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This work achieves high-performance Sn-based anode by the synergistic effect of carbon nanotubes and porous amorphous carbon layer to limit the volumetric expansion of SnS2and prevent its detachment.

This review provides a comprehensive overview on the challenges of zinc metal anodes, and highlights their various modification methods and coating materials, offering some insights and suggestions to facilitate their future development.

A self-sacrificing templated strategy was proposed to controllably design LiNi0.1Co0.9O2materials, during which optimal morphological features and amended microstructure induced by Ni doping facilitated enhanced structural robustness, thereby favoring the prolonged cycling lifespan in half/full cell tests.

A speedy reinforcement learning (RL)-based energy management strategy (EMS) is proposed for fuel cell hybrid vehicles (FCHVs) in this research, which approaches near-optimal results with a fast convergence rate based on a pre-initialization framework and meanwhile possesses the ability to extend the fuel cell system (FCS) lifetime. In the pre-initialization framework, well-designed power distribution-related rules are used to pre-initialize the Q-table of the RL algorithm to expedite its optimization process. Driving cycles are modeled as Markov processes and the FCS power difference between adjacent moments is used to evaluate the impact on the FCS lifetime in this research. The proposed RL-based EMS is trained on three driving cycles and validated on another driving cycle. Simulation results demonstrate that the average fuel consumption difference between the proposed EMS and the EMS based on dynamic programming is 5.59% on the training driving cycles and the validation driving cycle. Additionally, the power fluctuation on the FCS is reduced by at least 13% using the proposed EMS compared to the conventional RL-based EMS which does not consider the FCS lifetime. This is significantly beneficial for improving the FCS lifetime. Furthermore, compared to the conventional RL-based EMS, the convergence speed of the proposed EMS is increased by 69% with the pre-initialization framework, which presents the potential for real-time applications.

A solar cell, capable of directly converting solar energy into electricity, bears a Shockley-Queisser limit of about 31% based on a single pn junction. In general, less than 50% of the solar irradiation spectrum (mostly in the ultraviolet and visible regions) can be utilized for the conversion. As such, the theoretical utilization rate is less than 15% in a single device, with most of the extra energy being lost as heat. It is thus appealing to enhance the energy utilization with devices that could collect the heat loss. In this study, we design and demonstrate a solar tube to realize photo-electric and photo-thermal conversions simultaneously. The key point is the use of titanium tube: (1) it has a small plasma frequency to enable wide absorption for thermal conversion; (2) it accommodates TiO2nanotube arrays to solve the cracking problem under tensile stress. A sandwiched membrane of high transparency and conductivity is developed for hole transport and collection. Eventually, a total energy efficiency of about 25.2% is obtained. Such a solar tube is anticipated to highly boost the utilization rate of solar energy with judiciously designed structure.