Kwadwo Asare Owusu

Wuhan University of Technology | WHUT · State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing

Abstract Developing a simple scalable method to fabricate electrodes with high capacity and wide voltage range is desired for real use of electrochemical supercapacitors. Herein, we synthesized amorphous NiCo‐LDH nanosheets vertically aligned on activated carbon cloth substrate (ACC), which was in‐situ transformed from Co‐MOF nano‐columns by a simp...

Rational design and construction of highly efficient nonprecious electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction and alcohols oxidation reactions (ORR, AOR) are extremely vital for the development of direct oxidation alkaline fuel cells, metal‐air batteries, and water electrolysis system involved hydrogen and value‐added organic products generation, but they...

Transition metal borides are considered as promising electrocatalysts for water splitting due to their metallic conductivity and good durability. However, the currently reported monometallic and noncrystalline multimetallic borides only show generic and monofunctional catalytic activity. In this work, the authors design and successfully synthesize...

30% carbon fiber reinforced polyetheretherketone (CFR‐PEEK) has in recent times, become significant in the orthopedic industry because its elastic modulus can be engineered to match that of the human bone. But it is bioinert and does not integrate well with the immediate bone tissue environment. In this study, a combined surface modification techni...

Transition metal selenide catalysts have been identified as suitable materials for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) as a result of their high electrical conductivity, large surface area, and tunable electronic structure to generate clean hydrogen through electrocatalytic water splitting. In this work, we report...

Monoclinic M-phase VO2 is a promising candidate for thermochromic materials due to its abrupt change in the near infrared (NIR) transmittance along with the metal-to-insulator transition (MIT) at a critical temperature ∼68 °C. However, low luminous transmittance (T lum), poor solar energy modulation ability (ΔT sol), and high phase transition tempe...

Efficient electrocatalysts are vital for accelerating the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Metal coordination complexes (MCCs) consisting of central metals and surrounding ligands generally possess abundant active sites owing to the rich boundaries between short-range crystalline components, making them promising candidates for tailored el...

As promising electrode materials for aluminum-ion batteries (AIBs), transition metal sulfides have attracted significant attention. However, the relative low energy density and poor rate property restrict their further applications. Herein, channels-rich VS4 nanowire clusters were synthesized via an amine ions-assisted method. When assessed as a ca...

Zinc-ion hybrid capacitors (ZIHCs) are gaining much attention for their high energy density; however, the charge storage in traditional ZnSO4 electrolyte is limited by its low ionic conductivity, resulting in low specific capacity, rate capability, and gravimetric energy/power density at high rates. Herein, we report a ZIHC with high charge storage...

Micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) are promising power solution facilities for miniaturized portable electronic devices. Microfabrication of on-chip MSC with high specific capacitance and high energy density is still a great challenge. Herein, we report a high-performance MnO2/polypyrrole (PPy) microelectrode based MSC (MnO2/PPy-MSC) by modern micromachi...

The crucial request for alternative clean energy technologies to replace conventional fossil fuels and drive technological advancement in consumer and wearable electronics, electric vehicles etc. has led to great advancement in electrochemical energy storage systems research. The lithium-ion battery possesses high energy density while the supercapa...

Till date, the lithium-ion battery still remains the principal and most widely studied rechargeable energy storage device. However, drawbacks including insufficient rate and cycling performance is hindering its further development. The aforementioned drawbacks can be attributed to the unstable interface and sluggish charge storage kinetics of elect...

Constructing high‐efficient, low‐cost and robust oxygen electrocatalysts toward rechargeable Zn–air batteries remains a big challenge. Herein, metallic Ni3Fe alloy nanoparticles encapsulated in 3D porous N‐doped graphene aerogel was prepared through a facile hydrothermal assembly and calcination process. Inspired by the unique configuration and str...

High-performance anode is hurdle for on-chip planar microsupercapacitor (MSC). Polypyrrole (PPy) is a highly attractive pseudocapacitive material, but its low cycling stability, and low adhesion with current collector hinder its practicability. Herein we propose one-prong generic strategy to boost the cycling stability of PPy. For our strategy, the...

