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Flexible ultrathin copper films are desired for use as flexible electromagnetic shielding, smart clothing, and energy storage devices. The fabrication of such films can be realized through plasma assisted surface coating on flexible polymer thin films. Unfortunately, the use of plasma treatment leads to substantial damage to the polymer substrates, which is particularly serious for ultrathin films. Here, we report the fabrication of stretchable, ultrathin, yet ultrastrong hybrid copper films via simple nanoconfinement. The hybrid films are prepared by the conformal electroless deposition of copper nanoparticles on nanofibrils of ultrastrong ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) membranes. These flyweight hybrid copper films (0.3 mg cm−2) possess a high mechanical strength of 390 MPa, 26% larger than pure copper foils; a low resistivity of 5 × 10−8 Ω m at a cyclic extensional strain of 1%; and macroscopic shape recovery after applying a biaxial extension strain of 10%. The shape recoverability and the high mechanical strength of the hybrid copper film were derived from the unique nanofibrous network of the ultrastrong UHMWPE substrate. As an application, we fabricated a lithium-ion battery using the CuPE as the current collector at the graphite anode and observed a near 100% and 10% increase in energy density concerning the total mass and total volume of the anode, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to the severe environmental and ecological issues arising from oil spills and toxic chemical leakage, the separation of oil from water presents a worldwide challenge to save the endangered environment. A versatile absorbent which can deal with different types of oil contaminants is in high demanded for this issue. In this work, we obtain an ultralight, fire-resistant, and compressible foam (UFC foam) by pyrolysis and post hydrophobic-modified treatment using commercially available poly(melamine formaldehyde) foams as precursors. The present UFC foam not only effectively separates oils from water as expected, but also possesses a very high absorption capacity for the removal of oils from water up to 158 times its own weight. More importantly, due to its fire resistance and compressibility, distillation, combustion and squeezing, or a combination of these can be applied for recycling the foams depending on the type of pollutants, making them versatile and comprehensive absorbents to satisfy various practical separation requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]