery. All the components of the Li-air battery are flexible, which is particularly desirable for portable and wearable electronic devices.

A One-Dimensional Fluidic Nanogenerator with a High Power Conversion Efficiency.

Electricity generation from flowing water has been developed for over a century and plays a critical role in our lives. Generally, heavy and complex facilities are required for electricity generation, while using these technologies for applications that require a small size and high flexibility is difficult. Here, we developed a fluidic nanogenerator fiber from an aligned carbon nanotube sheet to generate electricity from any flowing water source in the environment as well as in the human body. The power conversion efficiency reached 23.3 %. The fluidic nanogenerator fiber was flexible and stretchable, and the high performance was well-maintained after deformation over 1 000 000 cycles. The fiber also offered unique and promising advantages, such as the ability to be woven into fabrics for large-scale applications.

A Shape-Memory Supercapacitor Fiber.

A shape-memory, fiber-shaped supercapacitor is developed by winding aligned carbon nanotube sheets on a shape-memory polyurethane substrate. Despite its flexibility and stretchability, the deformed shapes under bending and stretching can be "frozen" as expected and recovered to the original state when required. Its electrochemical performances are well-maintained during deformation, at the deformed state and after the recovery.

Realizing both high energy and high power densities by twisting three carbon-nanotube-based hybrid fibers.

Energy storage devices, such as lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors, are required for the modern electronics. However, the intrinsic characteristics of low power densities in batteries and low energy densities in supercapacitors have limited their applications. How to simultaneously realize high energy and power densities in one device remains a challenge. Herein a fiber-shaped hybrid energy-storage device (FESD) formed by twisting three carbon nanotube hybrid fibers demonstrates both high energy and power densities. For the FESD, the energy density (50 mWh cm(-3) or 90 Wh kg(-1) ) many times higher than for other forms of supercapacitors and approximately 3 times that of thin-film batteries; the power density (1 W cm(-3) or 5970 W kg(-1) ) is approximately 140 times of thin-film lithium-ion battery. The FESD is flexible, weaveable and wearable, which offers promising advantages in the modern electronics.

Three-dimensionalization of ultrathin nanosheets in a two-dimensional nano-reactor: macroporous CuO microstructures with enhanced cycling performance.

Three-dimensional (3D) macroporous CuO structures composed of ultrathin nanosheets were successfully synthesized by employing a liquid-liquid interface as a two-dimensional (2D) nano-reactor. The macroporous structure helped CuO to retain the exposed surface during reactions, thus significantly enhancing the long term cycling performance both in photocatalysis and lithium ion batteries.

Flexible and stretchable lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors based on electrically conducting carbon nanotube fiber springs.

The construction of lightweight, flexible and stretchable power systems for modern electronic devices without using elastic polymer substrates is critical but remains challenging. We have developed a new and general strategy to produce both freestanding, stretchable, and flexible supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries with remarkable electrochemical properties by designing novel carbon nanotube fiber springs as electrodes. These springlike electrodes can be stretched by over 300 %. In addition, the supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries have a flexible fiber shape that enables promising applications in electronic textiles.

HF-free synthesis of anatase TiO2 nanosheets with largely exposed and clean {001} facets and their enhanced rate performance as anodes of lithium-ion battery.

An interface between toluene and water was utilized to synthesize ca. 10 nm thick of anatase TiO2 nanosheets (NSs) with 82% exposure of {001} facets. In this procedure, highly corrosive and toxic HF, which was generally used to prepare TiO2 NSs with largely exposed high energy facets, was avoided. Furthermore, the surfaces of the NSs were quite clean as suggested by XPS analysis. Serving as anode materials in lithium-ion batteries, these as-prepared anatase TiO2 NSs manifested a low initial irreversible capacity loss (12.5% at 1 C), an excellent capacity retention at 10 C charge-discharge rate (101.9 mA h g(-1) after 100 cycles), and enhanced rate performance at 0.5-10 C current rates in compared with Degussa P25 TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs). Their excellent electrochemical performances were mainly derived from the large proportion of {001} exposed facets and a very short diffusion pathway, which allowed fast and efficient Li(+) transportation in the electrodes.

Community dynamics and activity of ammonia-oxidizing prokaryotes in intertidal sediments of the Yangtze estuary.

Diversity, abundance, and activity of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) were investigated using the ammonia monooxygenase α subunit (amoA) in the intertidal sediments of the Yangtze Estuary. Generally, AOB had a lower diversity of amoA genes than did AOA in this study. Clone library analysis revealed great spatial variations in both AOB and AOA communities along the estuary. The UniFrac distance matrix showed that all the AOB communities and 6 out of 7 AOA communities in the Yangtze Estuary were statistically indistinguishable between summer and winter. The studied AOB and AOA community structures were observed to correlate with environmental parameters, of which salinity, pH, ammonium, total phosphorus, and organic carbon had significant correlations with the composition and distribution of both communities. Also, the AOA communities were significantly correlated with sediment clay content. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) results indicated that the abundance of AOB amoA genes was greater than that of AOA amoA genes in 10 of the 14 samples analyzed in this study. Potential nitrification rates were significantly greater in summer than in winter and had a significant negative correlation with salinity. In addition, potential nitrification rates were correlated strongly only with archaeal amoA gene abundance and not with bacterial amoA gene abundance. However, no significant differences were observed between rates measured with and without ampicillin (AOB inhibitor). These results implied that archaea might play a more important role in mediating the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite in the Yangtze estuarine sediments.