Invited for the cover of this issue is Liqiang Mai and co‐workers at Wuhan University of Technology. The image depicts Ni3Fe alloy nanoparticles encapsulated in N‐doped graphene as an efficient bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst toward rechargeable Zn‐air batteries, which is expected to drive the electric vehicle. Read the full text of the article...

It is extremely desirable to explore high‐efficient, affordable and robust oxygen electrocatalysts towards rechargeable Zn–air batteries (ZABs). Here, three‐dimensional (3D) porous nitrogen‐doped graphene encapsulated metallic Ni3Fe alloy nanoparticles aerogel (Ni3Fe‐GA1) was constructed through a facile hydrothermal assembly and calcination proces...

Commercial carbon clothes have the potential to be utilized as supercapacitor electrodes due to their low cost and high conductivity. However, the negligible surface area of the carbon clothes serves as a serious impediment to their utilization. Herein, we report a facile calcination activation method for carbon cloths to realize remarkable compreh...

Transition metal molybdates represent a promising family of electrode materials for supercapacitors and lithium‐ion batteries. Herein, we synthesize Co0.5Ni0.5MoO4 double‐shelled hollow spheres (DSHSs) using a simple and scalable spray drying method followed by calcination in air. Benefited from the unique hollow structure as well as the co‐existen...

Carbon nanofibers (CNFs) with excellent electric conductivity and high surface area have attracted immense research interests in supercapacitors. However, the macroscopic production of CNFs still remains a great challenge. Herein, ultrafine N–doped CNFs (N–CNFs) with a diameter of ∼20 nm are synthesized through a simple and scalable sol-gel method...

Electrochemical energy storage (EES) devices have attracted immense research interests as an effective technology for utilizing renewable energy. 1D carbon‐based nanostructures are recognized as highly promising materials for EES application, combining the advantages of functional 1D nanostructures and carbon nanomaterials. Here, the recent advance...

Introducing asymmetry in carbon colloids can enrich their already broad merits; however, the tailored synthesis of asymmetric carbon colloids remains a great challenge. Herein, we report the synthesis of asymmetric semi-yolk-shell carbon spheres (semi-YSCS) with rich N-doping (3.9 %), raspberry-like rough surface, abundant mesopores, and uniform pa...

Carbon aqueous symmetric supercapacitors are attractive supercapacitor devices owing to the low-cost and high conductivity of porous carbons. However, the limited capacitive charge storage process in carbon symmetric capacitors in comparison to pseudocapacitors or asymmetric supercapacitors severely limit the energy density. The only effective stra...

Carbon aqueous symmetric supercapacitors are attractive supercapacitor devices owing to the low-cost and high conductivity of porous carbons. However, the limited capacitive charge storage process in carbon symmetric capacitors still leads to low energy density even when the cell voltage is extended up to 2.0 V in neutral aqueous electrolytes. Mean...

Electrocatalytic water splitting is one of the sustainable and promising strategies to generate hydrogen fuel but still remains a great challenge because of the sluggish anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER). A very effective approach to dramatically decrease the input cell voltage of water electrolysis is to replace the anodic OER with hydrazine...

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) represent an attractive choice for stationary energy storage. Its widespread application relies on the development of novel, reliable cathode materials. Herein, we find NASICON structured Na3V2(PO4)3 manifests simultaneous Zn²⁺/Na⁺ intercalation/de-intercalation in a single component electrolyte (2.0 M Zn(CF3SO3)2)...

The unique synergistic effect of hierarchical core-shell structures demonstrates great potential in designing the next-generation electrode materials for supercapacitors. In this work, we design a binder-free MnCo2O4@NiMoO4 heterostructure core-shell nanowire arrays (NWAs) grown over a current collector of nickel foam (NF) achieved through a modifi...

Developing multielectron reaction electrode materials is essential for achieving high specific capacity and high energy density in secondary batteries; however, it remains a great challenge. Herein, Na3MnTi(PO4)3/C hollow microspheres with an open and stable NASICON framework are synthesized by a spray‐drying‐assisted process. When applied as a cat...

