Electroactive organics have attracted significant attention as electrode materials for next-generation rechargeable batteries because of their structural diversity, molecular adjustability, abundance, flexibility, environmental friendliness and low cost. To date, a large number of organic materials have been applied in a variety of energy storage devices. However, the inherent problems of organic materials, such as their dissolution in electrolytes and low electronic conductivity, have restricted the development of organic electrodes. In order to solve these problems, many groups have carried out research and remarkable progress has been made. Nevertheless, most reviews of organic electrodes have focused on the positive electrode rather than the negative electrode. This review first provides an overview of the recent work on organic anodes for Li- and Na-ion batteries. Six categories of organic anodes are summarized and discussed. Many of the key factors that influence the electrochemical performance of organic anodes are highlighted and their prospects and remaining challenges are evaluated.

To address the fossil energy crisis and environmental problems, the urgent demand for clean energy has promoted the rapid development of advanced rechargeable metal-air batteries based on the redox reaction couples of gases, such as the oxygen reduction, oxygen evolution, carbon dioxide reduction and carbon dioxide evolution reactions. High-efficiency electrocatalysts are highly desirable to enhance the conversion efficiency of these reactions for enhancing battery performance. Significant advances in single-atom catalysts (SACs) on carbon matrices have been witnessed in recent years as attractive and unique systems to improve the electrocatalytic activities for high-performance rechargeable Zn- and Li-air batteries. This review summarizes the latest achievements in the applications of carbon-supported SACs in metal-air batteries, with a particular focus on the rational design of SACs and their fundamental electrocatalytic mechanism at the atomic level. The future development and perspectives of SACs in the field of metal-air batteries are also discussed.

Perovskites are promising materials applied in new energy devices, from solar cells to battery electrodes. Under traditional experimental conditions in laboratories, the performance improvement of new energy devices is slow and limited. Artificial intelligence (AI) has recently drawn much attention in material properties prediction and new functional materials exploration. With the advent of the AI era, the methods of studying perovskites have been upgraded, thereby benefiting the energy industry. In this review, we summarize the application of AI in perovskite discovery and synthesis and its positive influence on new energy research. First, we list the advantages of AI in perovskite research and the steps of AI application in perovskite discovery, including data availability, the selection of training algorithms, and the interpretation of results. Second, we introduce a new synthesis method with high efficiency in cloud labs and explain how this platform can assist perovskite discovery. We review the use of perovskites in energy applications and illustrate that the efficiency of energy production in these fields can be significantly boosted due to the use of AI in the development process. This review aims to provide the future application prospects of AI in perovskite research and new energy generation.

Lithium oxides are the most promising cathode candidates for high-performance lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), owing to their high theoretical capacity and average working voltage, which are conducive to achieving the ultimate goal of upgrading energy density. By raising the upper limit of the cutoff voltage, we may be able to further improve both the practical capacity and average voltage of lithium oxide cathodes. Unfortunately, the high-voltage operation of these cathodes results in significant challenges, namely, reduced surface structural stability and interfacial stability with electrolytes, thus degrading the electrochemical performance. Accordingly, surface/interface modification strategies, including surface coating, electrolyte regulation, binder design, and special surface treatments, are systematically summarized and comprehensively analyzed for high-voltage lithium oxide cathode materials in this review. Furthermore, the corresponding modification mechanisms are discussed in detail to better grasp the internal mechanisms for the enhanced electrochemical performance. Based on recent progress, we further propose predictable development directions for high-performance LIBs in future practical applications. This review provides new insights into various high-voltage lithium oxide cathodes and their universal surface/interface modification strategies towards advanced next-generation LIBs with high energy and power density and long cycle life.

Zinc-ion supercapacitors (ZISCs) are recognized as one of the most promising types of energy storage devices with the advantages of high theoretical capacity and safety, nontoxicity, low cost, abundant resources (~300 times higher than lithium), and lightweight. So far, multifunctional integrated ZISCs have greatly broadened their application scenarios. In addition to enhancing the electrochemical performance via the design of advanced electrodes and electrolytes, the complex application scenarios and in-depth development of energy storage devices have resulted in higher requirements for ZISCs with multifunctional integrated applications. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no relevant review about summarizing advanced multifunctional ZISCs. In this review, various advanced multifunctional ZISCs, including micro, self-powered integrated, antifreezing, and stretchable ZISCs, are comprehensively presented to fully understand the advanced evolution of multifunctional ZISCs. The working principles and challenges of ZISCs are analyzed and the future development directions and expectations of advanced multifunctional ZISCs are discussed. This review provides significant guidance for the multifunctional development of ZISCs for future studies.

Dealloying has been an essential technique for developing nanostructured catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Self-supported active catalysts can be fabricated through an alloying-dealloying process on metal foil surfaces. This study uses a Ga-assisted alloying-dealloying strategy combined with electrooxidation and heteroatom doping to fabricate a Fe-doped Ni(OH)₂/Ni self-supported OER catalyst. We find that the surface phase compositions and dealloyed structures can be adjusted by controlling the reaction-diffusion temperature and time. The optimized O-Ni-Fe/200-3 catalyst shows an overpotential of 318 mV to activate a 10 mA cm^-2 current density with a Tafel slope of 60.60 mV dec^-1. Ex-situ characterization of the catalyst proves that Fe doping promotes the formation of active NiOOH, which contributes to the excellent OER activity. This study extends the Ga-assisted alloying-dealloying strategy and demonstrates the possibility of controlling the microstructure of dealloyed materials by changing the reaction-diffusion conditions.

