Phosphorus and Nitrogen Dual-Doped Hollow Porous Carbon Spheres toward Enhanced Cycling Stability of Room-Temperature Na-S Batteries.

Development of room-temperature sodium-sulfur (RT Na-S) batteries with satisfactory cycling life and rate capability remains challenging due to the unfavorable electric conductivity from S species, sluggish redox kinetics of S conversion, and serious shuttle effects of sodium polysulfides (NaPSs). To address these issues, a phosphorus and nitrogen dual-doped hollow porous carbon sphere (PN-HPCs) is synthesized as the S hosts, which enhances the electric conductivity, ion diffusion, and conversion of polysulfides. Such a hollow hierarchically porous structure is beneficial to accommodate the volume variations of S species and shorten the ion/electron transfer distances during electrochemical reaction process.

Heterostructured Co/CeO-Decorating N-Doped Porous Carbon Nanocubes as Efficient Sulfur Hosts with Enhanced Rate Capability and Cycling Durability toward Room-Temperature Na-S Batteries.

Room-temperature sodium-sulfur (RT Na-S) batteries have gained significant interest thanks to their satisfactory energy density and abundant earth resources. Nevertheless, practical implementations of RT Na-S batteries are still impeded by serious shuttle effects of sodium polysulfide (NaPS) intermediates, sluggish redox kinetics of cathodes, and poor electronic conductivity from S-species. To solve these problems, heterostructured Co/CeO-decorating N-doped porous carbon nanocubes (Co/CeO-NPC) are constructed as a S support, which integrates the strong adsorption and fast conversion of NaPSs, together with superior electronic conductivity.

Construction of Porous Carbon Nanosheet/CuS Composites with Enhanced Potassium Storage.

Porous C nanosheet/CuS composites were prepared using a simple self-template method and vulcanization process. The CuS nanoparticles with an average diameter of 140 nm are uniformly distributed on porous carbon nanosheets. When used as the anode of a potassium-ion battery, porous C nanosheet/CuS composites exhibit good rate performance and cycle performance (363 mAh g at 0.

Trumpet-Like ZnS@C Composite for High-Performance Potassium Ion Battery Anode.

ZnS has acquired increasing attention for high-performance PIBs anode because of its remarkable theoretical capacity, and redox reversibility for conversion reaction. However, the larger volume variation and delayed reaction kinetics for the ZnS in the discharge/charge processes lead to pulverization and severe capacity degradation. Herein, the trumpet-like ZnS@C composite was synthesized by template method by using sodium citrate as carbon source followed by vulcanization process.

Single Cobalt Atoms Decorated N-doped Carbon Polyhedron Enabled Dendrite-Free Sodium Metal Anode.

Uncontrollable growth of sodium dendrites during the sodium deposition and stripping processes remains a huge challenge for achieving high-performance sodium metal batteries (SMBs), which results in ineffective utilization of metallic Na, low Coulombic efficiency, and inferior cycling life. Here, a single Co atom uniformly decorated porous nitrogen-doped carbon polyhedron (Co @NC) matrix has been fabricated and introduced to control the Na growth and achieve uniform Na nucleation/deposition. Cryo-electron microscopy and in situ optical microscopy techniques have been utilized to analyze the morphology change of metallic Na during plating/stripping processes.

Metal-Organic Frameworks-Derived Nitrogen-Doped Porous Carbon Nanocubes with Embedded Co Nanoparticles as Efficient Sulfur Immobilizers for Room Temperature Sodium-Sulfur Batteries.

Room temperature sodium-sulfur (RT Na-S) batteries are considered a promising candidate for energy-storage due to their high energy-density and low-cost. However, the shutting effect of polysulfides and sluggish kinetics of sulfur redox reactions still severely limit their practical implementation. Herein, a new type of 3D hierarchical porous carbonaceous nanocubes is reported as efficient sulfur hosts, composed of carbon nanotubes (CNT) and Co nanoparticles (NPs) uniformly embedded into a nitrogen-doped carbon matrix (NC).

Ultra-thick electrodes based on activated wood-carbon towards high-performance quasi-solid-state supercapacitors.

Wood carbon (WC)-derived thick electrode design has recently received increasing interest because of its high energy density at the device level. Herein, a facile, low-cost, and efficient strategy by surface engineering to synthesize ultrathick electrodes of quasi-solid-state symmetric supercapacitors (SSCs) based on activated wood-carbon (AWC) monoliths is presented. The AWC as a freestanding ultrathick electrode shows an impressive areal capacitance of 6.

Excellent rate capability and cycling stability in Li-conductive LiSnO-coated LiNiMnO cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries.

High-voltage LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 is a promising cathode candidate for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) due to its considerable energy density and power density, but the material generally undergoes serious capacity fading caused by side reactions between the active material and organic electrolyte.

A core-shell structured LiNiMnO@LiCoO cathode material with superior rate capability and cycling performance.

A core-shell structured LiNiMnO@LiCoO cathode material has been successfully synthesized by the combination of sol-gel and solid state methods. The coating of LiCoO has a significant effect on the electrochemical performance of the spinel LiNiMnO-based cathode material, especially the cycling stability at high temperature and rate capability. After modification, the ionic conductivity of the material is greatly improved due to the high ion conductivity of LiCoO.