The confinement within carbon nanotubes (CNTs) improves the electrochemical reversibility of CNT-confined MnO₂ nanoparticles and benefits their capacitive enhancement, which exhibit a specific capacitance of 225 F g⁻¹ for the composites and MnO₂ normalized capacitance as high as 1250 F g⁻¹.

Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) have been widely employed as the most popular energy source in today's portable electronics and are considered as one of the most promising energy strategies for electrical vehicle and plug-in hybrid electrical vehicle application, which has recently been under intense research and development. However, many crucial challenges need to be addressed to obtain high performance LIBs for further application. Recently, electrostatic spray deposition (ESD) technique has attracted much attention as a promising tool for electrode formation. The ESD is based on applying a high DC voltage to generate a high electrostatic force and accelerate atomized liquid droplets at the tip of a nozzle; the aerosol formed by charged droplets is sequentially deposited on a heated substrate to create an electrode for LIBs. This technique provides a simple but versatile strategy for generating single or multi-component materials with various type of morphologies, such as sponge-like, dense, porous and fractal, etc. In this review, an overview of the latest development and understanding of various anodes synthesized by the ESD technique in LIBs is briefly reviewed and discussed. Our attention is mainly focused on three different anode categories: (1) intercalation–de-intercalation anodes, such as graphite, Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ and TiO₂, etc.; (2) alloying–de-alloying anodes, such as Sn and SnO₂, etc.; (3) conversion reaction anodes, such as NiO, Fe₂O₃, Co₃O₄, CoO, and Cu₂O, etc. Moreover, our recent research outcome related to the ESD derived anodes for LIBs is highlighted.

Black phosphorus (BP) is a two-dimensional material that has gained attention for various applications due to its exceptional physical and chemical properties such as tunable bandgap and high charge carrier mobility. However, the critical step towards the application of BP is still contingent on successfully exfoliating the bulk material into few-layer phosphorene nanosheets. Herein, we show a one-step, facile, and environmentally friendly method of bipolar electrochemical exfoliation-and-deposition of BP nanosheets on a positive feeding electrode. The exfoliated-and-deposited material is high-quality phosphorene with an orthorhombic crystal structure, and it adheres onto the substrate with a fractal and structured morphology. The electrochemical performance of the material was evaluated in a symmetric two-electrode configuration soaked in aqueous electrolyte for capacitive energy storage application. The results revealed fractional-order capacitive behaviour in the low-to-medium frequency, and a high stability and reversibility for at least 40 000 cycles. The power performance is outstanding with 0.35 mW cm⁻² at a constant current rate of 0.5 mA cm⁻².