To address the persistent challenges of dendrite growth, hydrogen evolution, and corrosion in aqueous Zn-ion batteries, this study demonstrates the construction of a zincophilic-hydrophobic TiO₂ interfacial layer on the Zn anode. This was achieved by grafting hydrophobic methacryloxypropyl groups (CH₂ ＝ C(CH₃)COO(CH₂)₃—) onto nano-TiO₂ via the silane coupling agent (KH570). The grafted hydrocarbon chains act as a hydrophobic barrier, impeding H₂O diffusion and promoting the desolvation of hydrated Zn²⁺ to suppress side reactions. Simultaneously, the abundant Ti—OH groups on TiO₂ serve as zincophilic sites, increasing local Zn²⁺ concentration and facilitating uniform deposition. The modified Zn anode exhibited a transition from hydrophilic (79°) to hydrophobic (105°) wetting behavior and a significantly reduced charge-transfer resistance. Consequently, it delivered exceptional cycling stability exceeding 800 hours at 1 mA·cm^-2 and 1 mAh·cm^-2. This work provides a novel interfacial design strategy for high-performance zinc anodes.

Antibiotics are widely used in medicine, aquaculture and animal husbandry as a preventive and curative medicine for bacterial infections in humans and animals. Antibiotics that are not absorbed by organisms are discharged into the aquatic environment and are present in water bodies and sediments. Due to their antimicrobial properties, photodegradation has become an important mode of degradation of antibiotics in natural aquatic environments, including direct photolysis, self-sensitized photolysis and indirect photolysis. The photolysis of antibiotics in natural aquatic environments is affected by many environmental factors, and dissolved substances (dissolved organic matter DOM, halide ions, HCO₃^-/CO₃^2-, NO₃^-/NO₂^-, and Fe³⁺, etc.) have a dual role in their indirect photolysis: On the one hand, they may promote the indirect photolysis of antibiotics by facilitating the generation of reactive intermediates (including triple excited state solvated organic matter ³DOM^*, other reactive oxygen species ROS, etc.), and on the other hand, they may inhibit the indirect photolysis through light shielding, bursting or scavenging of ROS, and hindering electron transfer; pH affects the photodegradation of antibiotics by influencing the protonation states of the antibiotics and the steady-state concentration of ROS. Photodegradation pathways vary greatly among different types of antibiotics: hydroxylation, demethylation, dehydration (or deamination, defluorination, decarboxylation, removal of SO₂, dehydrogenation, etc.), and direct cleavage for bond breaking, rearrangement, and ring opening may occur. Finally, this paper suggests that the research on photodegradation of antibiotics in the aqueous environment should be further strengthened to study the photodegradation process of antibiotics in sediments, at environmental concentrations, and under multifactorial effects, and to develop environmentally friendly methods to treat antibiotics in the environment.

The green synthesis of nitrate (NO₃⁻) via electrocatalytic nitrogen oxidation reaction (NOR) is a promising strategy for artificial nitrogen fixation, which shows great advantages than traditional nitrate synthesis based on Haber–Bosch and Ostwald processes. But the poor N₂ absorption, high bond energy of N≡N (941 kJ·mol⁻¹), and competing multi-electron-transfer oxygen evolution reaction (OER) limit the activity and selectivity. Herein, we fabricated MXene-derived irregular TiO_2−x nanoparticles anchored Cu nanowires (Cu-NWs) electrode for efficient electrocatalytic nitrogen oxidation, which exhibits a NO₃⁻ yield of 62.50 μg·h⁻¹·mg_cat⁻¹ and a Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 22.04%, and a significantly enhanced NO₃⁻ yield of 92.63 μg·h⁻¹·mg_cat⁻¹, and a FE of 40.58% under vacuum assistance. The TiO_2−x/Cu-NWs electrode also shows excellent reproducibility and stability under optimal experimental conditions. Moreover, a Zn-N₂ reaction device was assembled with TiO_2−x/Cu-NWs as an anode and Zn plate as a cathode, obtaining an extremely high NO₃⁻ yield of 156.25 µg·h⁻¹·mg_cat⁻¹. The Zn-nitrate battery shows an open circuit voltage (OCV) of 1.35 V. This work provides novel strategies for enhancing the performance of ambient N₂ oxidation to obtain higher NO₃⁻ yield.