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Lithium metal has been regarded as the future anode material for high-energy-density rechargeable batteries due to its favorable combination of negative electrochemical potential and high theoretical capacity. However, uncontrolled lithium deposition during lithium plating/stripping results in low Coulombic efficiency and severe safety hazards. Herein, we report that nanodiamonds work as an electrolyte additive to co-deposit with lithium ions and produce dendrite-free lithium deposits. First-principles calculations indicate that lithium prefers to adsorb onto nanodiamond surfaces with a low diffusion energy barrier, leading to uniformly deposited lithium arrays. The uniform lithium deposition morphology renders enhanced electrochemical cycling performance. The nanodiamond-modified electrolyte can lead to a stable cycling of lithium | lithium symmetrical cells up to 150 and 200 h at 2.0 and 1.0 mA cm –2 , respectively. The nanodiamond co-deposition can significantly alter the lithium plating behavior, affording a promising route to suppress lithium dendrite growth in lithium metal-based batteries. Lithium metal is an ideal anode material for rechargeable batteries but suffer from the growth of lithium dendrites and low Coulombic efficiency. Here the authors show that nanodiamonds serve as an electrolyte additive to co-deposit with lithium metal and suppress the formation of dendrites.

Various methods have been exploited to replicate nacre features into artificial structural materials with impressive structural and mechanical similarity. However, it is still very challenging to produce nacre-mimetics in three-dimensional bulk form, especially for further scale-up. Herein, we demonstrate that large-sized, three-dimensional bulk artificial nacre with comprehensive mimicry of the hierarchical structures and the toughening mechanisms of natural nacre can be facilely fabricated via a bottom-up assembly process based on laminating pre-fabricated two-dimensional nacre-mimetic films. By optimizing the hierarchical architecture from molecular level to macroscopic level, the mechanical performance of the artificial nacre is superior to that of natural nacre and many engineering materials. This bottom-up strategy has no size restriction or fundamental barrier for further scale-up, and can be easily extended to other material systems, opening an avenue for mass production of high-performance bulk nacre-mimetic structural materials in an efficient and cost-effective way for practical applications. Artificial materials that replicate the mechanical properties of nacre represent important structural materials, but are difficult to produce in bulk. Here, the authors exploit the bottom-up assembly of 2D nacre-mimetic films to fabricate 3D bulk artificial nacre with an optimized architecture and excellent mechanical properties.

Enhancing the spatial resolution of hyperspectral image (HSI) is of significance for applications. Fusing HSI with a high resolution (HR) multispectral image (MSI) is an important technology for HSI enhancement. Inspired by the success of deep learning in image enhancement, in this paper, we propose a HSI-MSI fusion method by designing a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) with two branches which are devoted to features of HSI and MSI. In order to exploit spectral correlation and fuse the MSI, we extract the features from the spectrum of each pixel in low resolution HSI, and its corresponding spatial neighborhood in MSI, with the two CNN branches. The extracted features are then concatenated and fed to fully connected (FC) layers, where the information of HSI and MSI could be fully fused. The output of the FC layers is the spectrum of the expected HR HSI. In the experiment, we evaluate the proposed method on Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS), and Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) data. We also apply it to real Hyperion-Sentinel data fusion. The results on the simulated and the real data demonstrate that the proposed method is competitive with other state-of-the-art fusion methods.

The discovery of moiré superlattices (MSLs) opened an era in the research of ‘twistronics’. Engineering MSLs and realizing unique emergent properties are key challenges. Herein, we demonstrate an effective synthetic strategy to fabricate MSLs based on mechanical flexibility of WS 2 nanobelts by a facile one-step hydrothermal method. Unlike previous MSLs typically created through stacking monolayers together with complicated method, WS 2 MSLs reported here could be obtained directly during synthesis of nanobelts driven by the mechanical instability. Emergent properties are found including superior conductivity, special superaerophobicity and superhydrophilicity, and strongly enhanced electro-catalytic activity when we apply ‘twistronics’ to the field of catalytic hydrogen production. Theoretical calculations show that such excellent catalytic performance could be attributed to a closer to thermoneutral hydrogen adsorption free energy value of twisted bilayers active sites. Our findings provide an exciting opportunity to design advanced WS 2 catalysts through moiré superlattice engineering based on mechanical flexibility. Expanding the available materials with moiré superlattices is interesting but also challenging. Here the authors use a one-step hydrothermal approach to synthesis WS 2 moiré superlattices with high catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction

The scalable and sustainable manufacture of thick electrode films with high energy and power densities is critical for the large-scale storage of electrochemical energy for application in transportation and stationary electric grids. Two-dimensional nanomaterials have become the predominant choice of electrode material in the pursuit of high energy and power densities owing to their large surface-area-to-volume ratios and lack of solid-state diffusion 1 , 2 . However, traditional electrode fabrication methods often lead to restacking of two-dimensional nanomaterials, which limits ion transport in thick films and results in systems in which the electrochemical performance is highly dependent on the thickness of the film 1 – 4 . Strategies for facilitating ion transport—such as increasing the interlayer spacing by intercalation 5 – 8 or introducing film porosity by designing nanoarchitectures 9 , 10 —result in materials with low volumetric energy storage as well as complex and lengthy ion transport paths that impede performance at high charge–discharge rates. Vertical alignment of two-dimensional flakes enables directional ion transport that can lead to thickness-independent electrochemical performances in thick films 11 – 13 . However, so far only limited success 11 , 12 has been reported, and the mitigation of performance losses remains a major challenge when working with films of two-dimensional nanomaterials with thicknesses that are near to or exceed the industrial standard of 100 micrometres. Here we demonstrate electrochemical energy storage that is independent of film thickness for vertically aligned two-dimensional titanium carbide (Ti 3 C 2 T x ), a material from the MXene family (two-dimensional carbides and nitrides of transition metals (M), where X stands for carbon or nitrogen). The vertical alignment was achieved by mechanical shearing of a discotic lamellar liquid-crystal phase of Ti 3 C 2 T x . The resulting electrode films show excellent performance that is nearly independent of film thickness up to 200 micrometres, which makes them highly attractive for energy storage applications. Furthermore, the self-assembly approach presented here is scalable and can be extended to other systems that involve directional transport, such as catalysis and filtration. Electrode films prepared from a liquid-crystal phase of vertically aligned two-dimensional titanium carbide show electrochemical energy storage that is nearly independent of film thickness.

