The practical application of low-cost and safe aqueous Zn ion batteries (AZIBs) is plagued by persistent issues at the Zn anode, namely uncontrollable dendrite growth and parasitic side reactions. To address those problems, we propose a simple yet powerful strategy of engineering the anode electrolyte interface with a small volume glycerol additive. By creating a water-deficient environment at the immediate interface, the glycerol additive tackles the root causes of anode failure. It effectively suppresses the hydrogen evolution reaction and byproduct formation while also modulating the electric field to guide uniform, dendrite-free Zn deposition. This dual-function mechanism leads to exceptional electrochemical stability. Symmetric cells exhibit an impressive lifespan, cycling for similar to 1050 h at a high current density of 5 mA cm(- 2). Furthermore, a proof-of-concept Zn vertical bar vertical bar MnO2@CNTs full cell achieves a high specific capacity of 268 mAh g(- 1) at 0.1 A g(- 1). This study highlights that minimalist electrolyte engineering is a highly effective pathway for stabilizing metal anodes, paving the way for the development of robust and commercially viable aqueous batteries.

Ordered array structures will greatly reduce the stress formation in wearable electric devices during dynamic bending operation. In this work, highly flexible TiN-based fiber counter electrodes (FCEs) were designed via a post-ammonization treatment on the hydrothermally grown TiO2 nanowire arrays. Results show that the obtained TiN nanorod arrays (NRAs) are well aligned with a diameter of 200–320 nm and a length of several hundred nanometers to ∼1 μm. Moreover, fiber-shaped dye-sensitized solar cells assembled using TiN FCEs showed the maximum photoelectric conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.69%, which is 16.3% higher than that of the ones based on Pt FCEs. Analysis indicated that this enhancement in PCE could be mainly due to the better electrochemical catalytic activity of TiN NRAs. Furthermore, the optimizations of the nanoscale morphologies of TiN NRAs suggest that both small diameters and large lengths can benefit the PCE and the dynamic bending stability, while the diameters show a major influence on them. The optimal FCEs show an ultralow decay rate of 0.017‰ per bending cycle.

To enhancing enhanced sunlight harvesting, long persistence phosphor (LPP) materials were often incorporated into photoanodes of photoelectric devices. However, the role of LPP layer on the photoelectric enhancements is not yet clear. Here, the authors have systematically studied the effect of green LPP (SrAl2O4: Eu3+) and its thickness on photoelectric behaviours of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Results showed that the P25/LPP DSSCs generates power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.16% at the optimal LPP thickness, which is 24.3% higher than that of the P25 ones. Series of analysis indicate that the enhancements in short-circuit current density and PCE could mainly be due to the LPP's function of back scattering (containing down-conversion effect and enhancement in light absorption) of incident sunlight. Moreover, the enhanced carriers' lifetime and open-circuit voltage are mainly due to the LPP layer's afterglow effect. In addition, the P25/LPP DSSCs can still generate an output power density (82.15 mu W cm(-2)) with a high PCE value of 46.94% in dark.