Lu Li

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) show significant potential for grid-scale energy storage, yet their practical deployment is hindered by uncontrollable zinc dendrite growth and severe interfacial side reactions.

Aqueous potassium‐ion batteries (APIBs) have emerged as compelling candidates for large‐scale energy storage owing to their intrinsic safety, cost‐effectiveness, and rapid ion‐transport kinetics. However, developing viable cathodes remains critical bottlenecks due to the severe lattice strain induced by the large K ⁺ radius and the poorly understood erosive impact of water molecules on electrode stability. Herein, we systematically investigate the cycling mechanism of crystalline V ₂ O ₅ to reveal the role of active water, demonstrating that water acts as “chemical scissors” to drive a crystal‐to‐amorphous transition that enhances capacity but structural stability remains compromised. Utilizing a “mechanism‐guided design” strategy, we synthesize a high‐entropy doped amorphous vanadium oxide (HE‐AVO) cathode. The resulting HE‐AVO cathode achieves a high specific capacity of 110.4 mAh·g ⁻¹ and exceptional cycling life, maintaining 97.3% capacity retention over 30 000 cycles at 5 A·g ⁻¹ . In‐situ spectroscopic characterizations and ex‐situ time‐of‐flight secondary ion mass spectrometry confirm that high‐entropy strategy suppresses vanadium dissolution and preserves a robust disordered network. Theoretical calculations demonstrate that this strategy strengthens V─O bonds, enhances electrical conductivity, and lowers the K ⁺ diffusion barrier. This study clarifies the water‐mediated amorphization mechanism and establishes a viable pathway for utilizing high‐entropy strategies to design durable, high‐rate electrodes for advanced aqueous batteries.

Aqueous potassium‐ion batteries (APIBs) have emerged as compelling candidates for large‐scale energy storage owing to their intrinsic safety, cost‐effectiveness, and rapid ion‐transport kinetics. However, developing viable cathodes remains critical bottlenecks due to the severe lattice strain induced by the large K ⁺ radius and the poorly understood erosive impact of water molecules on electrode stability. Herein, we systematically investigate the cycling mechanism of crystalline V ₂ O ₅ to reveal the role of active water, demonstrating that water acts as “chemical scissors” to drive a crystal‐to‐amorphous transition that enhances capacity but structural stability remains compromised. Utilizing a “mechanism‐guided design” strategy, we synthesize a high‐entropy doped amorphous vanadium oxide (HE‐AVO) cathode. The resulting HE‐AVO cathode achieves a high specific capacity of 110.4 mAh·g ⁻¹ and exceptional cycling life, maintaining 97.3% capacity retention over 30 000 cycles at 5 A·g ⁻¹ . In‐situ spectroscopic characterizations and ex‐situ time‐of‐flight secondary ion mass spectrometry confirm that high‐entropy strategy suppresses vanadium dissolution and preserves a robust disordered network. Theoretical calculations demonstrate that this strategy strengthens V─O bonds, enhances electrical conductivity, and lowers the K ⁺ diffusion barrier. This study clarifies the water‐mediated amorphization mechanism and establishes a viable pathway for utilizing high‐entropy strategies to design durable, high‐rate electrodes for advanced aqueous batteries.

A PB@PAA-CaO ₂ @PDA platform integrating calcium release, drug loading, and photothermal conversion was facilely constructed, enabling efficient antitumor efficacy through synergistic calcium overload/photothermal/chemotherapy.

Exploration of electrode materials for aqueous batteries has predominantly followed the established principles and design strategies derived from organic electrolyte-based systems. However, this conventional approach faces inherent limitations. Although V-based polyanion materials (e.g., Na₃V₂(PO₄)₃) are compelling for organic electrolyte-based alkali metal ion batteries, their applications in aqueous K-ion batteries remain untapped, probably due to the limited cation electroactivity and uncontrollable dissolution. Herein, we unlock reversible and stable aqueous K⁺ storage in V-based polyanion materials via a high-entropy strategy. Unlike the phase-transition mechanism in traditional polyanionic electrodes, in situ spectroscopic characterizations reveal a solid-solution process in the entropy-tuned polyanionic electrode, facilitated by reduced steric hindrance during K⁺ uptake. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry and density functional theory simulations further confirm the suppressed Na⁺/K⁺-migration barrier and solubility of the entropy-tuned polyanionic cathodes. As a result, the high-entropy V-based polyanion cathodes are demonstrated promising for aqueous K-ion batteries, even in dilute aqueous electrolytes, achieving an ultrahigh initial Coulombic efficiency of 98.7%, rate capability at 36C, and impressive cycling durability up to 3500 cycles. This work uncovers the charge storage gap between organic and aqueous electrolyte-based systems and provides insights into activating the electroactivity of other materials in an aqueous environment.

On the basis of the d-band center theory, we employed a high-entropy strategy to regulate the d-band center of Fe-based PBAs to enhance the strength of the Fe–CN bond, which exhibits outstanding cycling stability over 10 000 cycles.

Wound healing of drug-resistant bacterial infection is a major challenge in clinical practice, and existing treatments suffer from the drawbacks of high dosage, low efficiency, and insufficient biosafety. Herein, we coated ultrasmall copper sulfide nanoparticles (CuS NPs) into zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) and modified them with polydopamine (PDA) to obtain CuS@ZIF-8@PDA NPs for bacterial infection wound treatment. Due to the presence of CuS and the degradability of ZIF-8, CuS@ZIF-8@PDA NPs can continuously release Cu²⁺ and Zn²⁺ in a slightly acidic environment under near-infrared (NIR) irradiation. Furthermore, the introduction of PDA endows it with an excellent photothermal property. The synergistic effect of dual ions/photothermal enables it to effectively eradicate Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli). Moreover, in vivo experimental results confirm that released Cu²⁺ and Zn²⁺ can promote epithelial regeneration, thereby accelerating wound healing. In the bacterially infected mouse model, CuS@ZIF-8@PDA NPs exhibit excellent synergistic antimicrobial and wound healing effects, while having no toxic side effects on major organs. The study of the dual-ion/photothermal synergistic antibacterial strategy based on CuS@ZIF-8@PDA NPs provides a new insight into bacterial infection wound repair.

In response to the different desolvation states of hydrated Zn²⁺, high-entropy alloy exhibits significant catalytic effects on the removal of each coordinated water molecule, resulting in efficient graded and completed desolvation of hydrated Zn²⁺.

High entropy sulfide (HES) exhibits high catalytic activity and structural stability due to the synergistic effect and high entropy effect of various metals. However, the conventional approach for synthesizing HES typically necessitates elevated temperatures to ensure homogeneous blending of multiple elements, which directly results in nanoparticle agglomeration and unsatisfactory electrochemical performance. Herein, we propose the HES as a novel separator modifier for lithium–sulfur batteries, which overcomes the limited adsorption-catalytic synergy of conventional single metal sulfides. Ultrafine FeCoNiCrMnS₂ nanospheres (HES NSs) are synthesized via a facile template method, where the multi-metal synergy enables simultaneous suppression of polysulfide shuttling and acceleration of redox kinetics. The ultrafine HES nanocrystals can expose a sufficient number of active sites, which serve as an efficient LiPSs barrier to inhibit side reactions and as an additional collector to enhance the polysulfide redox reaction. As a result, the battery employing HES//PP separators exhibits outstanding cycle stability (906.8 mA h g⁻¹ at 1.0 C after 1000 cycles). This study not only showcases the potential application of HES as a separator modifier for Li–S batteries but also provides novel insights into exploring other high-entropy materials.