Instant, simultaneous oxidation and polymerization approach is developed to prepare polymer cluster based hydrogels with aromatic acids as supramolecular cross-linkers. The optimized hydrogel displays excellent mechanical and electrical performance including ultrafast self-healing, superstretchability, high uniformity, and conductivity, which satisfactorily serves as strain sensors with high sensitivity and temperature tolerance even under water.

Pyridinic-N as highly active metal-free coordination sites enable favorable microbe adsorption and reduced electron transfer barrier at the biotic-abiotic interface for efficient bio-electrochemical CO₂ reduction.

Manganese acetate allowed porous carbon nanofibers (PCNFs) to grow a large number of hollow carbon nanorods (HCNRs) and well dispersed MnF₂ nanodots. MnF₂ surface-modulated HCNRs can strongly enhance ORR activity, and the uniformly dispersed MnF₂ can also provide higher OER activity. Thus, the prepared HCNRs/MnF₂@PCNFs obtains efficient bifunctional oxygen catalytic ability and high performance rechargeable ZABs.

This study presents a simple, large-scale method for crafting Co_1-xS nanoparticles embedded in N-doped carbon/graphene (CSCG). The outstanding CSCG performance arises from unique structural features. The addition of rGO buffers volume changes, preventing Co_1-xS crushing/aggregation, and ensuring prolonged cycle life. Combined with density functional theory calculation, Co-vacancies increase active sites, and N-doping improves adsorption energy. This work introduces an effective structural engineering strategy.

The desolvation of solvated Zn²⁺ ions is crucial for achieving dendrite-suppressive Zn anodes in high-performance aqueous zinc-ion batteries. The investigation of ZnO nanoflakes (NFs), which create artificial layers on Zn anodes, offers surfaces that are not only more polar than nanorods (NRs) morphologies but also enhance strong interactions with water molecules for exceptional hydrophilicity, facilitating the formation of ohmic contacts for efficient electron transport during Zn²⁺ plating/stripping processes.