Strengthening Transition Metal-Oxygen Interaction in Layered Oxide Cathodes for Stable Sodium-Ion Batteries.

P2-type layered oxides, such as NaNiMnO, represent a promising class of cathode materials for Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) due to their high theoretical energy density. However, their cycling stability is often compromised by severe phase transitions and irreversible lattice oxygen redox reactions at high voltages. In this work, we develop a Zn and Al codoping approach to design a NaNiZnMnAlO (ZA-NNMO) cathode for stable SIBs.

Development of Ternary Hydrogel Electrolytes for Superior Gel Thermocells: Exceptional Anti-Drying, Anti-Freezing, and Mechanical Robustness.

Gel thermocells (GTCs) provide a safe, facile, and scalable solution for harvesting waste heat to power ubiquitous electronics. However, achieving a harmonious integration of high power density, wide-temperature-range stability, and mechanical robustness in GTCs remains a significant challenge. In this work, a novel ternary gel thermocell (TGTC) is proposed and fabricated by integrating ferro/ferricyanide (Fe(CN) ) redox couples, thermosensitive crystallizing agents guanidinium chloride (GdmCl), and supporting electrolytes lithium chloride (LiCl) into natural nanocellulose hydrogels to enhance overall performance.

Fast and Massive Production of Aramid Nanofibers via Molecule Intercalation.

Para-aramid nanofibers, one of the newest high-performance building blocks at the nanoscale, have attracted great attention due to their hard-to-find property sets and ability to form high-porosity solids. However, there are great difficulties in their scalable and sustainable production because the strong intermolecular hydrogen bonds and other interactions of aramid macromolecules lead to lengthy processes with highly corrosive solvents. Taking advantage of uniquely efficient delamination of polymer nanocrystallites, here we show that the preparation time of para-aramid nanofibers can be reduced by 2520 times (from 1 week to four min), while their concentration can be increased by 10 times.

Mechanically Stable and Damage Resistant Freestanding Ultrathin Silver Nanowire Films with Closely Packed Crossed-Lamellar Structure.

One-dimensional (1D) functional nanowires are widely used as nanoscale building blocks for assembling advanced nanodevices due to their unique functionalities. However, previous research has mainly focused on nanowire functionality, while neglecting the structural stability and damage resistance of nanowire assemblies, which are critical for the long-term operation of nanodevices. Biomaterials achieve excellent mechanical stability and damage resistance through sophisticated structural design.

Bending Moiré in Twisted Bilayer Graphene.

Moiré potentials caused by lattice mismatches significantly alter electrons in two-dimensional materials, inspiring the discovery of numerous unique physical properties. While strain modulates the structure and symmetry of the moiré potential, serving as a tuning mechanism for interactions, the impact of out-of-plane deformation, e.g.

Simultaneously Enhanced Damping and Stiffness of Amorphous Diaphite.

High-performance damping materials are crucial for numerous applications, yet traditional materials often face a fundamental trade-off between the damping properties and stiffness/strength. Since damping properties of material rely on its inner viscoelastic energy dissipation, it is antagonistic for damping material sustaining high mechanical loads. Recently, an amorphous carbon known as amorphous diaphite (a-DG) was reported, featuring a heterogeneous two-phase composition of nanodiamonds and disordered multilayer graphene (ND/DMG).

Constructing 3D Crosslinked Macromolecular Networks as a Highly Efficient Interface Layer for Ultra-Stable Zn Metal Anodes.

Aqueous zinc ion batteries (AZIBs) are experiencing rapid development due to their high theoretical capacity, abundant zinc resources, and intrinsic safety. However, the progress of AZIBs is hindered by uncontrollable parasitic reactions and excessive dendrite growth, which compromise the durability and effective utilization of zinc metal anodes. To address these challenges, the study has constructed a 3D crosslinked macromolecular network composed of zinc ion-bonded potato starch (StZ) as an interface layer on Zn foil (StZ-Zn) to inhibit hydrogen evolution, regulate Zn flux, and ensure uniform Zn deposition.

A Bio-Inspired Magnetic Soft Robotic Fish for Efficient Solar-Energy Driven Water Purification.

