Electrocatalysts are key for renewable energy technologies and other important industrial processes. Currently, noble metals and metal oxides are the most widely used catalysts for electrocatalysis. ...However, metal‐based catalysts often suffer from multiple disadvantages, including high cost, low selectivity, poor durability, impurity poisoning and fuel crossover effects, and detrimental effects on the environment. Therefore, carbon‐based metal‐free catalysts have received increasing interest as promising electrocatalysts for advanced energy conversion and storage. Recently, tremendous progress has been achieved in the development of low‐cost, efficient carbon‐based metal‐free catalysts for renewable energy technologies and beyond. Here, a concise, but comprehensive and critical, review of recent advances in the field of carbon‐based metal‐free catalysts is provided. A brief overview of various reactions involved in renewable energy conversion and storage, including the oxygen reduction reaction, hydrogen evolution reaction, oxygen evolution reaction, carbon dioxide reduction reaction, nitrogen reduction reaction, and bifunctional/multifunctional electrocatalysis, along with some challenges and opportunities, is presented.
The emerging carbon‐based metal‐free catalysts have been demonstrated to be promising alternatives to noble metal/metal oxide catalysts for various reactions, including the oxygen reduction reaction, the hydrogen evolution reaction, the oxygen evolution reaction, the carbon dioxide reduction reaction, and the nitrogen reduction reaction, and for bi/multifunctional electrocatalysis. A concise, but comprehensive and critical overview of this field, including preparation strategies, mechanisms, and applications, along with some challenges and perspectives, is presented.
Lithium‐ion capacitors (LICs) are a game‐changer for high‐performance electrochemical energy storage technologies. Despite the many recent reviews on the materials development for LICs, the design ...principles for the LICs configuration, the possible development roadmap from academy to industry has not been adequately discussed. Systematic understanding of device development is the foundation to more efficient utilization of advanced LICs materials. This review focuses on the principle of the recent configurations of LICs, the device design rationales, and new prelithiation techniques that are an integral part in LIC design. The authors also comment on the new generation multifunctional LICs that are capable of meeting the emerging applications in flexible electronics and other modern technologies. Finally, the status of LICs is presented and several key take‐home messages about minimizing the gaps between academic and industry requirements are proposed.
Lithium‐ion capacitors (LICs) are powerful competitors to supercapacitors and batteries due to their high energy‐power performance and long lifespan. The design rationale and device configuration of LICs are introduced, followed by the prelithiation methods and fabrication of multifunctional LICs. Finally, the status of commercial LICs and a possible roadmap of advanced LICs from laboratory to industry are discussed.
Lithium‐sulfur (Li‐S) batteries have attracted tremendous interest because of their high theoretical energy density and cost effectiveness. The target of Li‐S battery research is to produce batteries ...with a high useful energy density that at least outperforms state‐of‐the‐art lithium‐ion batteries. However, due to an intrinsic gap between fundamental research and practical applications, the outstanding electrochemical results obtained in most Li‐S battery studies indeed correspond to low useful energy densities and are not really suitable for practical requirements. The Li‐S battery is a complex device and its useful energy density is determined by a number of design parameters, most of which are often ignored, leading to the failure to meet commercial requirements. The purpose of this review is to discuss how to pave the way for reliable Li‐S batteries. First, the current research status of Li‐S batteries is briefly reviewed based on statistical information obtained from literature. This includes an analysis of how the various parameters influence the useful energy density and a summary of existing problems in the current Li‐S battery research. Possible solutions and some concerns regarding the construction of reliable Li‐S batteries are comprehensively discussed. Finally, insights are offered on the future directions and prospects in Li‐S battery field.
The research status of Li‐S batteries is briefly reviewed based on statistical analysis results. A summary of existing problems in the current Li‐S battery research is concluded with possible solutions and some concerns comprehensively discussed. Perspectives are proposed with respect to more reliable lithium‐sulfur batteries with rationally improved performance.
Inflammatory caspases cleave the gasdermin D (GSDMD) protein to trigger pyroptosis, a lytic form of cell death that is crucial for immune defences and diseases. GSDMD contains a functionally ...important gasdermin-N domain that is shared in the gasdermin family. The functional mechanism of action of gasdermin proteins is unknown. Here we show that the gasdermin-N domains of the gasdermin proteins GSDMD, GSDMA3 and GSDMA can bind membrane lipids, phosphoinositides and cardiolipin, and exhibit membrane-disrupting cytotoxicity in mammalian cells and artificially transformed bacteria. Gasdermin-N moved to the plasma membrane during pyroptosis. Purified gasdermin-N efficiently lysed phosphoinositide/cardiolipin-containing liposomes and formed pores on membranes made of artificial or natural phospholipid mixtures. Most gasdermin pores had an inner diameter of 10–14 nm and contained 16 symmetric protomers. The crystal structure of GSDMA3 showed an autoinhibited two-domain architecture that is conserved in the gasdermin family. Structure-guided mutagenesis demonstrated that the liposome-leakage and pore-forming activities of the gasdermin-N domain are required for pyroptosis. These findings reveal the mechanism for pyroptosis and provide insights into the roles of the gasdermin family in necrosis, immunity and diseases.