Current polyamide lithium extraction nanofiltration membranes are susceptible to chlorine degradation and/or low permeance, two problems that are hard to reconcile. Here we simultaneously circumvented these problems by designing a quaternized-spiro piperazine monomer and translating its beneficial properties into large-area membranes (1 × 2 m 2 ) via interfacial polymerization with trimesoyl chloride. The quaternary ammonium and spiral conformation of the monomer confer more positive charge and free volume to the membrane, leading to one of the highest permeance (~22 L m −2 h −1 bar −1 ) compared to the state-of-the-art Mg 2+ /Li + nanofiltration membranes. Meanwhile, membrane structures are chlorine resistant as the amine–acyl bonding contains no sensitive N-H group. Thus the high performance of membrane is stable versus 400-h immersion in sodium hypochlorite, while control membranes degraded readily. Molecular simulations show that the high permeance and chlorine resistance, which were reproducible at the membrane module level, arise from the spiral conformation and secondary amine structures of the monomer. It is a current challenge to design chlorine-resistant polyamide lithium extraction nanofiltration membranes with high permeance. Here the authors address this challenge and produce large-area membranes by the interfacial polymerization of a quaternized-spiro piperazine monomer and trimesoyl.

In crop plants, a high-density genetic linkage map is essential for both genetic and genomic researches. The complexity and the large size of wheat genome have hampered the acquisition of a high-resolution genetic map. In this study, we report a high-density genetic map based on an individual mapping population using the Affymetrix Wheat660K single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array as a probe in hexaploid wheat. The resultant genetic map consisted of 119 566 loci spanning 4424.4 cM, and 119 001 of those loci were SNP markers. This genetic map showed good collinearity with the 90 K and 820 K consensus genetic maps and was also in accordance with the recently released wheat whole genome assembly. The high-density wheat genetic map will provide a major resource for future genetic and genomic research in wheat. Moreover, a comparative genomics analysis among gramineous plant genomes was conducted based on the high-density wheat genetic map, providing an overview of the structural relationships among theses gramineous plant genomes. A major stable quantitative trait locus (QTL) for kernel number per spike was characterized, providing a solid foundation for the future high-resolution mapping and map-based cloning of the targeted QTL.

Electrochemical potassium ion intercalation into two-dimensional layered MoS2 was studied for the first time for potential applications in the anode in potassium-based batteries. X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that an intercalated potassium compound, hexagonal K0.4MoS2, formed during the intercalation process. Despite the size of K^＋, MoS2 was a long-life host for repetitive potassium ion intercalation and de-intercalation with a capacity retention of 97.5% after 200 cycles. The diffusion coefficient of the K^＋ ions in KxMoS2 was calculated based on the Randles-Sevcik equation. A higher K^＋ intercalation ratio not only encountered a much slower K^＋ diffusion rate in MoS2, but also induced MoS2 reduction. This study shows that metal dichalcogenides are promising potassium anode materials for emerging K-ion, K-O2, and K-S batteries.

In this paper, we propose a time-periodic reaction–diffusion model which incorporates seasonality, spatial heterogeneity and the extrinsic incubation period (EIP) of the parasite. The basic reproduction number R0 is derived, and it is shown that the disease-free periodic solution is globally attractive if R0<1, while there is an endemic periodic solution and the disease is uniformly persistent if R0>1. Numerical simulations indicate that prolonging the EIP may be helpful in the disease control, while spatial heterogeneity of the disease transmission coefficient may increase the disease burden.

Continuous and effective hydrogen evolution under high current densities remains a challenge for water electrolysis owing to the rapid performance degradation under continuous large-current operation. In this study, theoretical calculations, operando Raman spectroscopy, and CO stripping experiments confirm that Ru nanocrystals have a high resistance against deactivation because of the synergistic adsorption of OH intermediates (OH ad ) on the Ru and single atoms. Based on this conceptual model, we design the Ni single atoms modifying ultra-small Ru nanoparticle with defect carbon bridging structure (UP-RuNi SAs /C) via a unique unipolar pulse electrodeposition (UPED) strategy. As a result, the UP-RuNi SAs /C is found capable of running steadily for 100 h at 3 A cm −2 , and shows a low overpotential of 9 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm −2 under alkaline conditions. Moreover, the UP-RuNi SAs /C allows an anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyzer to operate stably at 1.95 V cell for 250 h at 1 A cm −2 . Understanding the sustained stability of alkaline hydrogen evolution at high current densities is crucial. Herein, the authors synthesize Ni single atoms, modified with ultra-small Ru nanoparticles with a defective carbon bridging structure, capable of running steadily for 100 h at 3 A cm −2 .