There is a growing concern about excessive nitrogen (N) and water use in agricultural systems in North China due to the reduced resource use efficiency and increased groundwater pollution. A two-year experiment with two soil moisture by four N treatments was conducted to investigate the effects of N application rates and soil moisture on soil N dynamics, crop yield, N uptake and use efficiency in an intensive wheat-maize double cropping system (wheat-maize rotation) in the North China Plain. Under the experimental conditions, crop yield of both wheat and maize did not increase significantly at N rates above 200 kg N ha maize crop has higher N use efficiency than wheat crop. Higher NO 3 -N leaching occurred in maize season than in wheat season due to more water leakage caused by the concentrated summer rainfall. The results of this study indicate that the optimum N rate may be much lower than that used in many areas in the North China Plain given the high level of N already in the soil, and there is great potential for reducing N inputs to increase N use efficiency and to mitigate N leaching into the groundwater. Avoiding excess water leakage through controlled irrigation and matching N application to crop N demand is the key to reduce NO 3 -N leaching and maintain crop yield. Such management requires knowledge of crop water and N demand and soil N dynamics as they change with variable climate temporally and spatially. Simulation modeling can capture those interactions and is considered as a powerful tool to assist in the future optimization of N and irrigation managements.

MXenes, a family of two-dimensional (2D) transition-metal carbide and nitride materials, are supposed to be promising pseudocapacitive materials because of their high electronic conductivity and hydrophilic surfaces. MXenes, prepared by removing the “A” elements of their corresponding MAX phases by hydrofluoric acid (HF) or LiF–HCl etching, possess abundant terminal groups like −F, −OH, and −O groups. It has been proven that the MXenes with fewer −F terminal groups and more −O groups showed a higher pseudocapacitor performance. In organic reactions, −OH and −X (X = halogen) groups could turn to ether groups in strong nucleophilic reagent. Inspired by that, herein, we report an n-butyllithium-treated method to turn the −F and −OH terminal groups to −O groups on the Ti3C2T x MXenes. Two types of Ti3C2T x MXenes prepared by either HF or LiF–HCl etching were systematically investigated, and a comparison with the traditional KOH/NaOH/LiOH-treated method was also carried out. It is found that most of the −F terminal groups on the Ti3C2T x MXenes can be successfully removed by n-butyllithium, and abundant −O terminal groups were formed. The n-butyllithium-treated Ti3C2T x MXenes show promising applications in high-performance pseudocapacitors. A record high capacitance of 523 F g–1 at 2 mV s–1 was obtained for the n-butyllithium-treated Ti3C2T x MXenes, and 96% capacity can remain even after 10 000 cycles.

Layered covalent triazine frameworks can be exfoliated into 1–2 layered nanosheets via acid–base intercalation and subsequent oxidation exfoliation to obtain much improved specific capacitance and rate performance for Li ion battery anode.