Publications by authors named "Yongzhu Fu"

The practical application of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries is hindered by the severe shuttle effect of soluble polysulfide intermediates and the unstable lithium anode interface. Conventional lithium salts (e.g.

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Compared to lithium (Li) anode, the alloy/Li-alloy anodes show more compatible with sulfide solid electrolytes (SSEs), and are promising candidates for practical SSE-based all-solid-state Li batteries (ASSLBs). In this work, a porous Li-Al alloy (LiAl-p) anode is crafted using a straightforward mechanical pressing method. Various characterizations confirm the porous nature of such anode, as well as rich oxygen species on its surface.

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O3-type cathodes with sufficient Na content are considered as promising candidates for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs). However, these cathodes suffer from insufficient utilization of the active elements, restraining the delivered capacity. In this work, a high entropy strategy is applied to a typical O3 cathode NaLiNiMnO (NLNM), forming a high entropy oxide NaLiNiCuMgTiMnO (Na-HE).

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The further practical applications of Li-rich layered oxides are impeded by voltage decay and redox asymmetry, which are closely related to the structural degradation involving irreversible transition metal migration. It has been demonstrated that the superstructure ordering in O2-type materials can effectively suppress voltage decay and redox asymmetry. Herein, we elucidate that the absence of this superstructure ordering arrangement in a Ru-based O2-type oxide can still facilitate the highly reversible transition metal migration.

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O3-type layered oxides for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have attracted extensive attention due to their inherently sufficient Na content, which have been considered as one of the most promising candidates for practical applications. However, influenced by the irreversible oxygen loss and the phase transition of O3-P3, the O3-type cathodes are always limited by low cutoff voltages (typically <4.2 V), restraining the full release of the capacity.

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Organic materials have been considered a class of promising cathodes for metal-ion batteries because of their sustainability in preparation and source. However, organic batteries with high energy density and application potential require high discharge voltage, multielectron transfer, and long cycling performance. Here, we report an exceptional lithium-iodine (Li//I) battery, in which the organic iodine (BPD-HI) cathode formed by the Lewis acid-base coordination between hydroiodic acid (HI) and 4,4'-bipyridine (BPD) allows 2e transfer via the I/I and I/I redox couples.

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The low ionic conductivity and high desolvation barrier are the main challenges for organic electrolytes in rechargeable metal batteries, especially at low temperatures. The general strategy is to couple strong-solvation and weak-solvation solvents to give balanced physicochemical properties. However, the two challenges described above cannot be overcome at the same time.

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Phenyl ditelluride (PDTe) as a cathode material for rechargeable batteries has a low specific capacity (130.9 mAh g) due to limited active sites (two). To increase its capacity, additional active species need to be added to the structure of PDTe, like sulfur.

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Organic electrodes that embrace multiple electron transfer and efficient redox reactions are desirable for green energy storage batteries. Here, a novel organic electrode material is synthesized, i.e.

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Redox flow batteries (RFBs) are promising electrochemical energy storage systems, offering vast potential for large-scale applications. Their unique configuration allows energy and power to be decoupled, making them highly scalable and flexible in design. Aqueous RFBs stand out as the most promising technologies, primarily due to their inexpensive supporting electrolytes and high safety.

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Organosulfides are promising high-capacity cathode materials for rechargeable lithium batteries. However, sluggish kinetics and inferior utilization impede its practical application in batteries. Rationally designing redox mediators and identifying their active moieties remain formidable challenges.

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Organosulfides are promising candidates as cathode materials for the development of electric vehicles and energy storage systems due to their low-cost and high capacity properties. However, they generally suffer from slow kinetics because of the large rearrangement of S-S bonds and structural degradation upon cycling in batteries. In this paper, we reveal that soluble bis(2-pyrimidyl) disulfide (Pym S ) can be a high-rate cathode material for rechargeable lithium batteries.

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Lithium sulfide (Li S) is considered as a promising cathode material for sulfur-based batteries. However, its activation remains to be one of the key challenges against its commercialization. The extraction of Li from bulk Li S has a high activation energy (E ) barrier, which is fundamentally responsible for the initial large overpotential.

