Chemically Chargeable Photo Battery

Abstract

Here we show a surrogate strategy for power production, wherein light is used to actuate a discharge chemistry in the cathode of an aqueous rechargeable battery (ARB). The proposed photo battery consists of a titanium nitride photoanode, promising cathode material iron(III) hexacyanoferrate(II) as the battery active species and Na 2 S 2 O 8 as the chemical charging agent. The photo battery delivered negligible capacity in the dark and the capacity shot up to 77.8 mAh/g when artificially shined light, confirming that the battery chemistry is light driven. In the ambient light, the device retained 72% of its artificial light discharge capacity with a stable cycling for more than 100 cycles. Further, an unprecedented means for charging the battery rapidly is presented using Na 2 S 2 O 8 and it revitalized the battery in 30 s without any external bias. This methodology of expending a photoanode extends to a battery that is free from dissolution of active materials, irreversible structural changes, spontaneous deinsertion reactions, and safety concerns commonly encountered in the state of the art anode materials in ARBs. Apart from bringing out a sustainable way for power production, this device opens up avenues for charging the battery in the likely events of electrical input unavailability, while solving the critcial issues of longer charging time and higher charging voltage.

Halide Perovskite Materials for Energy Storage Applications

“…[109][110][111] Other inorganic materials including LiMn 2 O 4 , iron(III) hexacyanoferrate(II), titanium nitride, and CuFeTe 2 have been incorporated in photorechargeable batteries. [112][113][114][115] Apart from the electrode optimization, the electrolytes responsive to light are tailored for the photobattery application. [116][117][118] Carbon nitride nanotubes [119] and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) [120] are identified to help the reversible insertion/extraction process in a photobattery.…”

Integrated Photo‐Responsive Batteries for Solar Energy Harnessing: Recent Advances, Challenges, and Opportunities

“…The photoanode could not only realize photocharging/photoassisted charging process, but also maybe improve discharging performance of some air‐based batteries and other typed batteries . For instance, a photoenhanced methanol fuel cell with graphene‐TiO 2 nanorod array photoanode was constructed by Li et al., which exhibited higher OCP and P peak (∼1.1 μW cm −2 ) upon illumination than dark condition (∼0.1 μW cm −2 ) (Figure a–b) …”

A chemically self-charging aqueous zinc-ion battery

“…Chemical energy stored in molecules is an available energy source and can be converted into electrical energy through redox reaction [19][20][21][22] . In this regard, chemical energy of oxygen that is an abundant resource in air is attracting much more attention in the energy conversion and storage devices, such as metal-air batteries.…”