Yong Li

A hierarchical boron-doped diamond (BDD) film was successfully fabricated by depositing a BDD film on Cu foam with TiO ₂ as the interlayer using highly feasible techniques of hot filament chemical vapor deposition and atomic layer deposition.

The development of portable and wearable electronics has promoted the advancement of fiber supercapacitors (FSCs), but their low energy density still limits their application in flexible devices. Herein, we incorporated micron-sized graphene dispersions at varying concentrations into the polyaniline (PANI) precursor solution prepared via electrochemical polymerization and subsequently electrodeposited PANI/graphene composites onto the surface of carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers, ultimately obtaining fibrous PANI/graphene@CNT composite electrodes. This electrode material not only exhibits the superior electrochemical activity characteristic of conducting polymers synthesized by electrochemical polymerization but also possesses a relatively high specific surface area. Furthermore, we fabricated coaxial fiber supercapacitors using PANI/graphene@CNT composite fibers and CNT films as the positive and negative electrode materials, respectively. The maximum energy density and power density could reach 160.5 µWh cm⁻² and 13 mW cm⁻² respectively, proving its excellent energy storage and output capabilities. More importantly, the prepared CFASC device showed remarkable mechanical and electrochemical durability. Even after 3000 bending cycles, it retained 89.77% of its original capacitance, highlighting its promising applicability in the realm of flexible electronics. The resulting devices demonstrate excellent electrochemical performance and mechanical stability.

Developing a reasonable design of a lithiophilic artificial solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) to induce the uniform deposition of Li⁺ ions and improve the Coulombic efficiency and energy density of batteries is a key task for the development of high-performance lithium metal anodes. Herein, a high-performance separator for lithium metal anodes was designed by the in situ growth of a metal–organic framework (MOF)-derived transition metal sulfide array as an artificial SEI on polypropylene separators (denoted as Co₉S₈-PP). The high ionic conductivity and excellent morphology provided a convenient transport path and fast charge transfer kinetics for lithium ions. The experimental data illustrate that, compared with commercial polypropylene separators, the Li//Cu half-cell with a Co₉S₈-PP separator can be cycled stably for 2000 h at 1 mA cm⁻² and 1 mAh cm⁻². Meanwhile, a Li//LiFePO₄ full cell with a Co₉S₈-PP separator exhibits ultra-long cycle stability at 0.2 C with an initial capacity of 148 mAh g⁻¹ and maintains 74% capacity after 1000 cycles. This work provides some new strategies for using transition metal sulfides to induce the uniform deposition of lithium ions to create high-performance lithium metal batteries.

Aqueous zinc‐ion batteries (AZIBs) directly using zinc metal anodes are promising candidates for grid‐scale energy storage systems due to their intrinsic high theoretical capacity, high safety, and environmental friendliness. However, the uncontrolled dendrite growth and water‐triggered side reactions seriously plague its practical application. Herein, a cost‐effective and green additive, maltodextrin (MD) is presented, to simultaneously guide the smooth Zn deposition and inhibit the occurrence of water‐related side reactions. Combing experimental characterizations and theoretical calculations shows that the MD molecules could reconstruct the Helmholtz plane, induces a preferential growth of zinc along the (002) plane, and the optimized regulation of the Zn ²⁺ diffusion path and deposition location also results in the formation of fine‐grained Zn deposition layers, thereby inhibiting dendrite growth. In addition, MD molecules readily adsorb to the zinc anode surface, which isolates water molecules from direct contact with the zinc metal, reducing hydrogen precipitation reactions and inhibiting the formation of by‐products. Consequently, the Zn||Zn symmetric cell with MD achieves ultra‐long stable cycles of up to 5430 h at 1 mA cm ⁻² and 1 mA h cm ⁻² , and the Cu||Zn asymmetric cell can stable cycle 1000 cycles with an average coulomb efficiency of 99.78%.

