Search

Branch chain-rich diisopropyl ether (DIPE) was selected as co-solvent of low-temperature electrolyte for lithium metal battery.The introduction of DIPE improved the disorder of electrolyte and the branch chains from DIPE exclude other solvents from the Li+solvent sheath, thereby achieving a rapid desolvation process.The electrolyte guaranteed a uniform Li stripping and deposition during cycling at both room temperature and low temperature and ensured stable cycling performance for Li||LFP cells over 650 cycles at − 20 °C.

Rechargeable batteries are widely used to power various electronic devices. However, their toxic components cause serious environmental pollution when discarded. To date, the toxicity characteristics of rechargeable batteries do not meet the requirements for implantable medical devices. Herein, we report an organic cathode using tannin-protonated polyaniline (Tannin-PANI). As “green proton reservoirs”, plant-derived tannins continuously supply H+to maintain high electrochemical activity and excellent reversibility of Tannin-PANI. Hence, the Tannin-PANI-based cathode exhibited a capacity of 92.8 mAh g−1after 1500 cycles at 10.0 A g−1. Moreover, it demonstrated long-term stability for more than 10,000 cycles in bacterial cellulose-based gel electrolyte. Further, the Tannin-PANI-based cathode showed excellent in vitro biocompatibility, and a pouch cell composed of the Tannin-PANI electrode had no significant impact on plant growth. This study provides further insights into the design of implantable batteries with high stability, excellent biocompatibility, and high environmental compatibility.

Regarding as a basic circuit component with special nonlinearity, memristor has been widely applied in chaotic circuits and neuromorphic circuits. However, discrete memristor (DM) has not been received much attention, yet. To this end, this paper reports a general DM model and its unified mapping model. Using the general DM model, four representations of DMs are given and their pinched hysteresis loops are exhibited. Based on the unified DM mapping model, four two-dimensional (2D) DM maps are generated and their parameter-relied and initials-relied behaviors are explored using multiple numerical measures. The results demonstrate that all the four 2D DM maps can generate hyperchaos with coexisting bi-stable or memristor initial-boosted behavior, and their sequences have excellent performance indictors. A hardware device is constructed to implement these maps and the analog voltage signals are experimentally acquired. Moreover, pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs) are designed using these DM maps and the test results show that the generated pseudo-random numbers (PRNs) have high randomness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) are promising portable and large-scale grid energy storage devices, as they are safe and economical. However, developing suitable ZIB cathode materials with excellent cycling performance characteristics remains a challenging task. Here, ammonium heptavanadate (NH4)2V7O16·3.2H2O (NHVO) nanosquares with mixed-valence V5+/V4+as a cathode are developed for high-performance ZIBs. The layered NHVO shows a capacity of 362 mA h g–1at 0.05 A g–1, with a high energy density of 263.5 W h kg–1. It exhibits an initial specific capacity of 250.7 mA h g–1at a current density of 4 A g–1and retains 255 mA h g–1capacity after 1000 charge/discharge cycles. The V7O16-based cathode was demonstrated with a phase transition to the V2O5-based cathode upon initial cycling. Moreover, the in situ generated V2O5-based cathodes show excellent electrochemical properties, which provide a different perspective on the electrochemical reaction of cathode materials for aqueous ZIBs.

Biocompatible batteries can power implantable electronic devices and have broad applications in medicine. However, the controlled degradation of implantable batteries, the impact of battery catabolites on surrounding tissues, and wireless charging designs are often overlooked. Here, we designed an implantable zinc ion battery (ZIB) using a gelatin/polycaprolactone-based composite gel electrolyte. The prepared ZIBs deliver a high specific capacity of 244.0 mA h g–1(0.5C) and long cycling stability of 300 cycles (4C). ZIBs were completely degraded within 8 weeks in rats and 30 days in a phosphate-buffered saline lipase solution, demonstrating good biocompatibility and degradability. ZIBs catabolites induced macrophage M2 polarization and exhibited anti-inflammatory properties, with mRNA levels of the M2 markers Arg-1 and CD206 up-regulated 15.8-fold and 13.4-fold, respectively, compared to the blank control group. Meanwhile, the expressions of two typical osteogenic markers, osteopontin and osteocalcin, were up-regulated by 3.6-fold and 5.6-fold, respectively, demonstrating that designed ZIBs promoted osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells. Additionally, a wireless energy transmission module was designed using 3D printing technology to realize real-time charging of the ZIB in rats. The designed ZIB is a promising power source for implantable medical electronic devices and also serves as a functional material to accelerate bone repair.

