Robust bendable thermoelectric generators enabled by elasticity strengthening.

Using body heat for instance, thermoelectric generators have promising applications for driving wearable electronics continuously but remain a challenge in terms of recoverable flexibility, as known highly-performing thermoelectrics are usually inorganics showing rigidity. It is conceptualized in this work a large elastic strain ensuring both a largely-curved recoverable bending and a full recoverability in thermoelectric performance after enormous bendings. This leads the current work to focus on a microstructure engineering approach for strengthening the elasticity of AgSe, in which dense dislocations and refined grain induced by a multi-pass hot-rolling technique enable a significant enhancement in elasticity.

One-Pot Etching Pyrolysis to Defect-Rich Carbon Nanosheets to Construct Multiheteroatom-Coordinated Iron Sites for Efficient Oxygen Reduction.

Constructing multiheteroatom coordination structure in carbonaceous substrates demonstrates an effective method to accelerate the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) of supported single-atom catalyst. Herein, the novel etching route assisted by potassium thiocyanate (KCNS) is developed to convert metal-organic framework to 2D defect-rich porous N,S-co-doped carbon nanosheets for anchoring atomically dispersed iron sites as the high-performance ORR catalysts (Fe-SACs). The well-designed KCNS-assisted etching route can generate spatial confinement template to direct the carbon nanosheet formation, etching condition to form defect-rich structure, and additional sulfur atoms to coordinate iron species.

Sulfonic SiO nanocolloid doped perfluorosulfonic acid films with enhanced water uptake and inner channel for IPMC actuators.

This study provides a facile and effective strategy to fabricate sulfonic SiO nanocolloid (HSO-SiO) doped perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) films with enhanced water uptake and inner channel for high-performance and cost-effective ionic exchange polymer metal composite (IPMC) actuators. A commercial precursor of mercaptopropyl trimethoxysilane was hydrolyzed to form thiol functionalized SiO nanocolloids (SH-SiO, ∼25 nm in diameter), which were further oxidized into sulfonic SiO nanocolloids (HSO-SiO, ∼14 nm in diameter). Both SiO nanocolloids were used as additives to dope PFSA film for fabricating IPMC-used matrix films.

Hydrophilic Poly(vinylidene Fluoride) Film with Enhanced Inner Channels for Both Water- and Ionic Liquid-Driven Ion-Exchange Polymer Metal Composite Actuators.

This study presents a novel and facile strategy to fabricate a hydrophilic poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) electrolyte film with enhanced inner channels for a high-performance and cost-effective ion-exchange polymer metal composite (IPMC) actuator. The resultant PVDF composite film is composed of hierarchical micro/nanoscale structures: well-defined polymer grains with a diameter of ∼20 μm and much finer particles with a diameter of ∼390 nm, producing three-dimensional interconnected, hierarchical inner channels to facilitate ion migration of IPMC. Interestingly, the electrolyte matrix film has a high porosity of 15.