Cell Reports Physical Science最新文献

Metal-ion-containing soft materials include metallogels, metal-organic frameworks, and coordination polymers. These materials show commercial value in catalysis, hydrogen storage, and electronics. Metal-containing soft materials reported to date are structurally weak, falling short of a Young’s modulus typical of engineering-grade materials. We report herein that inclusion of an antisolvent in metal-thiolate metallogel synthesis results in a colloidal sol, where the colloids comprise amorphous metal-organic complexes. Upon desolvation, the colloids coalesce to form a solid phase that is both gel like and glass like. This solid phase is structurally amorphous, comprises continuous networks similar to organic polymers, and has stiffness observed in polymeric materials with extended structure, yet contains a superstoichiometric amount of metal relative to organic ligand. The solid phase is therefore a rigid, amorphous metal-rich (RAMETRIC) material. Highlighting the rigidity, the Young’s modulus of the gel-phase material is 1,000× greater than metallogels comprised of the same constituent building blocks.

Accurate and reliable estimation of battery health is crucial for predictive health management. We report a strategy to strengthen the accuracy and generalization of battery health estimation. The model can be initially built based on one battery and then continuously updated using unlabeled data and sparse limited labeled data collected in early stages of testing batteries in different scenarios, satisfying incremental improvement in practical applications. We generate our datasets from 55 commercial pouch and prismatic batteries aged for more than 116,000 cycles under various scenarios. Our model achieves a root mean-square error of 1.312% for the estimation of different dynamic current modes and rates and variable temperature conditions over the entire lifespan using partial charging data. Our model is interpreted by the post hoc strategy with unbiased hidden features, prevents catastrophic forgetting, and supports estimation using data collected in 3 min during ultra-fast charging with errors of less than 2.8%.

Sorption-based atmospheric water harvesting (SAWH) is recognized as a promising strategy for extracting atmospheric moisture to provide arid regions with potable water. As appropriate sorbents are crucial for efficient SAWH, many novel sorbents have been developed in recent years. However, the lack of benchmarks prevents the accurate evaluation of sorbents’ performance for system-oriented and location-/climate-specific selection. Herein, reliable models are established to analyze the global SAWH potential of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) in terms of practical water yields and energy requirements for passive and active SAWH, respectively. Moreover, geospatial guidance of the efficient MOF-assisted AWH deployment is provided based on a thermodynamic framework in combination with high-resolution global weather data throughout a year with seasonal climate variation. Overall, this study establishes benchmarks for location- and climate-specific adsorbents that will expand the application of sorbent-assisted water-harvesting technologies in effective off-grid water-supply systems in water-scarce regions.

Tuning the coordination number and coordinating atoms is a general strategy to control the activity of single-atom catalysts; however, this method has encountered bottlenecks in investigating the atomically dispersed Ni-N-C catalysts for efficient electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction (eCO₂RR). Herein, we propose a strategy by modulating a ligand-conjugated structure to improve the activity of Ni-based single-atom catalysts without changing the coordinated atoms and coordination numbers. In the pyrrole-type Ni-N-C catalyst (Ni-N_Pyrrolic-C), the electron-donating conjugation effect of the pyrrole ligand reduces the electron cloud density on the N atom, resulting in stronger electron depletion around the active center Ni atom and thereby improving activity of CO₂ electroreduction to CO. The Ni-N_Pyrrolic-C possesses a notable CO partial current density of 415 mA cm⁻² with 92% CO Faradaic efficiency (FE) at a moderate potential of −0.85 V in gas diffusion electrodes (GDEs), which outperforms the pyridinic-type Ni-N-C catalyst (Ni-N_Pyridinic-C) with electron-withdrawing conjugation effect ligands.

Two-dimensional Ruddlesden-Popper perovskites (2D-RPPs) have emerged as promising candidates for efficient solar cells. However, compositional complexity and their multiphase nature make them particularly susceptible to strain, which can have detrimental effects on their device performance and stability. Here, we focus on cyclohexane methylamine (CMA)-based 2D-RPPs and modulate the strain by substituting iodide with bromide. These mixed-halide 2D-RPPs show excellent optical properties, with mixability and tunable band gap. As the substitution ratio increases, the 2D-RPP framework undergoes a sudden rearrangement in crystal lattice, effectively releasing the strain in lattices. Benefiting from the strain relaxation, the 2D-RPPs exhibit evident improvement in crystallinity, which significantly suppresses recombination in the device and enhances carrier transport across it. Consequently, we achieve an increase of 1.15% in efficiency with the strain-released devices containing (CMA)₂MA₈Pb₉I_26.4Br_1.6. This device shows significantly improved stability, retaining 93% of the initial efficiency after exposure to 55%–85% relative humidity (RH) for 120 days.

