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This article reports a bipolar polymer cathode material bearing azo benzene and diamine moieties for affordable and sustainable sodium-ion batteries. 

This feature article focuses on the challenges, developments, and strategies for organic electrode materials and carbon/small-sulfur composites to provide insights for sustainable batteries. 

By employing 3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl) pyrazole (TFMP) as an electrolyte additive in both aqueous and non-aqueous mediums, a versatile interphase strategy is achieved. This facilitates stable Zn anodes with improved efficiency and longer cycling life. 

Bipolar porous polymers bearing carbonyl and amine groups were designed and synthesized as cathode materials in Na-ion and K-ion batteries, demonstrating great promise for high-performance and sustainable batteries. 

Despite extensive research efforts in developing aqueous rechargeable zinc metal batteries (RZMBs) as high-energy-density alternatives to both lithium ion and lithium metal batteries, the commercial prospects for RZMBs are still obfuscated by fundamental scientific questions. In particular, the electrode–electrolyte interphase properties and behaviors are still intensely debated topics in this field. In this review, we provide a comprehensive and thorough overview of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) and cathode electrolyte interphase (CEI) in aqueous RZMBs, with an emphasis on the formation mechanisms and characteristics of the SEI and CEI. We then summarize state-of-the-art techniques for characterizing the SEI/CEI to reveal the intrinsic correlation between the functionalities of the interphases and the electrochemical performances. Finally, future directions are proposed, including studies on aqueous SEI/CEI evolution as a function of pH and temperature, as well as SEI/CEI studies for high-energy-density and long-lifetime RZMBs. 

Developing high-capacity, stable, and sustainable K-ion batteries (KIBs) is an ongoing challenge due to the lack of high-performance and environmentally benign electrode materials. To address this challenge, organic electrode materials that are affordable, abundant, highly sustainable, highly tunable and flexible offer opportunities. Herein, we report a novel N-containing carboxylate salt, K 2 C 12 H 6 N 2 O 4 (K-DCA), with two bipyridine moieties and two carboxylate groups. The carboxylate- and pyridine-based active centers in K-DCA can reversibly react with four K-ions to provide a specific capacity of 163.3 mA h g −1 with a pair of redox plateaus centered at ∼0.8 V. When coupling with nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide (NrGO), the composite anode material, K-DCA-NrGO, demonstrates a high specific capacity of 225.25 mA h g −1 and increased capacity retention during long-term cycling. Additionally, the reaction kinetics and mechanism studies demonstrate that the composite exhibits low overpotentials, low interphase resistance, a partial pseudo-capacitance behavior, and stable chemical/morphological structures upon cycling, which contribute to the fast kinetics and long cycle life.