Evaporate-casting of curvature gradient graphene superstructures for ultra-high strength structural materials.

In contemporary manufacturing, the processing of structural materials plays a pivotal role in enabling the creation of robust, tailor-made, and precise components suitable for diverse industrial applications. Nonetheless, current material forming technologies face challenges due to internal stress and defects, resulting in a substantial decline in both mechanical properties and processing precision. We herein develop a processing strategy toward graphene superstructure with a curvature gradient, which allows us to fabricate robust structural materials with meticulously designed functional shapes.

Moisture-enabled self-charging and voltage stabilizing supercapacitor.

Supercapacitor is highly demanded in emerging portable electronics, however, which faces frequent charging and inevitable rapid self-discharging of huge inconvenient. Here, we present a flexible moisture-powered supercapacitor (mp-SC) that capable of spontaneously moisture-enabled self-charging and persistently voltage stabilizing. Based on the synergy effect of moisture-induced ions diffusion of inner polyelectrolyte-based moist-electric generator and charges storage ability of inner graphene electrochemical capacitor, this mp-SC demonstrates the self-charged high areal capacitance of 138.

Droplet-Pen Writing of Ultra-Uniform Graphene Pattern for Multi-Spectral Applications.

Artificial optical patterns bring wide benefits in applications like structural color display, photonic camouflage, and electromagnetic cloak. Their scalable coating on large-scale objects will greatly enrich the multimodal-interactive society. Here, a droplet-pen writing (DPW) method to directly write multi-spectral patterns of thin-film graphene is reported.

Robustly and Intrinsically Stretchable Ionic Gel-Based Moisture-Enabled Power Generator with High Human Body Conformality.

Direct harvesting of energy from moist air will be a promising route to supply electricity for booming wearable and distributed electronics, with the recent rapid development of the moisture-enabled electricity generator (MEG). However, the easy spatial distortion of rigid MEG materials under severe deformation extremely inconveniences the human body with intense physical activity, seriously hindering the desirable applications. Here, an intrinsically stretchable moisture-enabled electricity generator (s-MEG) is developed based on a well-fabricated stretchable functional ionic gel (SIG) with a flexible double-network structure and reversible cross-linking interactions, demonstrating stable electricity output performance even when stretched up to 150% strain and high human body conformality.

Bio-Inspired Ultrathin Perfect Absorber for High-Performance Photothermal Conversion.

Ultrathin perfect absorber (UPA) enables efficient photothermal conversion (PC) in renewable chemical and energy systems. However, it is challenging so far to obtain efficient absorption with thickness significantly less than the wavelength, especially considering the common view that an ultrathin film can absorb at most 50% of incident light. Here, a highly light-absorbing and mechanically stable UPA is reported by learning from the honeycomb mirror design of the crab compound eyes.

Inorganic Hydrogel Based on Low-Dimensional Nanomaterials.

Composed of three-dimensional (3D) nanoscale inorganic bones and up to 99% water, inorganic hydrogels have attracted much attention and undergone significant growth in recent years. The basic units of inorganic hydrogels could be metal nanoparticles, metal nanowires, SiO nanowires, graphene nanosheets, and MXene nanosheets, which are then assembled into the special porous structures by the sol-gel process or gelation via either covalent or noncovalent interactions. The high electrical and thermal conductivity, resistance to corrosion, stability across various temperatures, and high surface area make them promising candidates for diverse applications, such as energy storage, catalysis, adsorption, sensing, and solar steam generation.

Ultralow-resistance electrochemical capacitor for integrable line filtering.

Electrochemical capacitors are expected to replace conventional electrolytic capacitors in line filtering for integrated circuits and portable electronics. However, practical implementation of electrochemical capacitors into line-filtering circuits has not yet been achieved owing to the difficulty in synergistic accomplishment of fast responses, high specific capacitance, miniaturization and circuit-compatible integration. Here we propose an electric-field enhancement strategy to promote frequency characteristics and capacitance simultaneously.

Multistage coupling water-enabled electric generator with customizable energy output.

Constant water circulation between land, ocean and atmosphere contains great and sustainable energy, which has been successfully employed to generate electricity by the burgeoning water-enabled electric generator. However, water in various forms (e.g.

