The intrinsic zinc dendrite growth aggravated by the uneven electric field at the Zn anode surface and the water‐induced parasitic reactions have largely impeded rechargeable aqueous zinc‐ion batteries for the practical applications in large‐scale energy storage. Here, an effective strategy is proposed to manipulate Zn deposition and simultaneously prevent the generation of insulating by‐products (Zn4SO4(OH)6·xH2O) for improved plating/stripping on Zn anodes by the addition of a nontoxic electrolyte additive, β‐cyclodextrin (β‐CD). The simulation results indicate that β‐CD molecules prefer to adsorb horizontally on Zn (002) plane, regulating the diffusion pathways and deposition sites of Zn2+ for the preferred Zn deposition along (002) plane without dendrite formation and inhibiting the H2 generation and the formation of Zn4SO4(OH)6·xH2O by facilitating desolvation of [Zn(H2O)6]2+. Consequently, an ultra‐long stable cycling up to 1700 h at a high current density of 4 mA cm−2 can be achieved by the addition of β‐CD, 17 times that of the pure ZnSO4 electrolyte and the remarkable stability is also maintained under harsh test condition (40 mA cm−2, 20 mAh cm−2). This study highlights the important role of β‐CD in engineering the interfacial stability during Zn plating/stripping for high‐performing aqueous batteries.

Transition-metal nitrides have attracted a great deal of interest as electrocatalysts for water splitting due to their super metallic performance, high efficiency, and good stability. Herein, we report a novel design of hierarchical electrocatalyst based on NiFeN, where the presence of carbon fiber cloth as a scaffold can effectively alleviate the aggregation of NiFeN nanostructure and form three-dimensional conducting networks to enlarge the surface area and simultaneously enhance the charge transfer. The composition and morphological variations of NiFe precursors during annealing in different atmospheres were investigated. Such NiFeN/CC hierarchical electrocatalyst shows much improved electrochemical properties for water splitting in terms of overpotentials (105 and 190 mV at 10 mA/cm for hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction, respectively) and stability.

Carbon materials display appealing physical, chemical, and mechanical properties and have been extensively studied as supercapacitor electrodes. The surface engineering further allows us to tune their capability of adsorption/desorption and catalysis. Therefore, a facile and inexpensive chemical-acid-etching approach has been developed to activate the carbon cloth as an electrode for supercapacitor. The capacitance of the acid-etched carbon cloth electrode can approach 5310 mF cm–2 at a current density of 5 mA cm–2 with remarkable recycling stability. The all-solid-state symmetric supercapacitor delivered a high energy density of 4.27 mWh cm–3 at a power density of 1.32 W cm–3. Furthermore, this symmetric supercapacitor exhibited outstanding mechanical flexibility, and the capacity remained nearly unchanged after 1000 bending cycles.

Ordered 3D arrays of polyaniline (PANI) inverse opals were fabricated via electrochemical methods by using colloidal crystals of polystyrene beads as sacrificial templates. Compared with films obtained by chemical synthesis, the inverse opaline samples obtained by electrochemistry had a much higher structural quality. To explore potential biosensing applications, PANI composite inverse opals were fabricated for the first time by modifying the structure with different dopants, such as poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and poly(styrene sulfonate) (PSS). It was found that these dopants had a major effect on the structure of the obtained opaline films. With selection of suitable dopants, PANI composite inverse opals could be fabricated with very high quality. The obtained films remained electroactive in buffer solutions of neutral pH. Owing to their huge surface area, they should be ideal candidates for biosensing applications, e.g., as electrocatalysts or bioreactors. Our first effort to use such macroporous structures as electrocatalysts for the oxidation of reduced -nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) showed that the electrocatalytic efficiency of the inverse opline film was much higher compared with that of an unpatterned film.