Designing interstitial boron-doped tunnel-type vanadium dioxide cathode for enhancing zinc ion storage capability

Chemical doping is a powerful method to intrinsically tailor the electrochemical properties of electrode materials.Here,an interstitial boron-doped tunnel-type VO_(2)(B)is constructed via a facile hydrothermal method.Various analysis techniques demonstrate that boron resides in the interstitial site of VO_(2)(B)and such interstitial doping can boost the zinc storage kinetics and structural stability of VO_(2)(B)cathode during cycling.Interestingly,we found that the boron doping level has a saturation limit peculiarity as proved by the quantitative analysis.Notably,the 2 at.%boron-doped VO_(2)(B)shows enhanced zinc ion storage performance with a high storage capacity of 281.7 mAh g^(-1) at 0.1 A g^(-1),excellent rate performance of 142.2 mAh g^(-1) at 20 A g^(-1),and long cycle stability up to 1000 cycles with the capacity retention of 133.3 mAh g^(-1) at 5 A g^(-1).Additionally,the successful preparation of the boron-doped tunneltype α-MnO_(2) further indicates that the interstitial boron doping approach is a general strategy,which supplies a new chance to design other types of functional electrode materials for multivalence batteries.

NH_(4)Cl-assisted preparation of single Ni sites anchored carbon nanosheet catalysts for highly efficient carbon dioxide electroreduction

Single-atomic transition metal-nitrogen codoped carbon(M-N-C)are efficient substitute catalysts for noble metals to catalyze the electrochemical CO_(2) reduction reaction(CO_(2)RR).However,the uncontrolled aggregations of metal and serious loss of nitrogen species constituting the M-N_(x) active sites are frequently observed in the commonly used pyrolysis procedure.Herein,single-atomic nickel(Ni)-based sheet-like electrocatalysts with abundant Ni-N_(4) active sites were created by using a novel ammonium chloride(NH_(4)Cl)-assited pyrolysis method.Spherical aberration correction electron microscopy and X-ray absorption fine structure analysis clearly revealed that Ni species are atomically dispersed and anchored by N in Ni-N_(4) structure.The addition of NH_(4)Cl optimized the mesopore size to 7-10 nm and increased the concentrations of pyridinic N(3.54 wt%)and Ni-N_(4)(3.33 wt%)species.The synergistic catalytic effect derived from Ni-N_(4) active sites and pyridinic N species achieved an outstanding CO_(2) RR performance,presenting a high CO Faradaic efficiency(FE_(CO))up to 98% and a large CO partial current density of 8.5 mA cm^(-2) at a low potential of-0.62 V vs.RHE.Particularly,the FE_(CO) maintains above 80% within a large potential range from -0.43 to -0.73 V vs.RHE.This work provides a practical and feasible approach to building highly active single-atomic catalysts for CO_(2) conversion systems.