Lithium-ion batteries, carbon anode, lithium plating, characterization techniques, sluggish intercalation kinetics.

The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) plays an important role in the fields of energy storage and conversion technologies, including metal-air batteries and fuel cells. The development of nonprecious metal electrocatalysts with both high ORR activity and durability to replace the currently used costly Pt-based catalyst is critical and still a major challenge. Herein, a facile and scalable method is reported to prepare ZIF-8 with single ferrocene molecules trapped within its cavities (Fc@ZIF-8), which is utilized as precursor to porous single-atom Fe embedded nitrogen-doped carbon (Fe-N-C) during high temperature pyrolysis. The catalyst shows a half-wave potential (E ) of 0.904 V, 67 mV higher than commercial Pt/C catalyst (0.837 V), which is among the best compared with reported results for ORR. Significant electrochemical properties are attributed to the special configuration of Fc@ZIF-8 transforming into a highly dispersed iron-nitrogen coordination moieties embedded carbon matrix.

The removal of highly radioactive and long-lived 137 Cs + and 90 Sr 2+ from solution is of significance for radionuclide remediation. Herein we prepared a two-dimensionally microporous thiostannate, namely (Me 2 NH 2 ) 4/3 (Me 3 NH) 2/3 Sn 3 S 7 $1.25H 2 O (FJSM-SnS), and systematically investigated its Cs + and Sr 2+ ionexchange performance in different conditions. The structural stabilities and variation, ion-exchange kinetic and isothermal behavior, pH-dependent distribution coefficients (K d ), ion-exchange in simulated groundwater and ion-exchange applied to chromatography have been investigated. The results indicated that the maximum Cs + and Sr 2+ ion-exchange capacities of FJSM-SnS were 408.91 mg g À1 and 65.19 mg g À1 , respectively. In particular, FJSM-SnS showed quick ion-exchange ability and wide pH resistance (0.7-12.7) which make it outstanding among the ion-exchangers. An ion-exchange chromatographic column was firstly studied for chalcogenido ion-exchange materials, that is, a column filled with 3.0 g FJSM-SnS could remove 96-99% of Cs + ion and near 100% of Sr 2+ ion at low ionic concentrations in 900 bed volumes solutions. Furthermore, the title material could be synthesized on a large scale by a facile, one-pot and economical solvothermal method. The relatively low cost but remarkable ion-exchange performance makes it promising for radionuclide remediation. † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Crystallographic data for FJSM-SnS and FJSM-SnS-Cs in CIF format, TG-MS spectra, mass spectra of solution and solvent, PXRD, EDS, the kinetics studies at room temperature, IR and table of data in the simulated groundwater, competitive ion-exchange experiments and the ion-exchange chromatographic column experiment. CCDC 1025383 and 1025384. For ESI and crystallographic data in CIF or other electronic format see