Aqueous Zn-ion batteries (ZIBs) exhibit a great potential for large scale energy storage applications due to their low cost and safe operating conditions. However, the dendritic growth of Zn caused by the random diffusion of Zn2+ions on the Zn anode during operation shortens the cycle life of ZIBs. In this study, an ultra-trace amount of threonine (TH) was used as an electrolyte additive for the first time. Results showed that the TH molecules were adsorbed on the Zn anode surface. These molecules restricted the planar diffusion of Zn2+ions through steric effects, which effectively inhibited the hydrogen evolution reaction and suppressed the dendritic growth of Zn. The assembled Zn//Zn symmetric cell with the TH additive showed stably cycling characteristics for over 580 h at 1 mA cm−2with a capacity of 1 mAh cm−2, and the carbon cloth (CC)//Zn half-cell with the TH additive exhibited a high coulombic efficiency of 99.5%. Moreover, the Zn//CVO full cells with TH additive exhibited better capacity retention properties than the cell fabricated using the pure electrolyte. This work provides an encouraging path for development of low cost and efficient electrolyte additives for dendrite-free ZIBs.

Rechargeable aqueous zinc ion batteries based on vanadium oxides have been increasingly studied because of the low cost and high safety. However, the performance of V-based cathodes is limited mainly due to the strong interaction between intercalated zinc ions and the host structure, low electronic conductivity, phase transitions and unstable architectures upon cycling. Here, strain engineering of vanadium oxide, through oxygen vacancy and phosphate group coordination, is developed. The layered structure of vanadium oxide distorts due to the localized strain to form a “cavity”, which contributes to the abundant zinc-ion storage sites and weakens the strong interaction. The introduced oxygen defects and phosphate groups also boost charge transfer and increase the electronic conductivity of the cathode. More importantly, due to the repulsive force between the phosphate groups and OH−, the phase transitions on the cathode surface during cycling is impeded, resulting in the stable architecture. Thus, the prepared cathode exhibits a high capacity of 161.8 mA h g−1at 10 A g−1, a long cycle life (96.8% capacity retention after 3000 cycles) and an outstanding rate performance (124.3 mA h g−1at 20 A g−1). This strain engineering may provide a rational construction to promote the capacity and durability of cathodes for other advanced batteries.

The dynamical system without equilibrium point is considered having hidden dynamics. It is relatively difficult to locate the attractor in the state space as its attraction basin has nothing to do with the equilibrium point. Especially, generation of multi-scroll chaos from no-equilibrium system is a challenging task. In this paper, using sine function, a modified Sprott-A system without equilibrium point but with perpetual points is presented. In particular, this system has the conservative property of zero-sum Lyapunov exponents and thus can generate chaotic sea rather than an attractor. The locations of the scrolls of chaotic sea are found having potential relevance to the sine nonlinearities and perpetual points. Different number of scrolls can be extended only adjusting the system parameters. Three cases of five-term Sprott-A system variants with single-direction multi-scroll/multi-double-scroll chaotic sea and two-direction grid chaotic sea are demonstrated. Besides, hidden tori are found coexisting with the chaotic sea. Numerical simulations and hardware experiments both confirm the complex dynamics of the system. • Variants of Sprott-A system without equilibrium. • Perpetual point of the no-equilibrium system. • Multi-scroll and grid-scroll conservative chaos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]