No abstract

Aqueous zinc batteries are appealing devices for cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy storage. However, the zinc metal deposition at the anode strongly influences the battery cycle life and performance. To circumvent this issue, here we propose the use of lanthanum nitrate (La(NO3)3) as supporting salt for aqueous zinc sulfate (ZnSO4) electrolyte solutions. Via physicochemical and electrochemical characterizations, we demonstrate that this peculiar electrolyte formulation weakens the electric double layer repulsive force, thus, favouring dense metallic zinc deposits and regulating the charge distribution at the zinc metal|electrolyte interface. When tested in Zn||VS2 full coin cell configuration (with cathode mass loading of 16 mg cm−2), the electrolyte solution containing the lanthanum ions enables almost 1000 cycles at 1 A g−1 (after 5 activation cycles at 0.05 A g−1) with a stable discharge capacity of about 90 mAh g−1 and an average cell discharge voltage of ∼0.54 V.

The treatment difficulties of venous thrombosis include short half-life, low utilization, and poor penetration of drugs at thrombus site. Here, we develop one kind of mesoporous/macroporous silica/platinum nanomotors with platelet membrane (PM) modification (MMNM/PM) for sequentially targeting delivery of thrombolytic and anticoagulant drugs for thrombus treatment. Regulated by the special proteins on PM, the nanomotors target the thrombus site and then PM can be ruptured under near-infrared (NIR) irradiation to achieve desirable sequential drug release, including rapid release of thrombolytic urokinase (3 hours) and slow release of anticoagulant heparin (>20 days). Meantime, the motion ability of nanomotors under NIR irradiation can effectively promote them to penetrate deeply in thrombus site to enhance retention ratio. The in vitro and in vivo evaluation results confirm that the synergistic effect of targeting ability from PM and motion ability from nanomotors can notably enhance the thrombolysis effect in both static/dynamic thrombus and rat model.

Advances in developing affordable batteries are vital for integrating renewable and environmentally friendly energy sources into the power grid. Benefiting from the abundance of sodium resources, sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have attracted great attention as one of the most promising energy storage and conversion devices for grid-scale energy storage systems. From this perspective, we present a succinct and critical survey of the emerging electrode materials, such as layered transition-metal oxides, polyanionic compounds, Prussian blue analogue cathode materials, and hard carbon anode materials, that have potential value for large-scale applications.

As an anode material for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs), hard carbon (HC) presents high specific capacity and favorable cycling performance. However, high cost and low initial Coulombic efficiency (ICE) of HC seriously limit its future commercialization for SIBs. A typical biowaste, mangosteen shell was selected as a precursor to prepare low-cost and high-performance HC via a facile one-step carbonization method, and the influence of different heat treatments on the morphologies, microstructures, and electrochemical performances was investigated systematically. The microstructure evolution studied using X-ray diffraction, Raman, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, along with electrochemical measurements, reveals the optimal carbonization condition of the mangosteen shell: HC carbonized at 1500 °C for 2 h delivers the highest reversible capacity of ∼330 mA h g –1 at a current density of 20 mA g –1 , a capacity retention of ∼98% after 100 cycles, and an ICE of ∼83%. Additionally, the sodium-ion storage behavior of HC is deeply analyzed using galvanostatic intermittent titration and cyclic voltammetry technologies.