Prof. Chunzhong Li) Part I: Experimental section The as-prepared products were characterized with X-ray powder diffractometer (XRD; Shimadzu XRD-6000, Cu Kα radiation) at a scan rate of 1 °C min -1 , scanning electron microscopy (FESEM; JEOL, JSM-7600F), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM; JEOL, JEM-2100F) operated at 200 kV. N 2 adsorption/desorption was determined by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurements using a Tristar-3000 surface area analyzer. The electrochemical measurements

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... utolab PGSTAT30 potentiostat) were conducted using a three-electrode mode in a 1 M KOH aqueous solution. The working electrodes were prepared by mixing the active materials (80 wt%), acetylene black (15 wt%) and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF, 5 wt%) in NMP (N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone). A small amount of absolute ethanol was then added to the mixture to promote homogeneity. After that, the mixture was coated onto the graphite paper (1 cm 2 ) to form the electrode layer by drying at 120 °C for around two hours. The reference electrode Electronic Supplementary Material (ESI) for Chemical Communications This journal is