Composite structure and method for producing the composite structure

A composite structure for an electrode, comprising: a conductive supporting material a plurality of core-shell structures, said core-shell structures comprising: a shell comprising carbon, a cavity enclosed by the shell, a core in the cavity, said core comprising sulfur, wherein the shell has a layered structure and comprises pores connecting the cavity and outside of the shell, said pores have an average thickness ranging from 0.2nm to 5nm, preferably from 0.4 to 2nm, more preferably from 0.4 to nm, wherein the plurality of core-shell structures are dispersed in the composite structure by the conductive supporting material between the plurality of core-shell structures

Characterization method of formability properties of zinc alloy coating on a metal substrate

The present invention relates to a method for the characterisation of formability properties of a zinc alloy coating on a metal substrate and a metal substrate comprising a zinc alloy coating. The method for the characterisation of formability properties of a zinc alloy coating on a metal substrate, the zinc alloy coating containing one or more alloying elements selected from the group consisting of Mg, Al, Ni each with a content of at least 0.3 weight % and at most 10 weight %, optionally one or more additional elements selected from the group consisting of Si, Sb, Pb, Ti, Ca, Mn, Sn, La, Ce, Cr, or Bi, wherein the content by weight of each additional element in the metallic coating is less than 0.3 weight %, inevitable impurities, the remainder being zinc, the zinc alloy coating having a microstructure comprising a primary zinc phase and binary eutectic and/or ternary eutectic phases, wherein Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) is used to determine a crystallographic orientation-dependent strain hardening exponent (n) of the zinc alloy coating microstructure

Interfacial modification by lithiophilic oxide facilitating uniform and thin solid electrolyte interphase towards stable lithium metal anodes

In this work, metal foam current collectors (CCs, i.e. nickel [Ni] and copper [Cu]) were treated by thermal oxidation to create a lithiophilic oxide surface that exhibited enhanced electrochemical performances of lithium anodes such as the cyclic stability of Coulombic efficiency at different current densities for various capacities compared to pristine CCs. The oxidized CCs facilitated much increased diffusivities of ions for lithium growth than pristine CCs. It was found that an inhomogeneous solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) formed on pristine CCs while a uniform SEI formed on oxidized CCs. Uniform lithium (Li) deposition can be achieved on oxidized CCs owing to the lithiophilic oxide surface containing metal nanoparticles and the ionic compound lithium oxide (Li2O) matrix that led to a uniform SEI film and many nucleation sites. In addition, the porous and non-porous composite anodes exhibited different electrochemical performances. The porous composite anodes showed initial lower voltage hysteresis but shorter lifetime with carbonate-based electrolyte than non-porous composite anodes. The porous composite anodes showed better rate performances in full-cell measurements while the non-porous composite anodes displayed better stability. The interfacial modification of porous hosts by lithiated oxides and the effects of porous structure on battery performances can be also useful for designing other electrodes (e.g. sodium [Na], potassium [K], zinc [Zn])