Carbon-nanotube/sulfur cathode with in-situ assembled Si3N4/graphene interlayer for high-rate and long cycling-life lithium-sulfur batteries

Buckybowl Molecular Tweezers for Recognition of Fullerenes

Buckybowl tweezers are a relatively young research area closely associated with the development of non-planar polycyclic aromatic systems and supramolecular chemistry. Since the appearance of the first prototypes in the early 2000s, the tweezers have undergone evolutionary changes. Nowadays they are able to effectively interact with fullerenes and the results opened up prospects for development in the field of sensing, nonlinear optics, and molecular switchers. In the present study, examples of corannulene-based and other buckybowl tweezers for the recognition of C60 and C70 fullerenes were summarized and analyzed. The main structural components of the tweezers were also reviewed in detail and their role in the formation of complexes with fullerenes was evaluated. The revealed structural patterns should trigger the development of novel recognition systems and materials with a wide range of applications.

Graphdiyne-like Porous Organic Framework as a Solid-Phase Sulfur Conversion Cathodic Host for Stable Li-S Batteries

As a unique branch of Li-S batteries, solid-phase sulfur conversion polymer cathodes have shown superior stability with fast ion-transfer kinetics and high discharge capacities owing to the mere existence of short-chain sulfur species during charging/discharging. However, representative compounds such as sulfurized polyacrylonitrile (SPAN) and polyaniline (SPANI) suffer from low sulfur contents and poor cycling performances under large current densities due to the sulfurization occurring only on polymers' surface. Here, a graphdiyne-like porous organic framework, denoted as GPOF, is synthesized and used as a host for enabling solid-phase sulfur conversion. Plenty of unsaturated bonds in GPOF provide sufficient reaction sites to bind sulfur chains, resulting in a high active sulfur content in the cathode. Moreover, the microporous GPOF possesses suitable cavities to accommodate the volume expansion, leading to favorable long-term cycling stability. As a result, the sulfurized GPOF cathode (SGPOF-320) displays outstanding electrochemical stability with negligible capacity decline after 250 cycles at 0.2 C with an average discharge capacity of 925 mA h g^-1. Our work applies a facile procedure to produce sulfur conversion porous polymer cathodes, which could provide a proper way for exploring more suitable cathode materials for high-performance Li-S batteries.

π-Concave Hosts for Curved Carbon Nanomaterials

Carbon nanomaterials have been at the forefront of nanotechnology since its inception. At the heart of this research are the curved carbon nanomaterial families: fullerenes and carbon nanotubes. While both have incredible properties that have been capitalized upon in a wide variety of applications, there is an aspect that is not commonly exploited by nanoscientists and organic chemists alike: the interaction of curved carbon nanomaterials with curved organic small molecules. By taking advantage of these interactions, new avenues are opened for the use of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes.