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The development of advanced unmanned robots is of great significance to promote scientific progress and innovation, expand application fields, and improve efficiency and safety. Complex perception, motion, and navigation systems consisting of numerous sensors and powerful processors enable robots to monitor various sophisticated environments. However, the available commercial batteries cannot satisfy the long endurance and safety requirements of robots. Herein, we propose the application of metal–air batteries to power robot devices considering their advantages of higher energy density, lower cost, and better safety compared to lithium-ion batteries. Furthermore, the technological development of metal–air batteries in terms of specific energy, cycle life, fast charging, environmental adaptability and flexibility has increased the possibility of their application in next-generation unmanned devices. Accordingly, we present an outlook on the application of metal–air batteries in all fields of robotics, including land, air and sea, embodying the temporal and spatial infinities of these batteries. It is expected that the application of metal–air batteries will promote the advancement of the robot industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible zinc‐air batteries have received widespread attention due to their high specific energy and eco‐friendly environment. However, the water in the hydrogel is easily lost to the external environment because of the semi‐open structure zinc‐air batteries, leading to performance degradation of the batteries. Here a saline gel of NaCl‐KOH‐PAA (sodium chloride‐potassium hydroxide‐polyacrylic acid) without soaking in the alkaline solution before use is designed, refining the grid structure of the hydrogel and reducing water loss through NaCl doping. Meanwhile, the gel exhibits no significant decrease in ion conductivity before and after NaCl doping and can maintain stability of around 170 and 150 mS cm−1 at room temperature and −20 °C, respectively. The results demonstrate that the lifetime of flexible zinc‐air batteries with NaCl‐doped hydrogel can be extended by nearly 50%. The NaCl doping gel also displays superior flexibility under extreme physical deformation conditions. Moreover, the phenomenon of hydrogel delamination with NaCl doping is observed and the mechanism of gel water retention is uncovered. These findings will pave the way for developing flexible zinc‐air battery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supported Co-based catalysts exhibit promising catalytic activities in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) during alkaline water electrolysis. Surface functionalization of the support modulates the dispersion of the catalysts and their interaction with the support, consequently tuning their catalytic properties. This study thoroughly investigates the role of surface oxygen-containing groups (OFGs) during the synthesis of carbon-supported Co-based catalysts and their contribution to the OER catalytic activity of the material. Following the dispersion of Co onto four different carbon supports, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, N2 adsorption–desorption, and transmission electron microscopy were used to analyze the dispersion degree of cobalt and the concentration of surface OFGs. The results reveal that high concentrations of acidic OFGs over the surface of the carbon support lead to the fine dispersion of Co nanoparticles. Raman spectroscopy further demonstrates that the homogeneous dispersion of Co nanoparticles results in the formation of additional surface OFGs and defects in the carbon structure. By adjusting the Co loading onto the support, it is verified that the small and finely-dispersed Co nanoparticles, rather than the large agglomerates, contribute significantly to the introduction of additional surface carboxyl groups (COOH) resulting from strong metal–support interaction. The excellent mass activities that exceeded 8 A mg−1 can be predominantly attributed to these small and finely-dispersed Co nanoparticles and the corresponding high surface concentration of COOH groups, which were found to participate directly in the OER by serving as O2 spillover sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, a fluoropolymer bifunctional solid membrane interface (SMI) for an aqueous Al–air battery is proposed, which inhibits anodic self-corrosion, while concurrently reducing the accumulation of undesirable by-products. A battery using the SMI exhibits a remarkable anticorrosion efficiency of 81.31% and achieves an astonishing battery lifetime improvement rate of 184.37% under the condition of 5 min intermittent discharge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal–air batteries have become one of the new potential sources of electrochemical energy due to the excellent electrochemical characteristics, environmental friendliness and cheap cost. Whereas, the commercialization of the metal–air batteries is still subject to the sluggish kinetics on air electrode and hydrogen evolution corrosion as well as dendrite growth of metal anode. Recently, the applied magnetic field, as a technology for transferring energy across physical space, receives more attention, can improve the performance of metal–air batteries by promoting mass transfer, accelerating charge transfer and enhancing electrocatalytic ability based on magnetohydrodynamic effect, Kelvin force effect, Hall effect, Spin selectivity effect, Maxwell stress effect and Magnetothermal effect. This review provides the recent progress in the research on the relative mechanism and characteristic of the magnetic field in the metal–air batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adv. Funct. Mater. 2023, 33, 2303719DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202303719The authors regret a mistake at the first sentence of "Preparation of Pore‐Enlarged PAA Electrolyte" part (page 7) in the "Experimental Section". The amount of MBA added should be 0.0833g instead of 0.833g.By Nuo Shang; Keliang Wang; Manhui Wei; Yayu Zuo; Pengfei Zhang; Hengwei Wang; Zhuo Chen; Daiyuan Zhong and Pucheng PeiReported by Author; Author; Author; Author; Author; Author; Author; Author; Author [Extracted from the article]