Solar-driven water evaporation is a promising solution for global water scarcity but is still facing challenges due to its substantial energy requirements. Here, a magnetic soft robotic bionic fish is developed by combining magnetic nanoparticles (FeO), poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), and carboxymethyl chitosan. This bionic fish can release liquid water through hydrophilic/hydrophobic phase transition and dramatically reduce energy consumption.

Functional Carbon Springs Enabled Dynamic Tunable Microwave Absorption and Thermal Insulation.

Electromagnetic (EM) wave pollution and thermal damage pose serious hazards to delicate instruments. Functional aerogels offer a promising solution by mitigating EM interference and isolating heat. However, most of these materials struggle to balance thermal protection with microwave absorption (MA) efficiency due to a previously unidentified conflict between the optimizing strategies of the two properties.

Highly Regular Layered Structure via Dual-Spatially-Confined Alignment of Nanosheets Enables High-Performance Nanocomposites.

Assembling ultrathin nanosheets into layered structure represents one promising way to fabricate high-performance nanocomposites. However, how to minimize the internal defects of the layered assemblies to fully exploit the intrinsic mechanical superiority of nanosheets remains challenging. Here, a dual-scale spatially confined strategy for the co-assembly of ultrathin nanosheets with different aspect ratios into a near-perfect layered structure is developed.

Strain Engineering of Ion-Coordinated Nanochannels in Nanocellulose.

Expanding the interlayer spacing plays a significant role in improving the conductivity of a cellulose-based conductor. However, it remains a challenge to regulate the cellulose nanochannel expanded by ion coordination. Herein, starting from multiscale mechanics, we proposed a strain engineering method to regulate the interlayer spacing of the cellulose nanochannels.

Anisotropic Fracture of Two-Dimensional TaNiSe.

Anisotropic two-dimensional materials present a diverse range of physical characteristics, making them well-suited for applications in photonics and optoelectronics. While mechanical properties play a crucial role in determining the reliability and efficacy of 2D material-based devices, the fracture behavior of anisotropic 2D crystals remains relatively unexplored. Toward this end, we herein present the first measurement of the anisotropic fracture toughness of 2D TaNiSe by microelectromechanical system-based tensile tests.

Hierarchical and reconfigurable interfibrous interface of bioinspired Bouligand structure enabled by moderate orderliness.

Introducing natural Bouligand structure into synthetics is expected to develop high-performance structural materials. Interfibrous interface is critical to load transfer, and mechanical functionality of bioinspired Bouligand structure yet receives little attention. Here, we propose one kind of hierarchical and reconfigurable interfibrous interface based on moderate orderliness to mechanically reinforce bioinspired Bouligand structure.

Super-Stretchable and High-Energy Micro-Pseudocapacitors Based on MXene Embedded Ag Nanoparticles.

The advancement of aqueous micro-supercapacitors offers an enticing prospect for a broad spectrum of applications, spanning from wearable electronics to micro-robotics and sensors. Unfortunately, conventional micro-supercapacitors are characterized by low capacity and slopy voltage profiles, limiting their energy density capabilities. To enhance the performance of these devices, the use of 2D MXene-based compounds has recently been proposed.

Discontinuous phase diagram of amorphous carbons.

The short-range order and medium-range order of amorphous carbons demonstrated in experiments allow us to rethink whether there exist intrinsic properties hidden by atomic disordering. Here we presented six representative phases of amorphous carbons (0.1-3.

Necklace-like Te-Au reticula platform with three dimensional hotspots Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) sensor for food hazards analysis.

In this work, we combined three-dimensional (3D) necklace-like Te-Au reticula as novel surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) active substrates with oxidation-reduction displacement reactions to construct a molecular machine for SERS detection. The structurally tunable 3D necklace-like spatial structures generated more active 'hot spots' and thus enhanced the sensitivity of SERS signals. Besides, layers of ultrathin nanowires showed high sequence dependence that ensure the repeatability and abundant hotspots at interparticle gaps and guarantee the high SERS performance of the substrate.

Biomimetic Multimodal Receptors for Comprehensive Artificial Human Somatosensory System.

Electronic skin (e-skin) capable of acquiring environmental and physiological information has attracted interest for healthcare, robotics, and human-machine interaction. However, traditional 2D e-skin only allows for in-plane force sensing, which limits access to comprehensive stimulus feedback due to the lack of out-of-plane signal detection caused by its 3D structure. Here, a dimension-switchable bioinspired receptor is reported to achieve multimodal perception by exploiting film kirigami.

