• Energy Research

A micropore confinement and fusion strategy is proposed to eliminate the interfacial mismatch and achieve molecular-level integrated catalysis interfaces for long-life all-solid-state Li–S batteries.

The crucial role of Li-ion transport efficiency in cathodes is revealed for the room temperature performance of all-solid-state lithium batteries and a highly efficient “solid–polymer–solid” elastic ion transport network is constructed in a cathode.

Synchronously engineering the interface compatibility of the anode and the cathode in a Li–polysulfide electrolyte enables a full cell design with improved safety, durability and performance.

Destructive gas generation with associated swelling has been a major challenge to the large-scale application of lithium ion batteries (LIBs) made from Li(4)Ti(5)O(12) (LTO) anodes. Here we report root causes of the gassing behavior, and suggest remedy to suppress it. The generated gases mainly contain H(2), CO(2) and CO, which originate from interfacial reactions between LTO and surrounding alkyl carbonate solvents. The reactions occur at the very thin outermost surface of LTO (111) plane, which result in transformation from (111) to (222) plane and formation of (101) plane of anatase TiO(2). A nanoscale carbon coating along with a stable solid electrolyte interface (SEI) film around LTO is seen most effective as a barrier layer in suppressing the interfacial reaction and resulting gassing from the LTO surface. Such an ability to tune the interface nanostructure of electrodes has practical implications in the design of next-generation high power LIBs.

AbstractControlling the microstructure of biomass‐derived carbon is of essential importance for directing its use. Herein, a hollow spherical carbon (HSC) was prepared from corncob lignin through spray drying and subsequent heat treatment. The HSC, which is characterized by its hierarchically porous structure, delivers high rate capability when it is directly used as electrode material for supercapacitors. This strategy that uses lignin as the precursor avoids the intrinsic difficulty in tuning the microstructure of the biomass‐derived carbons and is suitable for mass production for practical use.

Ether solvent is utilized to manipulate the SEI on high specific surface area carbon to enable achievement of superb sodium storage performance.

Flexible lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries with high mechanical compliance and energy density are highly desired. This manuscript reported that large-area freestanding MXene (Ti3C2Tx) film has been obtained through a scalable drop-casting method, significantly improving adhesion to the sulfur layer under the continuously bent. Titanium oxide anchored on holey Ti3C2Tx (TiO2/H-Ti3C2Tx) was also produced by the well-controlled oxidation of few-layer Ti3C2Tx, which greatly facilitates lithium ion transport as well as prevents the shuttling of lithium polysulfides. Therefore, the obtained sandwich electrode has demonstrated a high capacity of 740 mAh g-1 at 2 C and a high capacity retention of 81% at 1 C after 500 cycles. Flexible Li-S batteries based on this sandwich electrode have a capacity retention as high as 95% after bending 500 times. This work provides effective design strategies of MXene for flexible batteries and wearable electronics.

The competitive Li+ coordination environment with a three-dimensional transport network is designed in a composite solid-state electrolyte to realize a high ionic conductivity of 1.03 × 10−3 S cm−1 and ultralong-cycling solid-state batteries at 5C.

A unique MoS2@graphene nanocable with a novel contact model between MoS2 nanosheets and graphene has been developed for high-performance lithium storage.