generations. This has necessitated the enhanced use of renewable forms of energy. While solar energy and wind energy are perhaps the most explored forms of renewables, other forms such as mechanical energy have received relatively less attention. In fact, the energy from diverse mechanical motions such as body motion, wind, and water tidal energy has been mostly squandered and ignored in the past. Fortunately, the scientific community has begun to take notice of the availability of such other energy sources available to us as a partial solution to the growing energy-related problems. [1,2] Indeed, in the recent decade, mechanical energy conversion technologies have witnessed substantial progress, especially in the area of distributed micro/nano-power sources, portable high-voltage sources, wearable electronics, and high-precision sensors. At the heart of this progress are the devices known as triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) which basically exploit the concept of charge separation accomplished by relative motion between two dissimilar materials in proximity, the well-known phenomenon of friction being an expression of the process. [3] The dissimilarity of materials emanates from Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are receiving significant attention lately as efficient mechanical energy harvesting devices. They are finding multiple uses in numerous low-power applications. Current TENG designs, although innovative, fall short on practical demands like performance tunability, modulatory, and stability. This invites further research in the use of new materials for TENGs. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) offer a unique feature of molecular tunability to optimize energy conversion which has been exploited in this study. Prototypal hybridization strategy is deployed on underexplored isoreticular subfamily UiO-66(Zr) MOFs through UiO-66-X/PVDF (X = H or Br) composites for TENG output tuning and amplification. UiO-66-X/PVDF exhibits good aquatic and thermal stability accompanying substantial boost in TENG power. Functionalized H 2 BDC linker improved surface roughness and potential. UiO-66-Br encased in PVDF matrix boosted charge and TENG performance by enhancing electrification. Computational details support observations. Device captures waste energy in a vertical contact-separation mode and functions consistently amidst diverse environmental settings. Functionalized TENG-2 delivers a V p-p of 110.41 V, which is 2.92 times and 14.12 times higher than unfunctionalized TENG-1 and PVDF film, respectively. Findings reveal maiden example of ligand-mediated functional group-driven performance tuning of TENG and mechanistic insight using isoreticular MOFs/PVDF composites.

A simple, scalable, and cost-effective CO2 laser direct-write process is introduced to produce adherent, high-quality micro-gradient-patterned carbon coating on multiple substrates under ambient conditions for application as anode-free battery electrodes. It involves laser pyrolysis of low-temperature-polymerized coating of a bio-waste-derived furfuryl alcohol liquid precursor and generates submicron-scale modulations of graphene-like carbon (GLC) and disordered carbon forms emanating from the direct laser-beam-exposed region and the region between the laser scan lines. The functionality and highly adherent nature of the coating result from the process- and precursor-borne functionalization of GLC. We demonstrate the applicability of such coating implemented on copper foil for anode-free Li–metal battery application. In the case of micro-gradient coating, the nucleation of lithium occurs with significantly lower (almost by a factor of 5) activation energy as compared to bare Cu, resulting in 4 times higher plating (0.5 mA cm–2)/stripping (1.5 mA cm–2). The defects produced on graphene and the natural incorporation of electronegative oxygen atoms by the laser pyrolysis process provide the lithiophilic centers leading to homogeneous lithium nucleation and deposition. The carbon nanostructures reduce the effective areal current density, and the enhanced adhesion helps with mechanical stability for effective lithium deposition for prolonged cycle life.