Reaction Mechanism and Performance of Innovative 2D Germanane-Silicane Alloys: SiGe H Electrodes in Lithium-Ion Batteries.

The adjustable structures and remarkable physicochemical properties of 2D monoelemental materials, such as silicene and germanene, have attracted significant attention in recent years. They can be transformed into silicane (SiH) and germanane (GeH) through covalent functionalization via hydrogen atom termination. However, synthesizing these materials with a scalable and low-cost fabrication process to achieve high-quality 2D SiH and GeH poses challenges.

Insight into the Catalytic Role of Defect-Enriched Vanadium Sulfide for Regulating the Adsorption-Catalytic Conversion Behavior of Polysulfides in Li-S Batteries.

The performance promotion of Li-S batteries relies primarily on inhibition of the shuttle effect and improvement of the catalytic-conversion reaction kinetics of polysulfides. Herein, we prepare defect-enriched VS nanosheets (VS) as catalysts for Li-S batteries and further study the catalytic mechanism of VS via ex situ X-ray diffraction and in situ UV-vis spectroscopy. A multifunctional S cathode was also obtained by assembling VS on a C cloth to achieve high S loading for Li-S batteries.

Porous NiCoS Nanoneedle Arrays with Highly Efficient Electrocatalysis Anchored on Carbon Cloths as Self-Supported Hosts for High-Loading Li-S Batteries.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have attracted all-time attention because of their supernormal high energy density and low cost, whereas they are still plagued by the severe polysulfide shuttling and sluggish sulfur redox reaction kinetics. Moreover, poor sulfur electrochemical utilization and rapid capacity degradation are top concerns in the high-loading Li-S batteries, which severely hinder their practical applications. Herein, a completely novel porous nanoneedle array NiCoS electrocatalyst grown on a nitrogen-sulfur-doped carbon cloth (NSCC) (NiCoS@NSCC) is constructed as a 3D self-supported sulfur host for high-loading Li-S batteries, in which the highest sulfur loading reaches 4.