Metallic Zinc (Zn) has attracted great attention as a promising anode for aqueous batteries owing to its high theoretical capacity, low cost, and high natural abundance. However, Zn anode suffers from a crucial challenge, namely the growth of Zn dendrites, which brings not only a short life span but also severe safety concerns. In this work, we report that an anionic tin sulfide nanosheets (TS-Ns)

Direct solar steam generation (DSSG) is well-proven to be a sustainable and effective technique to provide high-quality freshwater supply. However, it customarily suffers from severe salt accumulation, especially for treating strong brine, becoming a fatal bottleneck for approaching its commercial applications. Herein, we developed a DSSG with potent siphon-drop mode to achieve powerful self-absorbing

Mathematical models used for the representation of (bio)-chemical processes can be grouped into two broad paradigms: white-box or mechanistic models, completely based on knowledge or black-box data-driven models based on patterns observed in data. However, in the past two-decade, hybrid modeling that explores the synergy between the two paradigms has emerged as a pragmatic compromise. The data-driven

In order to improve the energy and power density of all-solid-state supercapacitor, more attention is currently focused on the development of electrodes and electrolyte materials with various chemical structure and compositions. However, current studies rarely report hydrogel electrodes with high content of active materials (i.e. >20.0wt%), and study their influence on the performance of supercapacitors

Chlorella pyrenoidosa is a microalga that holds enormous potential as a source of renewable energy. Nuclear radiation is commonly used to modify natural microalgal phenotypes to enhance specified functions. However, the mechanisms underlying such modifications are poorly understood. Here, we use a multidisciplinary approach to analyze wild-type Chlorella pyrenoidosa and a nuclear-irradiated mutant

Most current hydrogels have weak mechanical properties and unordered structures, which limits their applications. However, soft tissues with highly ordered hierarchical nanocomposite structures exhibit anisotropic mechanical performance and function to adapt the complex environments. Therefore, the introduction of an ordered nanocomposite structure into hydrogel is an effective strategy to endow the

A novel reduced graphene oxide-supported hollow Co3O4@N-doped porous carbon (Co3O4@NPC/rGO) composite was synthesized via self-assembly and pyrolysis-oxidation using bimetallic zeolite imidazolate frameworks and graphene oxide as precursors. The as-obtained composite exhibited superior performance on peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation over a wide pH range. Complete removal of sulfamethoxazole (SMX

Gasification is one of the most important thermochemical processes to convert a solid fuel to energy carriers of a gaseous product called syngas. This process has been well addressed in the literature for biomass and several valuable researches have been performed on plastic waste gasification. However, it is the first effort for a systematic comprehensive investigation and multi-objective optimization

Li-O2 battery is one of the most attractive energy storage technologies because of its extremely high energy density (3500 Wh kg−1). However, the main limitation of the battery is the high energy barrier during the formation and decomposition of the discharge product (Li2O2), which results in a series of problems such as large overpotential and poor cycle stability. Herein, the Fe-doped spinel Ni-Co

Non-thermal plasma-induced one-step desorption of splitting of CO2 has been investigated in this research for carbon capture and utilization. An experimental study was conducted in a plasma-sorbent system that consists of a coaxial DBD reactor packed with hydrotalcite pellets. Operation parameters including discharge power and carrier gas flow rate were varied to explore their effect on the desorption

The severe shuttle effect and sluggish redox kinetics are the current bottlenecks of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, resulting in capacity fading and inferior rate performance, especially under the condition of high sulfur loading and low electrolyte/sulfur ratio (E/S). Herein, conductive carbon nanoparticles (Ketjen Black, KB) covered by borocarbonitride (BCN) are assembled into micro-sized particles

Solid-state zinc-air batteries (SZABs) are regarded as a promising energy source for next-generation wearable electronic devices due to their high theoretical energy density and reliability. However, practical development of solid-state zinc-air batteries is hindered by the low specific areal capacity and poor contact between solid-state electrolyte and electrode caused by zinc passivation and electrolyte

Metal organic frameworks contain abundant empty space for selectively absorbing phase change materials (PCM) molecules and sometimes chemically transformed. However, the strong attractive interaction between metal organic frameworks and PCM severely blocks sufficient crystalline-amorphous state transition of PCM. Herein, we proposed an attractive interaction engineering strategy on hierarchical zeolitic