Engineering of Solvation Entropy by Poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid) Additive in an Aqueous Electrochemical System for Enhanced Low-Grade Heat Harvesting

Abstract

The thermally regenerative electrochemical cycle (TREC) is a reliable and efficient approach to converting low-grade heat into electricity. A high temperature coefficient (α) is the key to maximize the energy conversion efficiency of the TREC system. In this study, we present significant improvement of α of a Prussian blue analogue (PBA)-based electrochemical cell by adding poly­(4-styrenesulfonic acid) (PSS) to the electrolyte. Raman spectra showed that water-soluble charged polymers strongly affect the ion hydration structure and increase the entropy change (ΔS) during ion intercalation in PBA. A large α of −2.01 mV K–1 and high absolute heat-to-electricity conversion efficiency up to 1.83% was achieved with a TREC cell in the temperature range 10–40 °C. This study provides a fundamental understanding of the origin of α and a facile method to boosting the temperature coefficient for building a highly efficient low-grade heat harvesting system.