With the development of the Internet of Things (IoTs), widely distributed electronics in the environment require effective in situ energy harvesting technologies, which is made challenging by the unstable supply and severe conditions in some environments. In this work, a hybrid all‐in‐one power source (AoPS) is demonstrated for widely adaptive environmental energy harvesting. With a novel structure, the AoPS hybridizes high‐performance spherical triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) with solar cells, enabling the harvesting of most typical environmental energies from wind, rain drops, and sun light, for complementary supply. The spherical TENG units with a packaged structure can work robustly to collect energy from fluid. Nearly continuous direct current and a high average power of 5.63 mW can be obtained by four TENG units, which is further complemented by solar cells. Typical application scenarios are also demonstrated, achieving self‐powered soil moisture control, forest fire prevention and pipeline monitoring. The work realizes the concept of an environmental power source that can be deployed in the environment with high adaptability to make use of all kinds of surrounding energies for powering electronics in all‐weather conditions, providing a reliable foundation for the era of the IoTs.
Aqueous aluminum metal batteries (AMBs) are regarded as one of the most sustainable energy storage systems among post-lithium-ion candidates, which is attributable to their highest theoretical volumetric capacity, inherent safe operation, and low cost. Yet, the development of aqueous AMBs is plagued by the incapable aluminum plating in an aqueous solution and severe parasitic reactions, which results in the limited discharge voltage, thus making the development of aqueous AMBs unsuccessful so far. Here, we demonstrate that amorphization is an effective strategy to tackle these critical issues of a metallic Al anode by shifting the reduction potential for Al deposition. The amorphous aluminum (a-Al) interfacial layer is triggered by an in situ lithium-ion alloying/dealloying process on a metallic Al substrate with low strength. Unveiled by experimental and theoretical investigations, the amorphous structure greatly lowers the Al nucleation energy barrier, which forces the Al deposition competitive to the electron-stealing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Simultaneously, the inhibited HER mitigates the passivation, promoting interfacial ion transfer kinetics and enabling steady aluminum plating/stripping for 800 h in the symmetric cell. The resultant multiple full cells using Al@a-Al anodes deliver approximately a 0.6 V increase in the discharge voltage plateau compared to that of bare Al-based cells, which far outperform all reported aqueous AMBs. In both symmetric cells and full cells, the excellent electrochemical performances are achieved in a noncorrosive, low-cost, and fluorine-free Al 2 (SO 4 ) 3 electrolyte, which is ecofriendly and can be easily adapted for sustainable large-scale applications. This work brings an intriguing picture of the design of metallic anodes for reversible and high-voltage AMBs.
Tind iselenide (SnSe 2 ), as an anodem aterial,h as outstandingp otential for use in advanced lithium-ion batteries. However,l ike other tin-based anodes, SnSe 2 suffers from poor cycle life and low rate capabilityd ue to large volume expansion during the repeated Li + insertion/de-insertion process. This work reports an effectivea nd easy strategy to combine SnSe 2 and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to form a SnSe 2 /CNTsh ybrid nanostructure. The synthesized SnSe 2 has ar egularh exagonal shape with at ypical 2D nanostructure and the carbon nanotubes combine well with the SnSe 2 nanosheets. The hybrid nanostructure can significantly reduce the serious damage to electrodes that occurs during electrochemical cycling processes. Remarkably,t he SnSe 2 / CNTse lectrodee xhibits ah igh reversible specific capacity of 457.6 mA hg À1 at 0.1 Ca nd 210.3 mA hg À1 after 100 cycles. At ac ycling rate of 0.5 C, the SnSe 2 /CNTse lectrode can still achieve ah igh value of 176.5 mA hg À1 ,w hereas av alue of 45.8 mA hg À1 is achieved for the pure SnSe 2 electrode. The enhanced electrochemical performance of the SnSe 2 /CNTs electrode demonstrates its great potential for use in lithiumion batteries.T hus, this work reports af acile approacht o the synthesis of SnSe 2 /CNTsa sap romising anode material for lithium-ionb atteries.Supporting information and the ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under: https://doi.
Highlights Integration of solar cells, BSHs, and LEDs was developed for energy conversion, storage, and utilization in one system. NiCo 2 O 4 //AC BSHs were charged by a-Si/H solar cells for stably driving LEDs showing high performances. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s40820-019-0274-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
electric vehicles, and even large-scale grid storage. Its popularization is mainly attributed to its high specific capacity, excellent rate capability, and long cycle life. [1] However, even after nearly thirty years of development since commercialization by Sony in 1991, [2] there are still issues with LIBs that cannot be ignored, which are safety and high production cost due to the scarcity of lithium. [3] Although there are efforts made to recover and extract lithium, such as by recovering spent LIBs [4] and developing new technologies to extract lithium from seawater, [5] scientists are cautious in adopting those approaches and focusing more efforts on seeking alternatives to LIBs.In recent years, "Beyond Lithium" batteries such as Na-ion, [6] K-ion, [7] Zn-ion, [8] Mg-ion, [9] Ca-ion, [10] and Al-ion batteries are becoming increasingly popular. [11,12] Among these, aluminum-ion batteries (AIBs) are considered a promising candidate due to their unique properties from aluminum (Al). Its superiority is mainly reflected in two aspects. Firstly, Al is the most abundant metal element in the earth's crust (≈8% by weight). [13] Secondly, the redox process of Al involves three-electron transfer, providing an opportunity to create high energy density batteries. [14] Even though Al was first reported as a battery anode as early as 1857, [15] it was not until 2011 that the first rechargeable AIB appeared. [16] Archer et al. realized a rechargeable AIB with V 2 O 5 nanowire as the cathode and AlCl 3 /1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([EMIm]Cl) as the electrolyte, which can charge and discharge for 20 cycles. Although Wen et al. later pointed out that V 2 O 5 is not a chemically stable cathode material for AIBs using chloroaluminate ionic liquid (IL) electrolytes, [17] this work still provides an intriguing picture of AIBs. Rechargeable AIBs can be divided into aqueous and nonaqueous systems based on the electrolyte used. The field of AIBs has made rapid progress in recent years, especially for nonaqueous systems.Ever since the development of AIBs with the use of IL electrolyte and graphitic cathode by Dai et al. in 2015, it has been detonated as research hotspots, [18] and there have been several reviews focusing on nonaqueous AIBs. [11,19] Despite the better current performance of nonaqueous AIBs, the significant advantages of aqueous AIBs (AAIBs) have gained more attention, with an ever-increasing number of researchers joining the odyssey of AAIBs. However, there is only one review that summarizes the status of AAIBs before 2020. [20] In the pastThe high cost and scarcity of lithium resources have prompted researchers to seek alternatives to lithium-ion batteries. Among emerging "Beyond Lithium" batteries, rechargeable aluminum-ion batteries (AIBs) are yet another attractive electrochemical storage device due to their high specific capacity and the abundance of aluminum. Although the current electrochemical performance of nonaqueous AIBs is better than aqueous AIBs (AAIBs), AAIBs have recently gained attention d...
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