Alloying materials (e.g., Si, Ge, Sn, Sb, and so on) are promising anode materials for next-generation lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) due to their high capacity, suitable working voltage, earth abundance, environmental friendliness, and non-toxicity. Although some important breakthroughs have been reported recently for these materials, their dramatic volume change during alloying/dealloying causes severe pulverization, leading to poor cycling stability and safety risks. Although the nanoengineering of alloys can mitigate the volumetric expansion to some extent, there remain other drawbacks, such as low initial Columbic efficiency and volumetric energy density. Porous microscale alloys comprised of nanoparticles and nanopores inherit micro- and nanoproperties, so that volume expansion during lithiation/sodiation can be better accommodated by the porous structure to consequently release stress and improve the cycling stability. Herein, the recent progress of porous microscale alloying-type anode materials for LIBs and SIBs is reviewed by summarizing the Li and Na storage mechanisms, the challenges associated with different materials, common fabrication methods, and the relationship between the structure and electrochemical properties in LIBs and SIBs. Finally, the prospects of porous microscale alloys are discussed to provide guidance for future research and the commercial development of anode materials for LIBs and SIBs.

A major challenge in developing zinc-air batteries (ZABs) is to exploit suitable cathodes to efficiently accelerate the key electrocatalytic processes involved. Herein, a bifunctional oxygen catalytic self-supported MnO₂-based electrode is designed that displays superior oxygen reduction and evolution reaction performance over noble metal electrodes with a total overpotential of 0.69 V. In addition, the as-synthesized NiCo₂O₄@MnO₂/carbon nanotube (CNT)-Ni foam self-supported electrode can be directly used as an oxygen electrode without externally adding carbon or a binder and shows reasonable battery performance with a high peak power density of 226 mW cm^-2 and a long-term charge-discharge cycling lifetime (5 mA for 160 h). As expected, the rapid oxygen catalytic intrinsic kinetics and high battery performance of the NiCo₂O₄@MnO₂/CNTs-Ni foam electrode originates from the unique three-dimensional hierarchical structure, which effectively promotes mass transfer. Furthermore, the CNTs combined with Ni foam form a unique “meridian” conductive structure that enables rapid electron conduction. Finally, the abundant Mn³⁺ active sites activated by bimetallic ions shorten the oxygen catalytic reaction distance between the active sites and reactant and reduce the surface activity of MnO₂ for the O, OH, and OOH species. This work not only offers a high-performance bifunctional self-supported electrode for ZABs but also opens new insights into the activation of Mn-based electrodes.

Based on density functional theory, a new two-dimensional boron nitride, Pmma BN, is proposed and studied in detail for the first time. The stability of Pmma BN is demonstrated using phonon spectra, ab initio molecular dynamics simulations at 300 and 500 K, and in-plane elastic constants. The orientation dependences of the Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio show that Pmma BN has large mechanical anisotropy. Pmma BN is an indirect band gap semiconductor material with a band gap of 5.15 eV and the hole and electron effective masses have high anisotropy. The electron carrier mobilities of Pmma BN along the x and y directions are similar, while the hole carrier mobility along the y direction is more than double that along the x direction. The band gap of Pmma BN remains indirect under the effect of uniaxial tensile strain and its adjustable range reaches 0.64 eV when the uniaxial strain is applied along the x direction. When uniaxial strain is applied along the y direction, the positions of the conduction band minimum and valence band maximum change. Pmma BN under uniaxial strain shows strong optical absorption capacity in the ultraviolet region. To explore its potential clean energy applications, the thermoelectric properties of Pmma BN are also investigated.

The exploration of solid polymer-based composite electrolytes (SCPEs) that possess good safety, easy processability, and high ionic conductivity is of great significance for the development of advanced all-solid-state lithium-metal batteries (ASSLMBs). However, the poor interfacial compatibility between the electrode and solid electrolyte leads to a large interfacial impedance that weakens the electrochemical performance of the battery. Herein, an interpenetrating network polycarbonate (INPC)-based composite electrolyte is constructed via the in-situ polymerization of butyl acrylate, Li₇La₃Zr₂O₁₂ (LLZO), Lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulphonyl)imide, succinonitrile and 2,2-azobisisobutyronitrile on the base of a symmetric polycarbonate monomer. Benefiting from the synergistic effect of each component and the unique structure features, the INPC&LLZO-SCPE can effectively integrate the merits of the polymer and inorganic electrolytes and deliver superior ionic conductivity (3.56 × 10^-4 S cm^-1 at 25 °C), an impressive Li⁺ transference number [t(_Li+) = 0.52] and a high electrochemical stability window (up to 5.0 V vs. Li⁺/Li). Based on this, full batteries of LiFePO₄/INPC&LLZO-SCPE/Li and LiNi_0.6Co_0.2Mn_0.2O₂/INPC&LLZO-SCPE/Li are assembled, which exhibit large initial capacities of 156.3 and 158.9 mAh g^-1 and high capacity retention of 86.8% and 95.4% over 500 and 100 cycles at 0.2 and 0.1 C, respectively. This work offers a new route for the construction of novel polycarbonate-based composite electrolytes for high-voltage ASSLMBs.