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A solid-ink rubbing technology (SIR-tech) based on liquid-metal coated graphite particles is proposed to achieve robust metal-like conductive coating onto various substrates, including woods, ceramics, and plastics, for energy storage and harvesting applications.

Adhesive polymer electrolytes are of great interest for next-generation high-energy-density solid-state batteries but their practical applications have been blocked by extremely low ionic conductivity that is fundamentally caused by a coupling transport mechanism. Here, to boost the ionic conductivity, we propose a decoupled low-energy-barrier ion-hopping mechanism that is realized by surface absorption from nanoparticles. To test this model, Al2O3nanoparticles are composited with a fully amorphous and adhesive ultrahigh-molecular-weight poly(ethylene oxide) (UHMWPEO)–Li+complex. It is found that the ion conductivity can be improved to 9.94 ± 1.57 × 10–5S cm–1at 20 °C, ca. about 20 times of the pure complex electrolyte. Meanwhile, the ion-hopping energy barrier is reduced by 67%, yielding a low activation energy of 0.25 eV. This phenomenon is further explained by the nanoabsorption effects on shrinking the free volume (the hopping distance) and stabilizing the hopping sites. Further, the strong nanoabsorption effects also notably improve the mechanical properties as well as the electrochemical stability of the resultant nanocomposite electrolyte. When the adhesive composite electrolyte is coated onto a commercial separator, it effectively improves the stability of Li metal and the cycling performance lasts for 2000 h before its failure, demonstrating the potential applications in Li–metal batteries.

Solid oxide electrolytic cells (SOECs) are a sustainable solution for carbon-neutral applications due to their property of simultaneously removing excess carbon dioxide from the air and producing valuable chemicals. However, the unsatisfactory cathodic catalytic activity has been hindering the popularization of this technology. In this work, we anchored FeCu alloy nanoparticles on the surface of perovskite cathode (La0.7Sr0.3Cr0.5Mn0.5(FeCu)xO3−δ, LSCM(FC)x, x= 0, 0.025, 0.05, 0.075, and 0.1) by overdoping Fe and Cu at the B-site and reduction pretreatment to establish a stable metal–oxide active interface, which promoted the CO2adsorption and decomposition, thus achieving the optimization of catalytic performance and carbon deposition resistance. The LSCM(FC)0.075prepared in the study exhibited higher catalytic activity (CO productivity up to 4.41 mL min–1cm–2and 98.1% Faradaic current efficiency at 1.6 V and 850 °C), in contrast to its CO yield which was 2.6 times that of the untreated LSCM. Furthermore, the current was maintained stably during up to 100 h of testing, and the LSCM(FC)0.075-SDC electrode structure was not altered with no obvious degradation in performance. This new design of the SOEC cathode material will therefore have great potential for development.

Animals create high-performance fibers at natural ambient conditions via a unique spinning process. In contrast, the spinning technologies developed by human beings are usually clumsy and require sophisticated skills. Here, inspired by adhesion-based silkworm spinning, we report a microadhesion guided (MAG) spinning technology for instant and on-demand fabrication of micro/nanofibers. Enabled by the adhesion between the spinning fluids and the microneedles, the MAG spinning can generate micro/nanofibers with programmable morphology. By further mimicking the head movement of the silkworm spinning, the MAG technology is extended with three different modes: straight, vibratory, and twisted spinning, which generate oriented fibers, hierarchical cross-linked fibers, and all-in-one fibers, respectively. Due to the prevalence of microadhesion and its unprecedented flexibility in operation, equipment-free MAG spinning is finally realized for instant fiber fabrication by only polymeric foams. Finally, the MAG spinning is demonstrated as a promising instant technology for emergent applications, such as wound dressing.