Intercalation of Zinc Monochloride Cations by Deep Eutectic Solvents for High-Performance Rechargeable Non-aqueous Zinc Ion Batteries.

Zinc ion batteries have been extensively studied with an aqueous electrolyte system. However, the batteries suffer from a limited potential window, gas evolution, cathode dissolution, and dendrite formation on the anode. Considering these limitations, we developed an alternative electrolyte system based on deep eutectic solvents (DESs) because of their low cost, high stability, biodegradability, and non-flammability, making them optimal candidates for sustainable batteries.

synthesis of FeO nanosphere/CoO nanowire-connected reduced graphene oxide hybrid networks for high-performance supercapacitors.

Three-dimensional (3D) hybrid networks consisting of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) sheets interconnected by CoO nanowires (rGO/CoO), followed by the decoration of FeO nanospheres (NSs) (rGO/CoO@FeO), were demonstrated by a facile hydrothermal method, with which the rGO/CoO networks acted as nucleation sites for the synthesis of FeO NSs. The intimate contacts between rGO, CoO NWs and FeO NSs, which result in an excellent conductive behavior, provide a unique structure with huge potential for electrochemical property promoted electrochemical supercapacitors. The rGO/CoO@FeO hybrid networks as electrodes exhibit a high capacitance of 784 F g at 1 A g with 83% retention of the initial capacitance as the current density increases from 1 to 10 A g, which is explained by the graphene-based interconnected structure owing to the advantages of accommodating the volume expansion between CoO NWs and FeO NSs.

Three-Dimensional Molybdenum Diselenide Helical Nanorod Arrays for High-Performance Aluminum-Ion Batteries.

The rechargeable aluminum-ion battery (AIB) is a promising candidate for next-generation high-performance batteries, but its cathode materials require more development to improve their capacity and cycling life. We have demonstrated the growth of MoSe three-dimensional helical nanorod arrays on a polyimide substrate by the deposition of Mo helical nanorod arrays followed by a low-temperature plasma-assisted selenization process to form novel cathodes for AIBs. The binder-free 3D MoSe-based AIB shows a high specific capacity of 753 mAh g at a current density of 0.

High-Performance Rechargeable Aluminum-Selenium Battery with a New Deep Eutectic Solvent Electrolyte: Thiourea-AlCl.

Aluminum-sulfur batteries (ASBs) have attracted substantial interest due to their high theoretical specific energy density, low cost, and environmental friendliness, while the traditional sulfur cathode and ionic liquid have very fast capacity decay, limiting cycling performance because of the sluggishly electrochemical reaction and side reactions with the electrolyte. Herein, we demonstrate, for the first time, excellent rechargeable aluminum-selenium batteries (ASeBs) using a new deep eutectic solvent, thiourea-AlCl, as an electrolyte and Se nanowires grown directly on a flexible carbon cloth substrate (Se NWs@CC) by a low-temperature selenization process as a cathode. Selenium (Se) is a chemical analogue of sulfur with higher electronic conductivity and lower ionization potential that can improve the battery kinetics on the sluggishly electrochemical reaction and the reduction of the polarization where the thiourea-AlCl electrolyte can stabilize the side reaction during the reversible conversion reaction of Al-Se alloying processes during the charge-discharge process, yielding a high specific capacity of 260 mAh g at 50 mA g and a long cycling life of 100 times with a high Coulombic efficiency of nearly 93% at 100 mA g.

Phase-Engineered Type-II Multimetal-Selenide Heterostructures toward Low-Power Consumption, Flexible, Transparent, and Wide-Spectrum Photoresponse Photodetectors.

Phase-engineered type-II metal-selenide heterostructures are demonstrated by directly selenizing indium-tin oxide to form multimetal selenides in a single step. The utilization of a plasma system to assist the selenization facilitates a low-temperature process, which results in large-area films with high uniformity. Compared to single-metal-selenide-based photodetectors, the multimetal-selenide photodetectors exhibit obviously improved performance, which can be attributed to the Schottky contact at the interface for tuning the carrier transport, as well as the type-II heterostructure that is beneficial for the separation of the electron-hole pairs.

Wafer Scale Phase-Engineered 1T- and 2H-MoSe /Mo Core-Shell 3D-Hierarchical Nanostructures toward Efficient Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction.

The necessity for new sources for greener and cleaner energy production to replace the existing ones has been increasingly growing in recent years. Of those new sources, the hydrogen evolution reaction has a large potential. In this work, for the first time, MoSe /Mo core-shell 3D-hierarchical nanostructures are created, which are derived from the Mo 3D-hierarchical nanostructures through a low-temperature plasma-assisted selenization process with controlled shapes grown by a glancing angle deposition system.