Dendrite formation and water-triggered side reactions on the surface of Zn metal anodes severely restrict the commercial viability of aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs). In this work, we introduce erythritol (Et) as an electrolyte additive to enhance the reversibility of zinc anodes, given its cost-effectiveness, mature technology, and extensive utilization in various domains such as food, medicine, and other industries. By combining multiscale theoretical simulation and experimental characterization, it was demonstrated that Et molecules can partially replace the coordination H₂O molecules to reshape the Zn²⁺ solvation sheath and destroy the hydrogen bond network of the aqueous electrolyte. More importantly, Et molecules tend to adsorb on the zinc anode surface, simultaneously inhibit water-triggered side reactions by isolating water and promote uniform and dense deposition by accelerating the Zn²⁺ diffusion and regulating the nucleation size of the Zn grain. Thanks to this synergistic mechanism, the Zn anode can achieve a cycle life of more than 3900 h at 1 mA cm⁻² and an average Coulombic efficiency of 99.77%. Coupling with δ-MnO₂ cathodes, the full battery delivers a high specific capacity of 228.1 mAh g⁻¹ with a capacity retention of 76% over 1000 cycles at 1 A g⁻¹.

Monolayer 2H-MoS₂ has been widely noticed as a typical transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC) for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). However, monolayer MoS₂ is limited to a narrow range of applications due to poor detection sensitivity caused by the combination of a lower density of states (DOS) near the Fermi energy level as well as a rich fluorescence background. Here, surfaced S and Mo atomic defects are fabricated on a monolayer MoS₂ with a perfect lattice. Defects exhibit metallic properties. The presence of defects enhances the interaction between MoS₂ and the detection molecule, and it increases the probability of photoinduced charge transfer (PICT), resulting in a significant improvement of Raman enhancement. Defect-containing monolayer MoS₂ enables the fluorescence signal of many dyes to be effectively burst, making the SERS spectrum clearer and making the limits of detection (LODs) below 10⁻⁸ M. In conclusion, metallic defect-containing monolayer MoS₂ becomes a promising and versatile substrate capable of detecting a wide range of dye molecules due to its abundant DOS and effective PICT resonance. In addition, the synergistic effect of surface defects and of the MoS₂ main body presents a new perspective for plasma-free SERS based on the chemical mechanism (CM), which provides promising theoretical support for other TMDC studies.

Transient devices represent an emerging type of electronics whose main characteristic is the constituent materials that could fully or partially dissolute or disintegrate by chemical or physical processes after completing the mission, and are considered as new research directions for implantable devices. However, research on transient devices is still in its infancy and there are many challenges to overcome, especially the development of transient energy devices is relatively slow. Here, an implantable, biodegradable transient zinc ion battery (TZIB) that assembles a carefully designed cellulose aerogel‐gelatin (CAG) solid electrolyte. The new fully degradable CAG solid electrolyte allows TZIB to achieve controlled degradation and stable electrochemical performance, at the same time maintaining excellent mechanical properties. The entire battery device can be completely degraded within 30 days in the buffered proteinase K solution. More importantly, TZIB has excellent electrochemical performance while meeting controlled degradation, providing a specific capacity of 211.5 mAh g⁻¹ at a current of 61.6 mA g⁻¹ and a wide voltage range (0.85–1.9 V). These results demonstrate the potential of TZIB in future clinical applications and provide a new platform for transient electronic technology.

With the vigorous development of electronics and the increasingly prominent problem of environmental pollution, it is particularly important to exploit environmentally friendly electronic devices. Transient electronics represent a kind of device that once the specified functions have completed can completely or partially disappear through physical or chemical actions. In this work, we introduce a novel guar gum-cellulose aerogel (GCA) membrane based on natural biomaterials and successfully use it as an electrolyte film to fabricate a degradable zinc-ion battery (DZIB). All components of the prepared DZIBs can be successfully degraded or disintegrate in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) containing a solution of proteinase K after approximately 40 days. This electrolyte film has a high ionic conductivity of approximately 4.73 × 10⁻² S cm⁻¹ and a good mechanical stress property. When applied to DZIB, the production of zinc dendrites can be restrained, leading to the battery showing excellent electrochemical performance. The battery exhibits a specific capacity of 309.1 mA h g⁻¹ at a current density of 308 mA g⁻¹ after 100 cycles and a steady cycling ability (100% capacity retention after 200 cycles). More importantly, the electrochemical performance of DZIB is better than that of transient batteries reported in the past, taking a solid step in the field of transient electronics in the initial stage.