Photo- and Electrocatalytic Dual-Layer Cathode Facilitating Zn Peroxide Chemistry in Near-Neutral Zn-Air Batteries.

Rechargeable zinc-air batteries (ZABs) using near-neutral aqueous electrolytes are gaining significant attention due to their high energy density, low cost, high safety, and the excellent reversibility of the zinc (Zn) anode in mild electrolytes. However, the sluggish O/ZnO conversion in the carbon-based cathodes of these batteries leads to a large voltage hysteresis (>600 mV) between charge and discharge. Metal- or metal oxide-based electrocatalysts are rarely used to reduce the overpotentials of this conversion because their presence may trigger undesirable HO-participated oxygen reduction/evolution reactions, disrupting the pH balance of the electrolyte.

Activating Organic Electrode for Zinc Batteries via Adjusting Solvation Structure of Zn Ions.

Zinc-organic batteries, combining the low cost and high capacity of Zn anodes with the tunable and sustainable properties of organic cathodes, have garnered significant attention. Herein, we present a zinc-organic battery featuring a poly(benzoquinonyl sulfide) (PBQS) cathode, a Zn anode, and an N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF)-based electrolyte, which delivers a high capacity (200 mAh g), excellent rate capability, and an ultra-long cycle life (10,000 cycles) when tested with a low PBQS loading (2 mg cm). The charge storage mechanism in the PBQS cathode involves solvated Zn adsorption and consequent Zn coordination with PBQS companied by de-solvation process, as confirmed by in situ FT-IR analysis.

Strategies and Prospects for Engineering a Stable Zn Metal Battery: Cathode, Anode, and Electrolyte Perspectives.

ConspectusZinc metal batteries (ZMBs) appear to be promising candidates to replace lithium-ion batteries owing to their higher safety and lower cost. Moreover, natural reserves of Zn are abundant, being approximately 300 times greater than those of Li. However, there are some typical issues impeding the wide application of ZMBs.

Sequential catalysis enables efficient pyrolysis of food waste for syngas production.

Thermochemical conversion technologies are emerging as one of the most promising approaches to tackle food waste crisis. However, the existing techniques confront significant challenges in terms of syngas selectivity and catalyst stability. This study introduced a cost-effective Joule heating approach utilizing sequential catalysts composed of treated stainless steel (SS) and biochar to optimize syngas production from food waste.

DFT-Guided Design of Dual Dopants in Anatase TiO for Boosted Sodium Storage.

Anatase titanium dioxide (TiO) has drawn great attention as an anode material in sodium ion batteries (SIBs), but it suffers from the sluggish diffusion kinetics of Na within TiO and inferior electronic conductivity. Herein, under the guidance of density functional theory (DFT), we propose a nitrogen and selenium dual-doped TiO system as an advanced SIB anode. Both DFT and experimental investigations reveal the cooperative effect of dopants in boosting the electrochemical performance of TiO, finding the optimal content ratio (N/Se at 1:3) for overall improved SIB performances.

VMC: A Grammar for Visualizing Statistical Model Checks.

Visualizations play a critical role in validating and improving statistical models. However, the design space of model check visualizations is not well understood, making it difficult for authors to explore and specify effective graphical model checks. VMC defines a model check visualization using four components: (1) samples of distributions of checkable quantities generated from the model, including predictive distributions for new data and distributions of model parameters; (2) transformations on observed data to facilitate comparison; (3) visual representations of distributions; and (4) layouts to facilitate comparing model samples and observed data.

CD11b-NOX2 mutual regulation-mediated microglial exosome release contributes to rotenone-induced inflammation and neurotoxicity in BV2 microglia and primary cultures.

Epidemiological studies have revealed a potent association between chronic exposure to rotenone, a commonly used pesticide, in individuals and the incidence of Parkinson's disease (PD). We previously identified the contribution of the activation of microglial NADPH oxidase (NOX2) in rotenone-induced neurotoxicity. However, the regulation of NOX2 activation remains unexplored.

Nonflammable Fluorinated Electrolyte Realizing High Voltage Anode-Free Zn Dual-Ion Batteries.