A hierarchical porous aerohydrogel for enhanced water evaporation.

Natural solar-powered steam generation provides a promising strategy to deal with deteriorating water resources. However, the practical applications of this strategy are limited by the tedious manufacturing of structures at micro-nano levels to concentrate heat and transport water to heat-localized regions. Herein, this work reports the fabrication of hierarchically porous aerohydrogel with enhanced light absorption and thermal localization at the air-solid interface.

Low-Grade Waste Heat Enables Over 80 L m h Interfacial Steam Generation Based on 3D Superhydrophilic Foam.

Clean water scarcity and energy shortage have become urgent global problems due to population growth and human industrial development. Low-grade waste heat (LGWH) is a widely available and ubiquitous byproduct of human activities worldwide, which can provide effective power to address the fresh water crisis without additional energy consumption and carbon emissions. In this regard, 3D superhydrophilic polyurethane/sodium alginate (PU/SA) foam and LGWH-driven interfacial water evaporation systems are developed, which can precipitate over 80 L m  h steam generation from seawater and has favorable durability for purification of high salinity wastewater.

Electrically Modulated Nanofiltration Membrane Based on an Arch-Bridged Graphene Structure for Multicomponent Molecular Separation.

Tunable regulation of molecular penetration through porous membranes is highly desirable for membrane applications in the pharmaceutical and medical fields. However, in most previous reports additional reagents or components are usually needed to provide the graphene-based membranes with responsiveness. Herein, we report tunable arch-bridged reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanofiltration membranes modulated by the applied voltage.

Moisture-Enabled Electricity from Hygroscopic Materials: A New Type of Clean Energy.

Water utilization is accompanied with the development of human beings, whereas gaseous moisture is usually regarded as an underexploited resource. The advances of highly efficient hygroscopic materials endow atmospheric water harvesting as an intriguing solution to convert moisture into clean water. The discovery of hygroelectricity, which refers to the charge buildup at a material surface dependent on humidity, and the following moisture-enabled electric generation (MEG) realizes energy conversion and directly outputs electricity.

Transfer learning enhanced water-enabled electricity generation in highly oriented graphene oxide nanochannels.

Harvesting energy from spontaneous water flow within artificial nanochannels is a promising route to meet sustainable power requirements of the fast-growing human society. However, large-scale nanochannel integration and the multi-parameter coupling restrictive influence on electric generation are still big challenges for macroscale applications. In this regard, long-range (1 to 20 cm) ordered graphene oxide assembled framework with integrated 2D nanochannels have been fabricated by a rotational freeze-casting method.

A Machine-Learning-Enhanced Simultaneous and Multimodal Sensor Based on Moist-Electric Powered Graphene Oxide.

Simultaneous multimodal monitoring can greatly perceive intricately multiple stimuli, which is important for the understanding and development of a future human-machine fusion world. However, the integrated multisensor networks with cumbersome structure, huge power consumption, and complex preparation process have heavily restricted practical applications. Herein, a graphene oxide single-component multimodal sensor (GO-MS) is developed, which enables simultaneous monitoring of multiple environmental stimuli by a single unit with unique moist-electric self-power supply.

Superelastic graphene aerogel-based metamaterials.

Ultralight, ultrastrong, and supertough graphene aerogel metamaterials combining with multi-functionalities are promising for future military and domestic applications. However, the unsatisfactory mechanical performances and lack of the multiscale structural regulation still impede the development of graphene aerogels. Herein, we demonstrate a laser-engraving strategy toward graphene meta-aerogels (GmAs) with unusual characters.

Spatial-Interleaving Graphene Supercapacitor with High Area Energy Density and Mechanical Flexibility.

The booming portable electronics market has raised huge demands for the development of supercapacitors with mechanical flexibility and high power density in the finite area; however, this is still unsatisfied by the currently thickness-confined sandwich design or the in-plane interdigital configuration with limited mechanical features. Here, a spatial-interleaving supercapacitor (SI-SC) is first designed and constructed, in which the graphene microelectrodes are reversely stacked layer by layer within a three-dimensional (3D) space. Because each microelectrode matches well with four counter microelectrodes and all 3D spatial-interleaving microelectrodes have narrow interspaces that maintain the efficient ions transport in the whole device, this SI-SC has a prominent liner capacitance increase along with the device thickness.

