No abstract

Materials derived from surface‐mounted metal–organic frameworks (SURMOFs) are promising electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). A series of mixed‐metal, heterostructured SURMOFs is fabricated by the facile layer‐by‐layer deposition method. The obtained materials reveal record‐high electrocatalyst mass activities of ≈2.90 kA g−1 at an overpotential of 300 mV in 0.1 m KOH, superior to the benchmarking precious and nonprecious metal electrocatalysts. This property is assigned to the particular in situ self‐reconstruction and self‐activation of the SURMOFs during the immersion and the electrochemical treatment in alkaline aqueous electrolytes, which allows for the generation of NiFe (oxy)hydroxide electrocatalyst materials of specific morphology and microstructure.

N-doped amorphous carbon coated Fe3O4/SnO2 coaxial nanofibers were prepared via a facile approach. The core composite nanofibers were first made by electrospinning technology, then the shells were conformally coated using the chemical bath deposition and subsequent carbonization with polydopamine as a carbon source. When applied as a binder-free self-supported anode for lithium ion batteries, the coaxial nanofibers displayed an enhanced electrochemical storage capacity and excellent rate performance. The morphology of the interwoven nanofibers was maintained even after the rate cycle test. The superior electrochemical performance originates in the structural stability of the N-doped amorphous carbon shells formed by carbonizing polydopamine.

Slot‐die coating is a powerful method for upscaling the production of organic solar cells (OSCs) with low energy consumption print processes at ambient conditions. Herein, chlorobenzene (CB) and chloroform (CF) are compared as host solvents for printing films of the neat novel fused‐ring unit based wide‐bandgap donor polymer (PDTBT2T‐FTBDT), the small molecule nonfullerene acceptor based on a fused ring with a benzothiadiazole core (BTP‐4F) as well as the respective PDTBT2T‐FTBDT:BTP‐4F blend films at room temperature in air. Using CF printing of the PDTBT2T‐FTBDT:BTP‐4F active layer, OSCs with a high power conversion efficiency of up to 13.2% are reached in ambient conditions. In comparison to CB printed blend films, the active layer printed out of CF has a superior morphology, a smoother film surface and a more pronounced face‐on orientation of the crystallites, which altogether result in an enhanced exciton dissociation, a superior charge transport, and suppressed nonradiative charge carrier recombination. Based on in situ studies of the slot‐die coating process of PDTBT2T‐FTBDT, BTP‐4F, and PDTBT2T‐FTBDT:BTP‐4F films, the details of the film formation kinetics are clarified, which cause the superior behavior for CF compared to CB printing due to balancing the aggregation and crystallization of donor and acceptor.

A new composite electrode design was successfully fabricated based on 3D flexible graphene foams (GF) with interconnected macropores as the freestanding substrate and a composite of MnO2 nanoparticles and polypyrrole (PPy) as an integrated electrode.