Due to the low decomposition potential of HO and its corrosive effect to Zn foil, the Zn metal battery with aqueous electrolytes operates within a narrow electrochemical window and exhibits low anode utilization ratio. Fluorinated carbonate ester, exhibiting low highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy level, is suitable for constructing high-voltage batteries, yet its application in Zn metal battery has been scarcely explored. Herein, we propose an electrolyte based on fluorinated solvents and ethoxy (pentafluoro) cyclotriphosphazene (PFPN) additive, which exhibits a high decomposition voltage of 2.

Surface State Modulation via Electrochemical Heterogeneous Redox Reactions for Full-Color Emission Carbon Dots.

Carbon dots (CDs) still suffer from unclear surface state fluorescence mechanism for fine modulation. Here, redox reactions for cathode and anode within electrochemical method are firstly employed to construct differentiated strategy for surface-state modulation, so as to obtain CDs with controllable emission in separated electrodes simultaneously. The fluorescence peaks of CDs from blue to red centered at 425 nm (mCDs-), 530 nm (mCDs+), 580 nm (oCDs-) and 665 nm (oCDs+) are mainly originated from the different bombardment effects of the ions and reaction tendencies of modifier during the electrolysis process.

Interfacial Charge-Transfer Excitonic Insulator in a Two-Dimensional Organic-Inorganic Superlattice.

Excitonic insulators are long-sought-after quantum materials predicted to spontaneously open a gap by the Bose condensation of bound electron-hole pairs, namely, excitons, in their ground state. Since the theoretical conjecture, extensive efforts have been devoted to pursuing excitonic insulator platforms for exploring macroscopic quantum phenomena in real materials. Reliable evidence of excitonic character has been obtained in layered chalcogenides as promising candidates.

Modulating the Microstructure and Surface Acidity of MnO by Doping-Induced Phase Transition for Simultaneous Removal of Toluene and NO at Low Temperature.

It is a great challenge to remove VOCs and NO simultaneously from flue gas in nonelectric industries. This study focuses on the construction of Fe-MnO catalysts that perform well in the simultaneous removal of toluene and NO at low temperatures. Utilizing the Fe-induced phase transition of MnO, Fe-MnO-F&R catalysts with a composite morphology of nanoflowers and nanorods were successfully prepared that provided an abundant microporous structure to facilitate the diffusion of molecules of different sizes.

A Highly Reversible Sn-Air Battery Possessing the Ultra-Low Charging Potential with the Assistance of Light.

Aqueous Sn-air batteries are attracting a great deal of interest in recent years due to the ultra-high safety, low cost, dendrite-free and highly reversible Sn anode. However, the slurry oxygen reduction/evolution reaction (ORR/OER) kinetics on the air cathodes seriously affect the Sn-air battery performances. Although various advanced catalysts have been developed, the charge overpotentials (~1000 mV) of these Sn-air batteries are still not satisfactory.

Synergistic Effect of CO in Accelerating the Galvanic Corrosion of Lithium/Sodium Anodes in Alkali Metal-Carbon Dioxide Batteries.

Rechargeable alkali metal-CO batteries, which combine high theoretical energy density and environmentally friendly CO fixation ability, have attracted worldwide attention. Unfortunately, their electrochemical performances are usually inferior for practical applications. Aiming to reveal the underlying causes, a combinatorial usage of advanced nondestructive and postmortem characterization tools is used to intensively study the failure mechanisms of Li/Na-CO batteries.

Unveiling diverse coordination-defined electronic structures of reconstructed anatase TiO(001)-(1 × 4) surface.

Transition metal oxides (TMOs) exhibit fascinating physicochemical properties, which originate from the diverse coordination structures between the transition metal and oxygen atoms. Accurate determination of such structure-property relationships of TMOs requires to correlate structural and electronic properties by capturing the global parameters with high resolution in energy, real, and momentum spaces, but it is still challenging. Herein, we report the determination of characteristic electronic structures from diverse coordination environments on the prototypical anatase-TiO(001) with (1 × 4) reconstruction, using high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy/atomic force microscopy, in combination with density functional theory calculation.

Lithium-Induced Oxygen Vacancies in MnO@MXene for High-Performance Zinc-Air Batteries.

