Organic–Inorganic Copolymerization for a Homogenous Composite without an Interphase Boundary

Ionic oligomers and their crosslinking implies a possibility to produce novel organic–inorganic composites by copolymerization. Using organic acrylamide monomers and inorganic calcium phosphate oligomers as precursors, uniformly structured polyacrylamide (PAM)-calcium phosphate copolymer is prepared by an organic–inorganic copolymerization. In contrast to the previous PAM-based composites by mixing inorganic components into polymers, the copolymerized material has no interphase boundary owing to the homogenous incorporation of the organic and inorganic units at molecular level, resulting in a complete and continuous hybrid network. The participation of the ionic binding effect in the crosslinking process can substantially improve the mechanical strength; the copolymer can reach a modulus and hardness of 35.14±1.91 GPa and 1.34±0.09 GPa, respectively, which are far superior to any other PAM-based composites.     

Atomically Dispersed Ruthenium Species Inside Metal–Organic Frameworks: Combining the High Activity of Atomic Sites and the Molecular Sieving Effect of MOFs

Incorporating atomically dispersed metal species into functionalized metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) can integrate their respective merits for catalysis. A cage‐controlled encapsulation and reduction strategy is used to fabricate single Ru atoms and triatomic Ru₃ clusters anchored on ZIF‐8 (Ru₁@ZIF‐8, Ru₃@ZIF‐8). The highly efficient and selective catalysis for semi‐hydrogenation of alkyne is observed. The excellent activity derives from high atom‐efficiency of atomically dispersed Ru active sites and hydrogen enrichment by the ZIF‐8 shell. Meanwhile, ZIF‐8 shell serves as a novel molecular sieve for olefins to achieve absolute regioselectivity of catalyzing terminal alkynes but not internal alkynes. Moreover, the size‐dependent performance between Ru₃@ZIF‐8 and Ru₁@ZIF‐8 is detected in experiment and understood by quantum‐chemical calculations, demonstrating a new and promising approach to optimize catalysts by controlling the number of atoms.     

A Promising Carbon/g‐C3N4 Composite Negative Electrode for a Long‐Life Sodium‐Ion Battery

2D graphitic carbon nitride (g‐C₃N₄) nanosheets are a promising negative electrode candidate for sodium‐ion batteries (NIBs) owing to its easy scalability, low cost, chemical stability, and potentially high rate capability. However, intrinsic g‐C₃N₄ exhibits poor electronic conductivity, low reversible Na‐storage capacity, and insufficient cyclability. DFT calculations suggest that this could be due to a large Na⁺ ion diffusion barrier in the innate g‐C₃N₄ nanosheet. A facile one‐pot heating of a mixture of low‐cost urea and asphalt is strategically applied to yield stacked multilayer C/g‐C₃N₄ composites with improved Na‐storage capacity (about 2 times higher than that of g‐C₃N₄, up to 254 mAh g^?1), rate capability, and cyclability. A C/g‐C₃N₄ sodium‐ion full cell (in which sodium rhodizonate dibasic is used as the positive electrode) demonstrates high Coulombic efficiency (ca. 99.8 %) and a negligible capacity fading over 14 000 cycles at 1 A g^?1.