Developing efficient, stable and low-cost catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is highly desired in water splitting and metal-air batteries. Transition metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as promising catalysts and have been intensively investigated especially due to their tunable crystalline structure. Unlike traditional strategi...

High-loading atomic cobalt (12.8 wt%) dispersed on nitrogen-doped graphene was successfully synthesized via considerably low temperature pyrolysis. The catalyst exhibits excellent electrocatalytic performance towards oxygen reduction reaction with large limiting...

Herein, Ni foam (NF) supported NiO nanosheets with a NF@NiO core@shell structure have been synthesized by a facile etching-reoxidation method. The obtained NF@NiO can function as high-performance free-standing electrodes for both hybrid supercapacitors and Ni-Zn batteries. When employed as the cathode for hybrid supercapacitors, the NF@NiO exhibits...

Transition-metal chalcogenides (TMCs) have emerged as attractive anode materials for rechargeable batteries due to their excellent performance and abundant resources. Here, for the first time, we disclose a unique copper (Cu)-driven conversion process in TMC-based battery systems that involves classic Cu current collector and is considered to be an...

The nano-bio interface generated by integrating semiconductor nanomaterials with living cells could serve as a platform for facilitating energy and signal transfer between non-living materials and living systems for applications in energy and the life sciences. This review presents recent advances in one-dimensional nanomaterial-biosystem interface...

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is one of the most widely studied inorganic phase change material for energy storage and energy conservation applications. Monoclinic VO2 [VO2(M)] changes from semiconducting phase to metallic rutile phase at near room temperature and the resultant abrupt suppressed infrared transmittance at high temperature makes it a potent...

A stepwise chelation-etching approach to synthesize carbon-confined ultrafine SnO2 nanoparticles is developed by conformal coating of polydopamine and chelation-etching of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA). EDTA plays a crucial role in the...

To address the severe volume changes of transition metal chalcogenides that results in inferior cycling performance, herein, a unique yolk-shell microsphere composed of mesoporous cobalt sulfide yolk and alveolus-like carbon shell ([email protected]) is constructed. The mesoporous CoS yolks possess large surface area (46.3 m² g⁻¹) accompanied with...

Hybrid or composite heterostructured electrode materials have been widely studied for their potential application in electrochemical energy storage. Whereas their physical or chemical properties could be affected significantly by modulating the heterogeneous interface, the underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood. In this work, we fabrica...

Replacement of noble-metal platinum catalysts with cheaper, operationally stable, and highly efficient electrocatalysts holds huge potentials for large-scale implementation of clean energy devices. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and metal dichalcogenides (MDs) offer rich platforms for design of highly active electrocatalysts owing to their flexibi...

Carbon materials are generally preferred as anodes in supercapacitors; however, their low capacitance limits the attained energy density of supercapacitor devices with aqueous electrolytes. Here, we report a low-crystalline iron oxide hydroxide nanoparticle anode with comprehensive electrochemical performance at a wide potential window. The iron ox...

Supplementary figures, supplementary tables and supplementary references.

3D graphene-based materials offer immense potentials to overcome the challenges related to the functionality, performance, cost, and stability of fuel cell electrocatalysts. Herein, a nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) dual-doped 3D porous graphene catalyst is synthesized via a single-row pyrolysis using biomass as solitary source for both N and S, and a...

Exploring non-noble and high-efficiency electrocatalysts is critical to large-scale industrial applications of electrochemical water splitting. Currently, nickel-based selenide materials are promising candidates for oxygen evolution reaction due to their low-cost and excellent performance. In this work, we report the porous nickel-iron bimetallic s...

Recently, layered transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have gained great attention for their analogous graphite structure and high theoretical capacity. However, it has suffered from rapid capacity fading. Herein, we present the crumpled reduced graphene oxide (RGO) decorated MoS2 nanoflowers on carbon fiber cloth. The three-dimensional framewor...

Using a controllable hydrothermal method, a Li2Co2(MoO4)3 NASICON-type material is successfully synthesized under mild conditions. The open 3D framework structure and the interconnected nanorods-nanoflakes morphology allow small-sized ions to easily intercalate/deintercalate without structure destruction and enhance the ion transport kinetics at th...