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In this work, we propose a mussel-inspired method to fabricate copper pattern on polyimide substrate by an inkjet printing method. A new type of catalytic ink containing polydopamine (PDA) and silver ammonia solution was developed, which can induce the formation of electroless copper coating. As a result, we successfully prepared copper pattern which has good adhesion by inkjet-printing. Due to the unique property of PDA that is able to adhere to almost every kind of material, this method may be applied to diverse substrates in the future.

SnO2 hollow microspheres were synthesized by a facile template-free hydrothermal method combining with an annealing process, and sodium stannate trihydrate was used as precursor. The diameter of microspheres which were composed of nanoparticles with size of about 10 nm was in the range of 200–500 nm. As anode materials for lithium ion batteries, the initial reversible capacity of SnO2 hollow microspheres electrodes reached 997 mAh g− 1. The electrodes revealed a capacity of 406.5 mAh g− 1 up to 65 cycles exhibiting high lithium storage capacity and coulomb efficiency. The superior performance of the SnO2 hollow microspheres can be mainly attributed to hollow structure and small size of SnO2 nanoparticles, which reduce volume expansion and lithium diffusion length.