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Considerable efforts have been devoted to Li-S batteries, typically the soluble polysulfides shuttling effect. As a typical transition metal sulfide, MoS is a magic bullet for addressing the issues of Li-S batteries, drawing increasing attention. In this study, we introduce amorphous MoS as analogous sulfur cathode material and elucidate the dynamic phase evolution in the electrochemical reaction.

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We report a cyclic organosulfide synthesized a condensation reaction. It can be cycled for 1000 times in half cells. Impressively, it can work with lithiated carbon paper as the anode in ether electrolyte in a full cell.

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Lithium-ion batteries have received significant attention over the last decades due to the wide application of portable electronics and increasing deployment of electric vehicles. In order to further enhance the performance of the batteries and overcome the capacity limitations of inorganic electrode materials, it is imperative to explore new cathode and functional materials for rechargeable lithium batteries. Organosulfur materials containing sulfur-sulfur bonds as a kind of promising organic electrode materials have the advantages of high capacities, abundant resources, tunable structures, and environmental benignity.

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As a high-energy-density cathode material, organosulfur has great potential for lithium batteries. However, their practical application is plagued by electronic/ionic insulation and sluggish redox kinetics. Hence, our strategy is to design a self-weaving, freestanding host material by introducing reduced graphene oxide-supported VS nanosheets (VS -rGO) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for lithium-phenyl tetrasulfide (Li-PTS) batteries.

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The use of non-solvating, or as-called sparingly-solvating, electrolytes (NSEs), is regarded as one of the most promising solutions to the obstacles to the practical applications of Li-S batteries. However, it remains a puzzle that long-life Li-S batteries have rarely, if not never, been reported with NSEs, despite their good compatibility with Li anode. Here, we find the capacity decay of Li-S batteries in NSEs is mainly due to the accumulation of the dead Li S at the cathode side, rather than the degradation of the anodes or electrolytes.

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Redox flow batteries (RFBs) are promising candidates for large-scale energy storage systems (ESSs) due to their unique architecture that can decouple energy and power. Aqueous RFBs based on organic molecules (AORFBs) work with a non-flammable and intrinsically safe aqueous electrolyte, and organic compounds are performed as redox couples. The application of redox-active organics tremendously expands the development space of RFBs owing to the highly tunable molecule structure.

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Organosulfides are promising cathodes for lithium batteries but often suffer from sluggish kinetics and low cycle stability. Herein, we report an electron-deficient organosulfide (ED-OS), which is formed via electrochemical oxidation of thiuram monosulfide, a low-cost sustainable material. The ED structure of (dimethylcarbamothioyl)thio can stretch the electron cloud of the adjacent C═S bond forming an S radical and lead to the cleavage of the S-C bond on the other side forming another S radical.

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Phenyl tellurosulfide (PhS-TePh) was used to study the redox activity of the S-Te bond in lithium batteries. PhS-TePh formed a dynamic covalent network during lithiation, which provided a balance between responsiveness and stability to facilitate ion and electron transfer, enabling Li/PhS-TePh cells to achieve stable cycling and excellent rate performance in dilute electrolyte.

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The progress of electric vehicles is highly inhibited by the limited energy density and growth of dendrite Li in current power batteries. Breakthroughs and improvements in electrolyte chemistry are highlighted to directly address the above issues, namely, the development of electrolytes with a high lithium-ion transference number (), enabling one to effectively restrict the concentration polarization during repetitious cycling. Herein, we propose a novel ether-based copolymer-based gel polymer electrolyte (ECP-based GPE) by in situ copolymerization as an intriguing strategy to achieve a high of ∼0.

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Organodisulfides (RSSR) are a class of promising active materials for redox flow batteries (RFBs). However, their sluggish kinetics and poor cyclic stability remain a formidable challenge. Here, we propose carbon disulfide (CS) as a unique redox mediator involving reversible C-S bond formation/breakage to facilitate the reduction reaction of organodisulfides in RFBs.

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We design and synthesize a fluorinated macrocyclic organodisulfide through a simple one-step oxidation of 2,5-difluorobenzene-1,4-dithiol in dimethyl sulfoxide. It contains a dimer, trimer, and tetramer of 2,5-difluorobenzene-1,4-disulfide, which are insoluble in ether electrolyte. When evaluated in a lithium half-cell, it delivers a discharge specific capacity of 268.

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Organic compounds with tunable structures and high capacities are promising electrode materials for batteries. Cyclic organosulfide (i. e.

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