• Energy Research
• 2021-2025close
• chemical sciences close
• 7. Clean energy close
• 12. Responsible consumption close
• 6. Clean water close

Abstract With the rapid advancement in wearable electronics, energy harvesting devices based on triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have been intensively investigated for providing sustainable power supply for them. However, the fabrication of wearable TENGs still remains great challenges, such as flexibility, breathability and washability. Here, a route to develop a new kind of woven-structured triboelectric nanogenerator (WS-TENG) with a facile, low-cost, and scalable electrospinning technique is reported. The WS-TENG is fabricated with commercial stainless-steel yarns wrapped by electrospun polyamide 66 nanofiber and poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) nanofiber, respectively. Triggered by diversified friction materials under a working principle of freestanding mode, the open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current and maximum instantaneous power density from the WS-TENG can reach up to 166 V, 8.5 µA and 93 mW/m2, respectively. By virtue of high flexibility, desirable breathability, washability and excellent durability, the fabricated WS-TENG is demonstrated to be a reliable power textile to light up 58 light-emitting diodes (LED) connected serially, charge commercial capacitors and drive portable electronics. A smart glove with stitched WS-TENGs is made to detect finger motion in different circumstances. The work presents a new approach for self-powered textiles with potential applications in biomechanical energy harvesting, wearable electronics and human motion monitoring.

Wide‐bandgap (WBG) perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are acknowledged as promising candidates for tandem solar cells and building photovoltaics. It is well known that cesium‐based all‐inorganic halide WBG perovskites possess the comparable optoelectronic properties as the organic–inorganic counterparts, but exhibit superior thermal stability. Among them, CsPbIBr2 is considered a feasible material for tandem solar cells after balancing the bandgap and stability of the inorganic perovskite. However, CsPbIBr2 PSCs are often subjected to drastic interfacial charge recombination especially in carbon‐based device structure derived from the chemical bonding defects (i.e., uncoordinated Pb2+) naked on CsPbIBr2 soft lattice, which dramatically limits overall efficiency of CsPbIBr2 WBG PSCs. Herein, a trimethyl ammonium salt hexyltrimethylammonium bromide is presented for CsPbIBr2/carbon interfacial modification. Benefiting from the −N+(CH3)3 passivation effect and −C6H13 hydrophobic alkyl chain, the optimal device with highly smooth morphology and sufficient charge extraction exhibits a champion power conversion efficiency of 11.24% and improved long‐term stability with 99.7% and 79.7% efficiency retention under dry air atmosphere and continuous 85 °C thermal stress, indicating the valuable potential application of the lattice solidified CsPbIBr2 WBG PSCs.

Interfacial resistance at electrode‐high Li+ conductive solid electrolytes must be reduced well to develop high‐power all‐solid‐state batteries using oxide‐based solid electrolytes (Ox‐SSBs). Herein, crystalline electrode films of LiCoO2 (LCO) are formed on a high Li+ conductive crystalline‐glass solid electrolyte sheet, Li1.3Al0.3Ti2(PO4)3 (LATP) (σ25 °C = 1 × 10−4 S cm−1), at room temperature by aerosol deposition (AD), and the effects of the annealing temperature on the interfacial resistivities (Rint) at the LCO/LATP are investigated. The Rint visibly increases by annealing over 500 °C with the growth of Co3O4 as a reactant. In contrast, Rint is reduced to ≈100 Ω cm2 by low‐temperature annealing at 250–350 °C due to superior contact through the structural rearrangement of an artificial metastable interface formed by the AD. These results are applied to bulk‐type Ox‐SSB, Li/Li7La3Zr2O12(LLZ)/LCO–LATP, and our best Ox‐SSB delivers a discharge capacity of 100 mA cm−2 at 100 °C.

AbstractRevolutionary changes in energy storage technology have put forward higher requirements on next‐generation anode materials for lithium‐ion battery. Recently, a new class of materials with complex stoichiometric ratios, high‐entropy oxide (HEO), has gradually emerging into sight and embracing the prosperity. The ideal elemental adjustability and attractive synergistic effect make HEO promising to break through the integrated performance bottleneck of conventional anodes and provide new impetus for the design and development of electrochemical energy storage materials. Here, the research progress of HEO anodes is comprehensively reviewed. The driving force behind phase stability, the role of individual cations, potential mechanisms for controlling properties, as well as state‐of‐the‐art synthetic strategies and modification approaches are critically evaluated. Finally, we envision the future prospects and related challenges in this field, which will bring some enlightening guidance and criteria for researchers to further unlock the mysteries of HEO anodes.image

