Glass-Blowing-Inspired Upcycling of Thermosetting Polymer to Neuron-Like Hierarchical Carbon for Microwave Absorption and Conversion.

Upgrading thermosetting polymer waste and harvesting unwanted electromagnetic energy are of great significance in solving environmental pollution and energy shortage problems. Herein, inspired by the glass-blowing art, a spontaneous, controllable, and scalable strategy is proposed to prepare hollow carbon materials by inner blowing and outside blocking. Specifically, hierarchically neuron-like hollow carbon materials (HCMSs) with various sizes are fabricated from melamine-formaldehyde sponge (MS) waste. Benefiting from the synergistic of the hollow "cell body" and the connected "protrusions" networks, HCMSs reveal superior electromagnetic absorption performance with a strong reflection loss of -54.9 dB, electromagnetic-heat conversion ability with a high conversion efficiency of 34.4%, and efficient energy storage performance in supercapacitor. Furthermore, a multifunctional device integrating electromagnetic-heat-electrical energy conversion is designed, and its feasibility is proved by experiments and theoretical calculations. The integrated device reveals an output voltage of 34.5 mV and a maximum output power of 0.89 µW with electromagnetic radiation for 60 s. This work provides a novel solution to recycle polymer waste, electromagnetic energy, and unwanted thermal energy.

Nano-Interfacial Supramolecular Adhesion of Metal-Organic Framework-Based Separator Enables High-Safety and Wide-Temperature-Range Lithium Batteries.

Polyolefin separators are the most commonly used separators for lithium batteries; however, they tend to shrink when heated, and their Li+ transference number (t Li +) is low. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are expected to solve the above problems due to their high thermal stability, abundant pore structure, and open metal sites. However, it is difficult to prepare high-porosity MOF-based membranes by conventional membrane preparation methods. In this study, a high-porosity free-standing MOF-based safety separator, denoted the BCM separator, is prepared through a nano-interfacial supramolecular adhesion strategy. The BCM separator has a large specific surface area (450.22 m2 g-1) and porosity (62.0%), a high electrolyte uptake (475 wt%), and can maintain its morphology at 200 °C. The ionic conductivity and t Li + of the BCM separator are 1.97 and 0.72 mS cm-1, respectively. Li//LiFePO4 cells with BCM separators have a capacity retention rate of 95.07% after 1100 cycles at 5  C, a stable high-temperature cycling performance of 300 cycles at 80 °C, and good capacity retention at -40 °C. Li//NCM811 cells with BCM separators exhibit significantly improved rate performance and cycling performance. Pouch cells with BCM separators can work at 120 °C and have good safety at high temperature.

Non-flammable solvent-free liquid polymer electrolyte for lithium metal batteries.

As a replacement for highly flammable and volatile organic liquid electrolyte, solid polymer electrolyte shows attractive practical prospect in high-energy lithium metal batteries. However, unsatisfied interface performance and ionic conductivities are two critical challenges. A common strategy involves introducing organic solvents or plasticizers, but this violates the original intention of security design. Here, an electrolyte concept called liquid polymer electrolyte without any small molecular solvents is proposed for safe and high-performance batteries, based on the design of a room-temperature liquid-state brush-like polymer as the sole solvent of lithium salts. This liquid polymer electrolyte is non-flammable and exhibits high ionic conductivity (1.09 [Formula: see text] 10-4 S cm-1 at 25 °C), significant lithium dendrite suppression, and stable long-term cycling over a wide operating temperature range ( ≥ 1000 cycles at 60 °C and 90 °C). Moreover, the pouch cell can resist thermal abuse, vacuum environment, and mechanical abuse. This electrolyte and design strategy are expected to provide enlightening ideas for the development of safe and high-performance polymer electrolytes.

Ultralight Three-Dimensional Hierarchical Cobalt Nanocrystals/N-Doped CNTs/Carbon Sponge Composites with a Hollow Skeleton toward Superior Microwave Absorption.

It is extremely desirable but remains greatly challenging to obtain high-performance microwave absorption (MA) materials with thin thickness, lightweight, wide frequency bandwidth, and strong absorption by facile and low-cost preparing methods. In this work, by utilizing an inexpensively commercial melamine-formaldehyde sponge (MFS) as a template for growth of a Co-based metal-organic framework (ZIF-67) and subsequently carbonizing this ZIF-67-decorated MFS in a nitrogen atmosphere, an ultralight (8 mg cm-3), three-dimensional hybrid carbon sponge composite with a hierarchical micro/nanostructure and hollow skeleton is successfully prepared to acquire excellent MA performances for the first time. The as-obtained composite consisted of interconnected carbon microtubes as a skeleton, intertwined N-doped carbon nanotubes (CNTs) grew on the outer surface of the carbon microtubes, and metallic Co nanocrystals encapsulated at the tips of the CNTs. Benefiting from the unique architecture and hierarchical composite which contribute to a good conductive network, moderate magnetic loss, strong matched impedance, and multiple polarization, the composite (Co/CNTs/CS) exhibited a minimum reflection loss (RL) of -51.2 dB and an effective absorption bandwidth (EAB, RL < -10 dB) of 4.1 GHz with a matching thickness of 2.2 mm at a filler loading of as low as 10 wt % in paraffin wax. Even with the thickness of 1.6 mm or at the filler loading of 5 wt %, the composites can also gain the low minimum RL value of -30.9 or -17.9 dB, respectively. In addition, the largest EAB was 5.4 GHz at the thickness of 2.0 mm, and the tunable EAB can be achieved in the range of 3.6-18 GHz, covering 90% of the measured frequency range via adjusting the absorber thickness between 1 and 5.5 mm. The results offer new insights for designing advanced microwave absorbers with lightweight, thin thickness, strong RL, and wide absorption frequency range.