The traditional methods for creating oxygen vacancies in materials present several challenges and limitations, such as high preparation temperatures, limited oxygen vacancy generation, and morphological destruction, which hinder the application of transition metal oxides in the field of zinc-air batteries (ZABs). In order to address these limitations, we have introduced a pioneering lithium reduction strategy for generating oxygen vacancies in δ-MnO@MXene composite materials. This strategy stands out for its simplicity of implementation, applicability at room temperature, and preservation of the material's structural integrity.

Experimental Demonstration of Topological Catalysis for CO Electroreduction.

The past decade has witnessed substantial progress in understanding nontrivial band topology and discovering exotic topological materials in condensed-matter physics. Recently, topological physics has been further extended to the chemistry discipline, leading to the emergence of topological catalysis. In principle, the topological effect is detectable in catalytic reactions, but no conclusive evidence has been reported yet.

Two-Dimensional CrTe@Graphite Heterostructure for Efficient Electromagnetic Microwave Absorption.

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal chalcogenides (TMCs) hold great promise as novel microwave absorption materials owing to their interlayer interactions and unique magnetoelectric properties. However, overcoming the impedance mismatch at the low loading is still a challenge for TMCs due to the restricted loss pathways caused by their high-density characteristic. Here, an interface engineering based on the heterostructure of 2D CrTe and graphite is in situ constructed via a one-step chemical vapor deposit to modulate impedance matching and introduce multiple attenuation mechanisms.

Metal-Phenolic Networks for Chronic Wounds Therapy.

Chronic wounds are recalcitrant complications of a variety of diseases, with pathologic features including bacterial infection, persistent inflammation, and proliferation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels in the wound microenvironment. Currently, the use of antimicrobial drugs, debridement, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and other methods in clinical for chronic wound treatment is prone to problems such as bacterial resistance, wound expansion, and even exacerbation. In recent years, researchers have proposed many novel materials for the treatment of chronic wounds targeting the disease characteristics, among which metal-phenolic networks (MPNs) are supramolecular network structures that utilize multivalent metal ions and natural polyphenols complexed through ligand bonds.

EVM: Incorporating Model Checking into Exploratory Visual Analysis.

Visual analytics (VA) tools support data exploration by helping analysts quickly and iteratively generate views of data which reveal interesting patterns. However, these tools seldom enable explicit checks of the resulting interpretations of data-e.g.

The Rational Agent Benchmark for Data Visualization.

Understanding how helpful a visualization is from experimental results is difficult because the observed performance is confounded with aspects of the study design, such as how useful the information that is visualized is for the task. We develop a rational agent framework for designing and interpreting visualization experiments. Our framework conceives two experiments with the same setup: one with behavioral agents (human subjects), and the other one with a hypothetical rational agent.

Complement receptor 3-mediated neurotoxic glial activation contributes to rotenone-induced cognitive decline in mice.

Microglia-mediated chronic neuroinflammation has been associated with cognitive decline induced by rotenone, a well-known neurotoxic pesticide used in agriculture. However, the mechanisms remain unclear. This work aimed to elucidate the role of complement receptor 3 (CR3), a highly expressed receptor in microglia, in cognitive deficits induced by rotenone.

Kinetically well-matched porous framework dual carbon electrodes for high-performance sodium-ion hybrid capacitors.

Sodium-ion hybrid capacitors (SIHCs) have attracted extensive interest due to their applications in sodium-ion batteries and capacitors, which have been considered expectable candidates for large-scale energy storage systems. The crucial issues for achieving high-performance SIHCs are the reaction kinetics imbalances between the slow Faradic battery-type anodes and fast non-Faradaic capacitive cathodes. Herein, we propose a simple self-template strategy to prepare kinetically well-matched porous framework dual-carbon electrodes for high-performance SIHCs, which stem from the single precursor, sodium ascorbate.

MnFe phosphides doped in hollow Prussian blue analogues with Ru modification as an efficient cathode for Li-O batteries.

A highly efficient catalyst for Li-O batteries based on Ru and MnFe phosphides nanoparticles entrapped in a MnFe Prussian blue analogue (PBA) substrate (Ru-MnFeP/PBA) was explored. Synergy between homogeneous Ru and MnFe phosphides nanoparticles improved the catalytic activity and alleviated side reactions. The Li-O battery based on Ru-MnFeP/PBA exhibited excellent performance.