High-performance thermal interface materials (TIMs) are highly sought after for modern electronics. Two-dimensional (2D) materials as vertical aligned fillers can optimize the out-plane thermal conductivity (k_⊥), but their excessively high content or intrinsic rigidness deteriorate TIMs softness, leading to worsening for thermal contact resistance (R_contact). In this study, 2D graphene materials are fabricated into lightweight and soft graphene foams (GFs) with high-orientation, acting as vertical filler frameworks to optimize the k_⊥ and R_contact for vertical GF (VGF) TIMs. The VGF-TIM has a high k_⊥ of 47.9 W·m⁻¹·K⁻¹ at a low graphene content of 15.5 wt.%. Due to the softness and low filler contents of GFs, the VGF-TIM exhibits a low compressive module (4.2 MPa), demonstrating excellent compressibility. The resulting TIM exhibit a low contact resistance of 24.4 K·mm²·W⁻¹, demonstrating 185.1% higher cooling efficiency in practical heat dissipating scenario compared to commercial advanced TIMs. This work provides guidelines for the design of advanced TIMs and their applications in thermal management.

For the carbon-based catalyst to be active and stable, especially in harsh electrochemical environments, the key is to decrease the concentration of defects and raise the degree of graphitization of the carbon support. Herein, we develop a highly graphitized graphene foam with multiplicated structure to fabricate self-supporting Pt-based catalysts for efficient and stable hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance. Graphene foam (GO-2850) is obtained through an ultra-high temperature treatment at 2850 °C, with perfect graphene structure and extremely low defect, ensuring high electrical conductivity and corrosion resistance. Additionally, its multiplicated structure provides an inherently favorable environment for the dispersion of Pt nanoparticles (Pt NPs) and offers abundant channels for electrolyte infiltration during the catalytic process. As a result, the as-prepared Pt/GO-2850 is far active and stable than the Pt NPs supported on commercial carbon paper (Pt/CP) counterpart toward catalyzing HER, exhibiting an outstanding activity and long-term durability (300 h @ 10 mA·cm⁻²) in acidic/alkaline/seawater electrolytes. This can be attributed to the stronger interaction between the lower-defect GO-2850 substrate and Pt, as evidenced by characterization and theoretical calculations. This work extends further insight into the design self-supporting catalysts of high activity and stability with promising prominent application toward green energy devices.

With the increasing popularity of wearable electronic devices, there is an urgent demand to develop electronic textiles (e-textiles) for device fabrication. Nevertheless, the difficulty in reconciliation between conductivity and manufacturing costs hinders their large-scale practical applications. Herein, we reported a facile and economic method for preparing conductive e-textiles. Specifically, nonconductive polypropylene (PP) was wrapped by reduced graphene oxide (rGO), followed by the electrodeposition of Ni nanoparticles (NPs). Notably, modulating the sheet size of graphene oxide (GO) resulted in controllable deposition of Ni NPs with adjustable size, allowing for controlled manipulations over the structures, morphologies, and conductivity of the obtained e-textiles, which influenced their performance in electrochemical glucose detection subsequently. The optimal material, denoted as Ni/rGO_0.2/PP, exhibited an impressive conductivity of 7.94 × 10⁴ S·m⁻¹. With regard to the excellent conductivity of the as-prepared e-textiles and the high electrocatalytic activity of Ni for glucose oxidation, the as-prepared e-textiles were subjected to glucose detection. It was worth emphasizing that the Ni/rGO_0.2/PP-based electrode demonstrated promising performance for nonenzymatic/label-free glucose detection, with a detection limit of 0.36 μM and a linear response range of 0.5 μM to 1 mM. This study paves the way for further development and application prospects of conductive e-textiles.

Research on metal-organic framework (MOF)-based non-enzymatic glucose sensors usually ignores the impact of the surface reconstruction degree of MOF on the activity of catalyzing glucose oxidation. In this work, we choose zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67), which is commonly used in glucose sensing, as a representative to investigate the influence of reconstruction degree on its structure and glucose catalytic performance. By employing the electrochemical activation strategy, the activity of ZIF-67 in catalyzing glucose gradually increased with the prolongation of the activation time, reaching the optimum after 2 h activation. The detection sensitivity of the activated ZIF-67 was 19 times higher than that of the initial ZIF-67, and the limit of detection (LOD) was lowered from 7 to 0.4 μM. Our findings demonstrate that the oxidation degree of ZIF-67 deepened rapidly with continuously activation and was basically reconstructed to CoOOH after 2 h activation, accompanied by a morphological change from cuboctahedral to flower-like. Simultaneously, theoretical investigation revealed that ZIF-67 is not suitable as a stable glucose sensor electrode since the adsorbed glucose molecules hasten the dissociation of ligands and the breaking of Co–N bond in ZIF-67. Therefore, our work has important implications for the rational design of next-generation MOF-based glucose sensors.

