The cover art is based on a reaction scheme indicated in the article entitled “Moisture Exposure as Pretreatment of Sulfide Solid Electrolytes for All-Solid-State Batteries” by Dr. Hikaru Sano et al., which was selected as Editor’s Choice. The paper reports that only the surface of the sulfide solid electrolyte is degraded by exposure to moisture at a dew point equivalent to that of a typical drying chamber for lithium-ion battery production, and that the surface degraded material includes lithium carbonate and other lithium salts, which act as modified surface layer of the cathode active material. The results of the formation of lithium carbonate by the reaction of a carbon-free solid electrolyte with carbon-free water are interesting.

For the halide solid electrolyte Li₃InCl₆, which has both high water resistance and high ionic conductivity, doping with different elements to further increase the conductivity is attracting attention. In this study, we investigated co-doping Li₃InCl₆ with Nb⁵⁺ and Zr⁴⁺. A pretrained neural-network potential was used for molecular dynamics simulations, and the results indicated that doping with a high concentration of Zr⁴⁺ and low concentration of Nb⁵⁺ promotes disorder in the Li⁺/vacancy arrangement on the diffusion path, even at relatively low temperatures. Bayesian optimization revealed the optimal composition with fewer samples, highlighting its utility for exploring complex compositions and expensive experimental investigations.

Sulfide all-solid-state batteries have been actively studied for practical use in vehicle applications. Modifications are often required at the interface between the sulfide solid electrolyte and oxide cathode active material. Scholars have reported that only the surface of the sulfide solid electrolyte is degraded by moisture exposure at a dew point equal to that of a dry room for common lithium-ion battery fabrication and that the surface-degraded material contains lithium carbonate and other lithium salts. Additionally, researchers have reported that lithium salts including lithium carbonate are effective for surface modification of cathode active materials. This paper reports how lithium carbonate is formed by the reaction of a carbon-free solid electrolyte with carbon-free water and that degraded surface of sulfide solid electrolyte by exposure to moisture acts as an effective modifying layer at the interface between the active material and solid electrolyte for all-solid-state batteries.

In this work, we use ZIF-67 as a template to prepare multilevel structured Co₃O₄ with a high surface area. The synthesized materials are characterized by SEM, TEM, XRD, and N₂ physisorption. The double-shell dodecahedron multilevel structure of Co₃O₄ (DS Co₃O₄) has the most favorable morphology and largest specific surface area, and is demonstrated to be an effective electrochemical non-enzymatic H₂O₂ sensor. The efficiency arises from the unique multilevel structure of DS Co₃O₄, providing abundant active sites for H₂O₂ oxidation. The sensor demonstrates a rapid response time of 5 seconds, high sensitivity of 1168.9 µA mM⁻¹ cm⁻² (µA (mmol L⁻¹)⁻¹ cm⁻²), and a limit of detection of 0.048 µM (µmol L⁻¹, S/N = 3) within a linear range of 0.0005 to 10 mM. These values are significantly superior to those of other high performance Co₃O₄-based H₂O₂ sensors. The as-fabricated DS Co₃O₄ sensors exhibit excellent sensitivity, selectivity, and long-term stability, making them highly promising sensors materials for H₂O₂ detection.

In this study, graphene produced via the ultrasonic exfoliation method was applied as a conductive aid for a SiO anode. The SiO anode with multilayer graphene demonstrated superior cycling, high-rate charge, and high-rate discharge properties, despite the resistivity of the active material layer being slightly higher than that of conventional AB. These properties are due not only to the electronic conductivity of graphene but also to effects related to its shape. A comparison of two types of graphene with different size produced via the same manufacturing method confirmed that graphene with a smaller size is superior in terms of the number of cycles, high rate-of-charge, and high rate-of-discharge; this may be due to the difference in the number of conductive paths formed within the active material layer due to the difference in the number of graphene particles per weight.