Surface coating on alloy anodes renders an effective remedy to tolerate internal stress and alleviate the side reaction with electrolytes for long-lasting reversible lithium redox reactions in lithium-ion batteries. However, the role of surface coating on the interparticle connections of alloy anodes remains not fully understood. Herein, we exploit real-time lithiation and mechanic measurement of SnO2 nanoparticles via in situ TEM with different coating layers, including conducting polymer polypyrrole and metal oxide MnO2. As a result, polypyrrole is more flexible to accommodate the volume expansion issue. More importantly, the polypyrrole coating layers offer a large contact area and strong adhesion force between the SnO2 nanoparticles, ensuring fast lithiation kinetics and high cycling stability. These observations provide new insight into how the interparticle connections of alloy anodes with diverse coating approaches can impact battery performance, shedding light on the practical processing of the alloy anode materials for high-energy Li-ion batteries.

Germany (DE) and China (CN) have different political approaches in supporting the biogas sector. Three German and three Chinese large-scale biogas plants (BGPs) were evaluated as part of a year-round monitoring program. Laboratory methods were utilized to analyze the chemical indicators. Results showed a stable anaerobic digestion process without system failures in all BGPs. The methane yield had a range of 0.23–0.35 m3CH4/kgODM for DE BGPs and 0.11–0.22 m3CH4/kgODM for CN BGPs, due to different substrates and working temperatures. Financial analyses indicated that DE BGPs are viable under their current feed-in tariffs contracts. Their financial internal rate of return (IRR) ranged between 8 and 22%. However, all CN BGPs had negative IRRs, indicating that they are financially unfeasible. Risk analyses illustrated that DE BGPs will face financial nonviability if benefits decrease by 9–33% or costs increase by 10–49%, or if a combined worse case (benefit decrease and cost increase) of 5–20% occurs. Incentives to BGP operations are particularly important in China, where the government should consider switching the construction-based subsidy to a performance-based subsidy system to motivate the operators. BGP monitoring is necessary to understand the performance, in addition to briefing policymakers in case a policy reform is needed.

Silver nanowires (Ag NWs) have shown great potential in next-generation flexible displays, due to their superior electronic, optical, and mechanical properties. However, as with most nanomaterials, a limited production capacity and poor reproduction quality, based on the batch reaction, largely hinder their application. Here, we applied continuous-flow synthesis for the scalable and high-quality production of Ag NWs, and built a pilot-scale line for kilogram-level per day production. In addition, we found that trace quantities of water could generate sufficient vapor as a spacer under high temperature to efficiently prevent the back-flow or mixed-flow of the reaction solution. With an optimized synthetic formula, a mass production of pure Ag NWs of 36.5 g/h was achieved by a multiple-channel, continuous-flow reactor.

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