A reconfigurable and magnetically responsive assembly for dynamic solar steam generation.

Interfacial solar vapor generation is a promising technique to efficiently get fresh water from seawater or effluent. However, for the traditional static evaporation models, further performance improvement has encountered bottlenecks due to the lack of dynamic management and self-regulation on the evolving water movement and phase change in the evaporation process. Here, a reconfigurable and magnetically responsive evaporator with conic arrays is developed through the controllable and reversible assembly of graphene wrapped FeO nanoparticles.

Fast constructing polarity-switchable zinc-bromine microbatteries with high areal energy density.

Microbatteries (MBs) are promising candidates to provide power for various miniaturized electronic devices, yet they generally suffer from complicated fabrication procedures and low areal energy density. Besides, all cathodes of current MBs are solid state, and the trade-off between areal capacity and reaction kinetics restricts their wide applications. Here, we propose a dual-plating strategy to facilely prepare zinc-bromine MBs (Zn-Br MBs) with a liquid cathode to achieve both high areal energy density and fast kinetics simultaneously.

Fixture-free omnidirectional prestretching fabrication and integration of crumpled in-plane micro-supercapacitors.

Multidimensional folded structures with elasticity could provide spatial charge storage capability and shape adaptability for micro-supercapacitors (MSCs). Here, highly crumpled in-plane MSCs with superior conformality are fabricated in situ and integrated by a fixture-free omnidirectional elastic contraction strategy. Using carbon nanotube microelectrodes, a single crumpled MSC holds an ultrahigh volumetric capacitance of 9.

Moisture adsorption-desorption full cycle power generation.

Environment-adaptive power generation can play an important role in next-generation energy conversion. Herein, we propose a moisture adsorption-desorption power generator (MADG) based on porous ionizable assembly, which spontaneously adsorbs moisture at high RH and desorbs moisture at low RH, thus leading to cyclic electric output. A MADG unit can generate a high voltage of ~0.

Enabling fast-charging selenium-based aqueous batteries via conversion reaction with copper ions.

Selenium (Se) is an appealing alternative cathode material for secondary battery systems that recently attracted research interests in the electrochemical energy storage field due to its high theoretical specific capacity and good electronic conductivity. However, despite the relevant capacity contents reported in the literature, Se-based cathodes generally show poor rate capability behavior. To circumvent this issue, we propose a series of selenium@carbon (Se@C) composite positive electrode active materials capable of delivering a four-electron redox reaction when placed in contact with an aqueous copper-ion electrolyte solution (i.

Graphene Ionogel Ultra-Fast Filter Supercapacitor with 4 V Workable Window and 150 °C Operable Temperature.

The filtering capacitor plays an essential role in the ever-increasing electronics for current stability in complicated environments. However, because of the low specific capacitance and bulky volume, current filtering devices have difficulty satisfying the harsh temperature environment and small size for supercomputers, electric vehicles, aircraft and so on. Therefore, an ultra-fast electrochemical capacitor is developed on the basis of vertically oriented graphene iongel electrodes (GI-EC), which demonstrates excellent alternate current line-filtering performance with both hot tolerance of up to 150 °C and a wide voltage window of 4 V.

Sunlight-Coordinated High-Performance Moisture Power in Natural Conditions.

It is a challenge to spontaneously harvest multiple clean sources from the environment for upgraded energy-converting systems. The ubiquitous moisture and sunlight in nature are attractive for sustainable power generation especially. A high-performance light-coordinated "moist-electric generator" (LMEG) based on the rational combination of a polyelectrolyte and a phytochrome is herein developed.

A Cascade Battery: Coupling Two Sequential Electrochemical Reactions in a Single Battery.

Currently, rechargeable electrochemical batteries generally operate on one reversible electrochemical reaction during discharging and charging cycles. Here, a cascade battery that couples two sequential electrochemical reactions in a single battery is proposed. Such a concept is demonstrated in an aqueous Zn-S hybrid battery, where solid sulfur serves as the cathode in the first discharge step and the generated Cu S catalyzes Cu reduce to Cu/Cu O to provide the second discharge step.