Lithium metal battery has great development potential because of its lowest electrochemical potential and highest theoretical capacity. However, the uneven deposition of Li⁺ flux in the process of deposition and stripping induces the vigorous growth of lithium dendrites, which results in severely battery performance degradation and serious safety hazards. Here, the tetragonal BaTiO₃ polarized by high voltage corona was used to build an artificial protective layer with uniform positive polarization direction, which enables uniform Li⁺ flux. In contrast to traditional strategies of using protective layer, which can guide the uniform deposition of lithium metal. The ferroelectric protective layer can accurately anchor the Li⁺ and achieve bottom deposition of lithium due to the automatic adjustment of the electric field. Simultaneously, the huge volume changes caused by Li⁺ migration change of the lithium metal anode during charging and discharging is functioned to excite the piezoelectric effect of the protective layer, and achieve seamless dynamic tuning of lithium deposition/stripping. This dynamic effect can accurately anchor and capture Li⁺. Finally, the layer-modified Li anode enables reversible Li plating/stripping over 1500 h at 1 mA cm⁻² and 50 ℃ in symmetric cells. In addition, the assembled Li-S full cell exhibits over 300 cycles with N/P ≈ 1.35. This work provides a new perspective on the uniform Li⁺ flux at the Li-anode interface of the artificial protective layer.

Seawater electrolysis is an extremely attractive approach for harvesting clean hydrogen energy, but detrimental chlorine species (i.e., chloride and hypochlorite) cause severe corrosion at the anode. Here, we report our recent finding that benzoate anions-intercalated NiFe-layered double hydroxide nanosheet on carbon cloth (BZ-NiFe-LDH/CC) behaves as a highly efficient and durable monolithic catalyst for alkaline seawater oxidation, affords enlarged interlayer spacing of LDH, inhibits chlorine (electro)chemistry, and alleviates local pH drop of the electrode. It only needs an overpotential of 320 mV to reach a current density of 500 mA·cm^–2 in 1 M KOH. In contrast to the fast activity decay of NiFe-LDH/CC counterpart during long-term electrolysis, BZ-NiFe-LDH/CC achieves stable 100-h electrolysis at an industrial-level current density of 500 mA·cm^–2 in alkaline seawater. Operando Raman spectroscopy studies further identify structural changes of disordered δ (Ni^III-O) during the seawater oxidation process.

Electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) provides an attractive alternative to anthraquinone process for H₂O₂ synthesis. Rational design of earth-abundant electrocatalysts for H₂O₂ synthesis via a two-electron ORR process in acids is attractive but still very challenging. In this work, we report that nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes as a multi-functional support for CoSe₂ nanoparticles not only keep CoSe₂ nanoparticles well dispersed but alter the crystal structure, which in turn improves the overall catalytic behaviors and thereby renders high O₂-to-H₂O₂ conversion efficiency. In 0.1 M HClO₄, such CoSe₂@NCNTs hybrid delivers a high H₂O₂ selectivity of 93.2% and a large H₂O₂ yield rate of 172 ppm·h⁻¹ with excellent durability up to 24 h. Moreover, CoSe₂@NCNTs performs effectively for organic dye degradation via electro-Fenton process.

Heteroatom doping is one of the most promising strategies toward regulating intrinsically sluggish electronic conductivity and kinetic reaction of transition metal oxides for enhancing their lithium storage. Herein, we designed phosphorus-doped NiMoO₄ nanorods (P-NiMoO₄) by using a facile hydrothermal method and subsequent low-temperature phosphorization treatment. Phosphorus doping played an indispensable role in significantly improving electronic conductivity and the Li⁺ diffusion kinetics of NiMoO₄ materials. Experimental investigation and density functional theory calculation demonstrated that phosphorus doping can expand the interplanar spacing and alter electronic structures of NiMoO₄ nanorods. Meanwhile, the introduced phosphorus dopant can generate some oxygen vacancies on the surface of NiMoO₄, which can accelerate Li⁺ diffusion kinetics and provide more active site for lithium storage. As excepted, P-NiMoO₄ electrode delivered a high specific capacity (1, 130 mAh·g⁻¹ at 100 mA·g⁻¹ after 100 cycles), outstanding cycling durability (945 mAh·g⁻¹ at 500 mA·g⁻¹ over 200 cycles), and impressive rate performance (640 mAh·g⁻¹ at 2, 000 mA·g⁻¹) for lithium ion batteries (LIBs). This work could provide a potential strategy for improving intrinsic conductivity of transition metal oxides as high-performance anodes for LIBs.