Metal‐Backboned Polymers with Well‐Defined Lengths

Abstract

Constructing the backbones of polymers with metal atoms is an attractive strategy to develop new functional polymeric materials, but it has yet to be studied due to synthetic challenges. Here, metal atoms are interconnected as the backbones of polymers to yield metal‐backboned polymers (MBPs). Rational design of multidentate ligands synthesized via an efficient iterative approach leads to the successful construction of a series of nickel‐backboned polymers (NBPs) with well‐defined lengths and up to 21 nickel atoms, whose structures are systematically confirmed. These NBPs exhibit strong and length‐depended absorption with narrow band gaps, offering promising applications in optoelectronic devices and semiconductors. We also demonstrate the high thermal stability and solution processsability of such nickel‐backboned polymers. Our results represent a new opportunity to design and synthesize a variety of new metal‐backboned polymers for promising applications in the future.

An Industrially Applicable Passivation Strategy for Significantly Improving Cyclability of Zinc Metal Anodes in Aqueous Batteries

“…Density functional theory calculations were performed to determine the interfacial interactions between Zn atoms and ZMAs. The most thermodynamically stable adsorption configurations of Zn atoms on the surfaces of the Zn, CrOOH Meanwhile, these adsorption energy values for TCCF are within the appropriate range and comparable to the reported values for indium tin oxide protection layers, [49] which achieve simultaneous strong zincophilicity and fast Zn 2+ ion migration. The present analyses of the theoretical calculations agree with the experimental results on the zincophilicity of Cr and its native oxides.…”

“…Clearly, the binding energy of the Zn atoms on the Zn(101) facet was the lowest (−0.56 eV), which was unsatisfactory for Zn adsorption and plating on the ZMAs. In sharp contrast, native Cr(III) oxides in TCCF show superior Zn affinity, as binding en-ergies of Zn-CrOOH(104), Zn-Cr 2 O 3 (101), Zn-Cr 2 O 3 (116), and Zn-Cr 2 O 3 (104) were −0.82, −0.78, −1.02, and −1.42 eV, respectively.Meanwhile, these adsorption energy values for TCCF are within the appropriate range and comparable to the reported values for indium tin oxide protection layers,[49] which achieve simultaneous strong zincophilicity and fast Zn 2+ ion migration. The present analyses of the theoretical calculations agree with the experimental results on the zincophilicity of Cr and its native oxides [36,50].…”

Double-sided engineering for space-confined reversible Zn anodes

“…Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) have been considered one of the promising alternatives for lithium-ion batteries, [1][2][3][4] due to the high safety, low cost and high theoretical specific and volumetric capacity (820 mA h g À1 and 5855 mA h cm À3 ) of Zn. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Although tremendous progress has been reported, ZIBs with long-term stabilities are only obtained by using massive Zn anodes; thus it is still challenging to achieve high specific and volumetric energy densities for long-term practical applications. [12][13][14][15][16][17] Normally, ZIBs are constructed with significant excess of zinc anode (e.g.…”

Vanadate‐Based Fibrous Electrode Materials for High Performance Aqueous Zinc Ion Batteries

“…Several strategies have been recently proposed to address these critical issues, including introduction of metal ions, composite with conductive carbon material or in situ phase transition selftransformation. [24,25] Among them, the introduction of metal ions is more effective from the economic and practical perspective, which could increase the distance between the vanadium oxide layers, thereby significantly improve the cycle performance and rate. For instance, Kundu et al [26] used Zn 0.25 V 2 O 5 •nH 2 O nanosheets as cathodes and achieved excellent rate performance and cycling stability of 1000 cycles.…”