Temperature-Dependent Paracrystalline Nucleation in Atomically Disordered Diamonds.

Atomically disordered diamonds with medium-range order realized in recent experiments extend our knowledge of atomic disorder in materials. However, the current understanding of amorphous carbons cannot answer why paracrystalline diamond (p-D) can be formed inherently different from other tetrahedral amorphous carbons (ta-Cs), and the emergence of p-D seems to be easily hindered by inappropriate temperatures. Herein, we performed atomistic-based simulations to shed light on temperature-dependent paracrystalline nucleation in atomically disordered diamonds.

Ductile amorphous boron nitride microribbons.

The broad applications of ceramic materials in functional devices are often limited by their intrinsic brittleness. Amorphous boron nitride (a-BN), as a promising ceramic has shown high thermal stability and excellent dielectric properties that can be applied to microfabricated aerogel and nano dielectric layers, while its mechanical properties at small scales are yet to be studied. Here we report synthesized a-BN microribbons can have a uniform elongation at a breaking strain of more than 50% upon tension, exhibiting outstanding ductility.

Deformable hard tissue with high fatigue resistance in the hinge of bivalve .

The hinge of bivalve shells can sustain hundreds of thousands of repeating opening-and-closing valve motions throughout their lifetime. We studied the hierarchical design of the mineralized tissue in the hinge of the bivalve , which endows the tissue with deformability and fatigue resistance and consequently underlies the repeating motion capability. This folding fan-shaped tissue consists of radially aligned, brittle aragonite nanowires embedded in a resilient matrix and can translate external radial loads to circumferential deformation.

Biomimetic Ultratough, Strong, and Ductile Artificial Polymer Fiber Based on Immovable and Slidable Cross-links.

It remains a challenge to artificially fabricate fibers with the macroscopic mechanical properties and characteristics of spider silk. Herein, a covalently cross-linked double-network strategy was proposed to disrupt the inverse relation of strength and toughness in the fabrication of ultratough and superstrong artificial polymer fibers. Our design utilized a strong fishnet-like structure based on immovable cellulose nanocrystal cross-links to mimic the function of the β-sheet nanocrystallites and a slidable mechanically interlocked network based on polyrotaxane to imitate the dissipative stick-slip motion of the β-strands in spider silk.

Rapid and Scalable Transfer of Large-Area Graphene Wafers.

Recently, scalable production of large-area graphene films on metal foils with promising qualities is successfully achieved by eliminating grain boundaries, wrinkles, and adlayers. The transfer of graphene from growth metal substrates onto functional substrates remains one inescapable obstacle on the road to the real commercial applications of chemical vaport deposition (CVD) graphene films. Current transfer methods still require time-consuming chemical reactions, which hinders its mass production, and produces cracks and contamination that strongly impede performance reproducibility.

Extremely Robust and Multifunctional Nanocomposite Fibers for Strain-Unperturbed Textile Electronics.

Textile electronics are needed that can achieve strain-unaltered performance when they undergo irregular and repeated strain deformation. Such strain-unaltered textile electronics require advanced fibers that simultaneously have high functionalities and extreme robustness as fabric materials. Current synthetic nanocomposite fibers based on inorganic matrix have remarkable functionalities but often suffer from low robustness and poor tolerance against crack formation.

3D printing of thermosets with diverse rheological and functional applicabilities.

Thermosets such as silicone are ubiquitous. However, existing manufacturing of thermosets involves either a prolonged manufacturing cycle (e.g.

Bioinspired Impact-Resistant and Self-Monitoring Nanofibrous Composites.

Lightweight and impact-resistant materials with self-monitoring capability are highly desired for protective applications, but are challenging to be artificially fabricated. Herein, a scalable-manufactured aramid nanofiber (ANF)-based composite combining these key properties is presented. Inspired by the strengthening and toughening mechanisms relying on recoverable interfaces commonly existing in biological composites, mechanically weak but dense hydrogen bonds are introduced into the ANF interfaces to achieve simultaneously enhanced tensile strength (300 MPa), toughness (55 MJ m ), and impact resistance of the nanofibrous composite.