title: A hyperaccumulation pathway to three-dimensional hierarchical porous nanocomposites for highly robust high-power electrodes.
abstract: Natural plants consist of a hierarchical architecture featuring an intricate network of highly interconnected struts and channels that not only ensure extraordinary structural stability, but also allow efficient transport of nutrients and electrolytes throughout the entire plants. Here we show that a hyperaccumulation effect can allow efficient enrichment of selected metal ions (for example, Sn2+, Mn2+) in the halophytic plants, which can then be converted into three-dimensional carbon/metal oxide (3DC/MOx) nanocomposites with both the composition and structure hierarchy. The nanocomposites retain the 3D hierarchical porous network structure, with ultrafine MOxnanoparticles uniformly distributed in multi-layers of carbon derived from the cell wall, cytomembrane and tonoplast. It can simultaneously ensure efficient electron and ion transport and help withstand the mechanical stress during the repeated electrochemical cycles, enabling the active material to combine high specific capacities typical of batteries and the cycling stability of supercapacitors.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry Hunan University, and School of Physics and Electronics, Changsha 410082, China.|Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Botany, Jiangsu Province and Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210014, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry Hunan University, and School of Physics and Electronics, Changsha 410082, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Hongtao
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3259-6091
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Zipeng
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-1135-6742
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry Hunan University, and School of Physics and Electronics, Changsha 410082, China.|Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mei
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry Hunan University, and School of Physics and Electronics, Changsha 410082, China.
authors.forename: Zhi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Sustainable Energy Technologies Centre, College of Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Imran
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Shakir
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.|California Nanosystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry Hunan University, and School of Physics and Electronics, Changsha 410082, China.
authors.forename: Bingan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.|California Nanosystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Xiangfeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Duan