Abstract High power pseudocapacitors are extremely relevant to answer specific needs in the current energy transition arena and to implement an efficient renewable energy society. However, literature shows that are still open gaps concerning improvement of their energy density at high power, conversion efficiency, cost and cycle life. Electrodes based on active transition metal compounds, and in particular metal sulphides, evidence high potential to meet these objectives. This work discusses the dependence on the synthesis route of the charge storage mechanism of manganese sulphide-based materials and relates the pseudocapacitive response of these electrodes with their polycrystalline nature. Results reveal that a manganese oxy-sulphide mixture can achieve a high specific capacitance of 231 F.g−1 at 0.5 A/g in a 0.65 V active window. These values represent a 31.5 % increase compared to pure rambergite, γ-MnS, and 436 % compared to pure hausmannite Mn3O4 prepared under the same conditions. Moreover, the results show that manganese oxy-sulphide electrodes are characterized by good charge retention (73%), and superior long term capacity retention (above 86%) after 5000 cycles, evidencing potential for high power energy storage applications.

Abstract Economically harvesting energy from a microbial fuel cell (MFC), increasing its electrical power production, and developing its role as a practical energy supply, needs a low-cost and high-performance design of the MFC compartments. According to this strategy, a novel monolithic membrane electrode assembly (MEA) was fabricated and evaluated as an air–cathode in a single-chamber MFC (SCMFC). The MEA was made of bacterial cellulose (BC), conductive multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT), and nano-zycosil (NZ). BC, as a nano-celluloses with oxygen barrier property, can maintain anaerobic conditions for the anode compartment. Binder-less CNT coating on BC avoids costly binders such as poly-tetra fluoro ethylene (PTFE) and Nafion and decreases the MEA charge transfer resistance. NZ, as a very cheap modifier, not only prevents the anolyte leakage but also provides more MEA’s active sites for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The electrochemical performance of the MEA was compared to a PTFE- based gas diffusion electrode (GDE) in the SCMFC. The MEA cell provided a pulse power density of 1790 mW/m2, roughly twice as high as the pulse power density of GDE (920 mW/m2). SCMFC’s internal resistance decreased from 1.84 KΩ (with GDE) to 0.8 KΩ (with MEA). Also, the cell’s columbic efficiency increased from 4.2% (with GDE) to11.7% (with MEA). Additionally, the capacitance of the MEA (65 mF) was much higher than the value for GDE (0.73 mF). Thus, the MEA compared to the GDE showed higher performance in the SCMFC for electricity generation and wastewater treatment at a lower cost.

This review presents recent advancements in high-voltage rechargeable aqueous batteries employing water-in-salt and modified water-in-salt electrolytes.

It is critical and challenging to develop high performance transition metal phosphides (TMPs) electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) to address fossil energy shortages. Herein, we report the synthesis of Co2P embedded in N-doped porous carbon (Co2P@N-C) via a facile one-step strategy. The obtained catalyst exhibits a lower overpotential of 352 mV for OER at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and a small Tafel slope of 84.6 mV dec−1, with long-time reliable stability. The excellent electrocatalytic performance of Co2P@N-C can be mainly owed to the synergistic effect between the Co2P and highly conductive N-C substrate, which not only affords rich exposed active sites but also promotes faster charge transfer, thus significantly promoting OER process. This work presents a promising and industrially applicable synthetic strategy for the rational design of high performance nonnoble metal electrocatalysts with enhanced OER performance.

Accurate health prognostics of lithium-ion battery packs play a crucial role in timely maintenance and avoiding potential safety accidents in energy storage. To rapidly evaluate the health of newly developed battery packs, a method for predicting the future health of the battery pack using the aging data of the battery cells for their entire lifecycles and with the early cycling data of the battery pack is proposed. Firstly, health indicators (HIs) are extracted from the experimental data, and high correlations between the extracted HIs and the capacity are verified by the Pearson correlation analysis method. To predict the future health of the battery pack based on the HIs, degradation models of HIs are constructed by using an exponential function, long short-term memory network, and their weighted fusion. The future HIs of the battery pack are predicted according to the fusion degradation model. Then, based on the Gaussian process regression algorithm and battery pack data, a data-driven model is constructed to predict the health of the battery pack. Finally, the proposed method is validated with a series-connected battery pack with fifteen 100 Ah lithium iron phosphate battery cells. The mean absolute error and root mean square error of the health prediction of the battery pack are 7.17% and 7.81%, respectively, indicating that the proposed method has satisfactory accuracy.