Hydrogels typically contain large amounts of water (>80 wt %) and suffer from limitations inherent to high water content, including rapid dehydration under ambient conditions and limited mechanical properties. Herein, inspired by the low water content and stable performance of human epidermis, we report a low-water-content polyelectrolyte hydrogel (i.e., L-hydrogel) that mimics the composition of the human epidermal stratum corneum by employing an integrated hydrophobic/hydrophilic network design. The low water content of L-hydrogels (<12 wt %) leads to superior self-healing capability with a healing efficiency of ∼100%, strength and modulus approaching ∼1 MPa, skin-like fracture toughness (3,390 J/m²), and strong natural adhesions (∼120–1,300 N/m) to both wet and dry surfaces. L-hydrogels also possess stable water content and mechanical properties over time under ambient conditions, enabling long-lasting stable functionality for various types of triboelectric nanogenerators and ionic skins. L-hydrogels hold promise for long-term practical applications in soft ionotronics under ambient conditions.

Safe and reliable fast charging of lithium-ion batteries is contingent upon the development of facile methods of detection and quantification of lithium plating. Among the leading candidates for online lithium plating detection is analysis of the voltage plateau observed during the rest or discharge phase ensuing a charge. In this work, an operando metric, “S-factor,” is developed from electrochemical data to quantitatively analyze the severity of lithium plating over a range of charge rates and temperatures. An in situ visualization method is employed to study the physical mechanisms and phase transitions occurring at the graphite electrode during the voltage plateau. Here, we report that plated electrodes with significant state of charge heterogeneity exhibit multiple voltage plateaus and a higher proportion of irreversible plating. Cell characterization using S-factor and coulombic inefficiency helps in identifying the zone of opportunity with highly reversible lithium plating, facilitating development of safe and reliable fast-charging algorithms.

The storage of COVID-19 vaccines at low temperatures leads to the rising demand of ultra-low-temperature (ULT; between −40°C and −86°C) freezers. Current commercial ULT freezers are usually of large capacity and high cost and thus can be prohibitive for personal use. Cheaper, smaller-size ULT freezers would effectively address the needs of most point-of-use cold storage. Current portable freezers are mainly powered by thermoelectric modules. However, they require five or six stages to cool from room temperature to −70°C with their low cooling capacity. In this work, we develop a small-size, low-cost, two-stage thermoelectric freezer in combination with a conventional compressor-based household freezer to reach −70°C. Our design combines the high coefficient of performance provided by a vapor compressor and the accurate temperature control of Peltier coolers. The demonstrated hybrid ULT freezer could facilitate the transportation and storage of clinical products around the world and make vaccines more accessible to people in remote areas.

Sound waves carry abundant physical information essential for environmental perception. Traditional sensor-array-based sound-source localization methods suffer from drawbacks such as large system size and complex data processing. Existing compressive-sensing imaging methods can realize sound identification, but the reliance on highly anisotropic metamaterials makes it difficult for them to achieve high-precision sound-source localization with relatively regular low-loss devices. Inspired by the Nautilus structure, we propose a bionic metamaterial multi-information fusion compressed-sensing acoustic imaging device for sound localization and identification. By imitating the spiral geometry of the Nautilus, the regular metamaterial design strategy reduces the structural complexity and the sound loss. We introduce a multi-information fusion method to decrease anisotropic reliance and enhance compressed-sensing acoustic imaging capabilities. The proposed positioning device can identify multiple broadband sound sources with a high identification success rate even in noisy environments, which shows wide application prospects in medical inspection and human-computer interaction.

Iron-based selenides are considered one of the most promising candidates for anode materials in potassium-ion batteries due to their impressive theoretical capacities. However, the challenges of enormous volume expansion and low intrinsic conductivity result in suboptimal electrochemical performance. Here, an iron selenide (Fe₇Se₈) with a yolk-shell structure (Fe₇Se₈/C@NC) is designed that effectively improves structural stability, relieves volume expansion, enhances ionic conductivity via carbon-shell construction, and prevents architecture damage caused by Fe₇Se₈ aggregation. Because of these advantages, the electrode presents a satisfactory cycling stability (206.6 mAh g⁻¹ after 3,200 cycles at 1 A g⁻¹) and an excellent rate capacity (205.2 mAh g⁻¹ at 5 A g⁻¹). In situ X-ray diffraction and ex situ transmission electron microscopy characterizations elucidate the potassium storage mechanism of Fe₇Se₈. The electrochemical performance of the composites positions them as promising electrode materials.