Multipartite entangled states are crucial for numerous applications in quantum information science. However, the generation and verification of multipartite entanglement on fully controllable and ...scalable quantum platforms remains an outstanding challenge. We report the deterministic generation of an 18-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state and multicomponent atomic Schrödinger cat states of up to 20 qubits on a quantum processor, which features 20 superconducting qubits, also referred to as artificial atoms, interconnected by a bus resonator. By engineering a one-axis twisting Hamiltonian, the system of qubits, once initialized, coherently evolves to multicomponent atomic Schrödinger cat states-that is, superpositions of atomic coherent states including the GHZ state-at specific time intervals as expected. Our approach on a solid-state platform should not only stimulate interest in exploring the fundamental physics of quantum many-body systems, but also enable the development of applications in practical quantum metrology and quantum information processing.
The primary cause of heart failure is the loss of cardiomyocytes in the diseased adult heart. Previously, we reported that the miR-17-92 cluster plays a key role in cardiomyocyte proliferation. Here, ...we report that expression of miR-19a/19b, members of the miR-17-92 cluster, is induced in heart failure patients. We show that intra-cardiac injection of miR-19a/19b mimics enhances cardiomyocyte proliferation and stimulates cardiac regeneration in response to myocardial infarction (MI) injury. miR-19a/19b protected the adult heart in two distinctive phases: an early phase immediately after MI and long-term protection. Genome-wide transcriptome analysis demonstrates that genes related to the immune response are repressed by miR-19a/19b. Using an adeno-associated virus approach, we validate that miR-19a/19b reduces MI-induced cardiac damage and protects cardiac function. Finally, we confirm the therapeutic potential of miR-19a/19b in protecting cardiac function by systemically delivering miR-19a/19b into mice post-MI. Our study establishes miR-19a/19b as potential therapeutic targets to treat heart failure.
Their chemical stability, high specific surface area, and electric conductivity enable porous carbon materials to be the most commonly used electrode materials for electrochemical capacitors (also ...known as supercapacitors). To further increase the energy and power density, engineering of the pore structures with a higher electrochemical accessible surface area, faster ion‐transport path and a more‐robust interface with the electrolyte is widely investigated. Compared with traditional porous carbons, two‐dimensional (2D) porous carbon sheets with an interlinked hierarchical porous structure are a good candidate for supercapacitors due to their advantages in high aspect ratio for electrode packing and electron transport, hierarchical pore structures for ion transport, and short ion‐transport length. Recent progress on the synthesis of 2D porous carbons is reported here, along with the improved electrochemical behavior due to enhanced ion transport. Challenges for the controlled preparation of 2D porous carbons with desired properties are also discussed; these require precise tuning of the hierarchical structure and a clarification of the formation mechanisms.
Two‐dimensional (2D) porous carbon sheets, which can be synthesized by templating approaches, biomass carbonization, biomass carbonization–activation, in situ activation, etc, are good candidates for supercapacitors due to their advantages in their short ion‐transport length and high aspect ratio for electrode packing and electron transport.
Tackling the huge volume expansion of silicon (Si) anode desires a stable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) to prohibit the interfacial side reactions. Here, a layered conductive polyaniline (LCP) ...coating is built on Si nanoparticles to achieve high areal capacity and long lifespan. The conformal LCP coating stores electrolyte in interlamination spaces and directs an in situ formation of LCP‐integrated hybrid SEI skin with uniform distribution of organic and inorganic components, enhancing the flexibility of the SEI to buffer the volume changes and maintaining homogeneous ion transport during cycling. As a result, the Si anode shows a remarkable cycling stability under high areal capacity (≈3 mAh cm−2) after 150 cycles and good rate performance of 942 mAh g−1 at 5 A g−1. This work demonstrates the great potential of regulating the SEI properties by a layered polymer‐directing SEI formation for the mechanical and electrochemical stabilization of Si anodes.
A layered conductive polyaniline (LCP) coating is built from a bottom‐up polymer design strategy for Si anodes. The in situ formation of LCP‐integrated solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) with uniform structure and flexible mechanical property enhances the stability of the electrode–electrolyte interface.
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