Various new conductive materials with exceptional properties are utilized for the preparation of electronic devices. Achieving ultra-high conductivity is crucial to attain excellent electrical performance. However, there is a lack of systematic research on the impact of conductor material thickness on device performance. Here, we investigate the effect of conductor thickness on power transmission and radiation in radio-frequency (RF) and microwave electronics based on MXene nanosheets material transmission lines and antennas. The MXene transmission line with thickness above the skin depth exhibits a good transmission coefficient of approximately −3 dB, and the realized gain of MXene antennas exceeds 2 dBi. Additionally, the signal transmission strength of MXene antenna with thickness above the skin depth is higher than 5-μm MXene antenna approximately 5.5 dB. Transmission lines and antennas made from MXene materials with thickness above the skin depth exhibit stable and reliable performance, which has significant implications for obtaining high-performance RF and microwave electronics based on new conductive materials.

Facile preparation of additive-free inks with both high viscosity and high conductivity is critical for scalable screen printing of wireless electronics, yet very challenging. MXene materials exhibit excellent conductivity and hydrophilicity, showing great potential in the field of additive-free inks for screen printing. Here, we demonstrate the synthesis of additive-free two-dimensional (2D) titanium carbide MXene inks, and realize screen-printed MXene wireless electronics for the first time. The viscosity of MXene ink is solely regulated by tuning the size of MXene nanosheet without any additives, hence rendering the printed MXene film extremely high conductivity of 1.67 × 10⁵ S/m and fine printing resolution down to 0.05 mm on various flexible substrates. Moreover, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags fabricated using the additive-free MXene ink via screen printing exhibit stable antenna reading performance and superb flexibility. This article, thus offers a new route for the efficient, low-cost and pollution-free manufacture of printable electronics based on additive-free MXene inks.

Conventional glassy carbon electrodes (GCE) cannot meet the requirements of future electrodes for wider use due to low conductivity, high cost, non-portability, and lack of flexibility. Therefore, cost-effective and wearable electrode enabling rapid and versatile molecule detection is becoming important, especially with the ever-increasing demand for health monitoring and point-of-care diagnosis. Graphene is considered as an ideal electrode due to its excellent physicochemical properties. Here, we prepare graphene film with ultra-high conductivity and customize the 3-electrode system via a facile and highly controllable laser engraving approach. Benefiting from the ultra-high conductivity (5.65 × 10⁵ S·m⁻¹), the 3-electrode system can be used as multifunctional electrode for direct detection of dopamine (DA) and enzyme-based detection of glucose without further metal deposition. The dynamic ranges from 1–200 μM to 0.5–8.0 mM were observed for DA and glucose, respectively, with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.6 μM and 0.41 mM. Overall, the excellent target detection capability caused by the ultra-high conductivity and ease modification of graphene films, together with their superb mechanical properties and ease of mass-produced, provides clear potential not only for replacing GCE for various electrochemical studies but also for the development of portable and high-performance electrochemical wearable medical devices.

Graphene oxide (GO)-based membranes have been widely studied for realizing efficient wastewater treatment, due to their easily functionalizeable surfaces and tunable interlayer structures. However, the irregular structure of water channels within GO-based membrane has largely confined water permeance and prevented the simultaneously improvement of purification performance. Herein, we purposely construct the well-structured three-dimensional (3D) water channels featuring regular and negatively-charged properties in the GO/SiO₂ composite membrane via in situ close-packing assembly of SiO₂ nanoparticles onto GO nanosheets. Such regular 3D channels can improve the water permeance to a record-high value of 33,431.5 ± 559.9 L·m⁻²·h⁻¹ (LMH) bar⁻¹, which is several-fold higher than those of current state-of-the-art GO-based membranes. We further demonstrate that benefiting from negative charges on both GO and SiO₂, these negatively-charged 3D channels enable the charge selectivity well toward dye in wastewater where the rejection for positive-charged and negative-charged dye molecules is 99.6% vs. 7.2%, respectively. The 3D channels can also accelerate oil/water (O/W) separation process, in which the O/W permeance and oil rejection can reach 19,589.2 ± 1,189.7 LMH bar⁻¹ and 98.2%, respectively. The present work unveils the positive role of well-structured 3D channels on synchronizing the remarkable improvement of both water permeance and purification performance for highly efficient wastewater treatment.

Iron-based oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts have been the focus of research, and iron sources play an important role for the preparation of efficient ORR catalysts. Here, we successfully use LiFePO₄ as ideal sources of Fe and P to construct the heteroatom doped Fe-based carbon materials. The obtained Fe-N-P co-doped coral-like carbon nanotube arrays encapsulated Fe₂P catalyst (C-ZIF/LFP) shows very high half-wave potential of 0.88 V in alkaline electrolytes toward ORR, superior to Pt/C (0.85 V), and also presents a high half-wave potential of 0.74 V in acidic electrolytes, comparable to Pt/C (0.8 V). When further applied into a home-made Zn-air battery as cathode, a peak power density of 140 mW·cm^-2 is reached, exceeds commercial Pt/C (110 mW·cm^-2). Besides, it also presents exceptional durability and methanol resistance compared with Pt/C. Noticeably, the preparation method of such a high-performance catalyst is simple and easy to optimize, suitable for the large-scale production. What’s more, it opens up a more sustainable development scenario to reduce the hazardous wastes such as LiFePO₄ by directly using them for preparing high-performance ORR catalysts.