ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces最新文献

Membrane fouling from dispersed droplets during water/oil separation undermines performance and limits long-term use. Additionally, there is an urgent need for flame-retardant fibrous membranes capable of purifying high-temperature polluted oils. Inspired by the binary structure of taro leaves, this study introduces a novel fibrous membrane with both antifouling and flame-retardant properties for water/oil treatment. Eco-friendly cellulose acetate (CA) and multifunctional thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) were used to construct a microfiber-based substrate membrane via electrospinning. A TPU/ammonium polyphosphate (APP) nanofiber layer with a beads-on-string structure was then electrosprayed onto the substrate as a functional layer. This binary-structured composite membrane leverages the adhesive properties of TPU within both the base microfibers and the functional nanofibers, enhancing stability and structural integrity. The functional layer's re-entrant structure effectively prevents dispersed droplets from adhering under the continuous phase, enabling efficient separation performance in both oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsions. The membrane demonstrated strong antifouling properties and excellent recyclability, maintaining stable flux and a consistently high separation efficiency (>99.6%) across multiple cycles. Additionally, its flame-retardant properties allowed the membrane to self-extinguish when removed from direct flame. This study presents a novel strategy for fabricating multifunctional separation membranes, with detailed analysis of the underlying mechanisms.

Interfacial mechanical stability between silicon (Si) and the current collector is crucial when high areal-loading of Si is demanded as intense stress develops at the interface due to its extreme volume alteration during the lithiation-delithiation process. Therefore, we propose using a thin, rough, porous, and highly conductive carbon nanotube network (CNT-N) as a buffer layer between the Si and current collector that provides abundant anchor sites for Si nanoparticles. The strong and elastic CNT-N, which is not involved directly in the lithiation process, reduces stress at interfaces between the Si and CNT-N and the CNT-N and current collector. We successfully fabricated a Si anode and NMC cathode with areal loadings of 6.13 mg cm^-2 (7.65 mA h cm^-2 at 1 mA cm^-2) and ∼80 mg cm^-2 (∼17 mA h cm^-2 at 1 mA cm^-2), respectively. Besides, a full cell composed of the Si anode (W_Si+CNTs = 6.13 mg cm^-2) and NMC cathode (W_NMC = 35 mg cm^-2) at 1 mA cm^-2 exhibited an initial Coulombic efficiency (ICE) and capacity of 85.1% and 7.14 mA h cm^-2, respectively. Despite the cell's continuous capacity fade (∼4 mA h cm^-2 at 100th cycle), the bilayer design may pave the way for achieving high areal-loading Si-based anodes for high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries.

Floating-gate transistors (FGTs), considered the most promising structure among three-terminal van der Waals (vdW) synaptic transistors, possess superiorities in improved data retention, excellent endurance properties, and multibit storage capacity, thereby overcoming the von Neumann bottleneck in conventional computing architectures. However, the dielectric layer in FGT devices typically depends on atomic layer deposition or mechanically transferred insulators, posing several challenges in terms of device compatibility, manufacturing complexity, and performance degradation. Therefore, it is crucial to discover dielectrics compatible with two-dimensional (2D) materials for further simplifying FGT structures and achieving optimal performance. Here, we present a controllable and reliable oxidation process to convert the 2D semiconductor ZrS₂ into its native oxide ZrO_x and combine ZrO_x/ZrS₂ with the MoS₂ channel to form MoS₂/ZrO_x/ZrS₂ FGT, which exhibits a high on/off ratio of 10⁷, a wide memory window of 101 V, a long retention time of 10³ s, a large storage capacity of 7 bits, an excellent PPF index of 269.4%, and low power consumption of 5 pJ. Under photoelectric stimulation, the device stimulates various biological synapse behaviors, including associative memory function and retina-like adaptation. In particular, the device achieves information storage and erasure under solely optical stimulation, exhibiting high consistency with synaptic weight modulation in optogenetics and outstanding optoelectronic storage performance. These results suggest that our work provides a novel and effective approach for simplifying FGT structures and enhancing their performance, holding significant potential for application in next-generation multifunctional memory devices and systems.