Breaking the photoelectrochemical activity-battery voltage trade-off for efficient photocharging of TEMPO/quinone redox flow battery

IF 13.3 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL

Chemical Engineering Journal Pub Date : 2025-02-01 DOI:10.1016/j.cej.2025.160162

Weicheng Zhou , Mingyao Liu , Yuexian Cao , Youming Sun , Qingbo Chang , Xuefei Zhao , Hui Wang , Shengzhong Liu , Jingying Shi , Can Li

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Solar redox flow batteries (SRFBs) have shown a great promise for harvesting and storage of solar energy in simple and stand-alone way. The solar-to-redox conversion efficiency during photocharging is the bottleneck for the overall energy conversion efficiency of SRFBs, which is restricted by the photoelectrochemical activity-battery voltage trade-off. By far it remains challenging to unbiasedly photocharge a high voltage (>1.0 V) redox flow battery with a high energy conversion efficiency (>5%) based on a single cost-effective photoelectrode. Herein, we demonstrate a carbon-modified amorphous silicon photoanode to drive a 1.08 V pH-neutral TEMPO/quinone-based flow battery for direct photocharging, which delivers an average solar-to-redox conversion efficiency of 6.8 % under simulated solar irradiation, surpassing previous results for the similar types of SRFBs. Combined with high redox-to-electricity conversion efficiency (81.6 %) and high integrating efficiency between photocharging and dark discharge (97.4 %), the as-fabricated SRFB yields an average overall solar-redox-electricity conversion efficiency of 5.4 %, which is seldom achieved by the previous SRFBs. The carbon overlayer on the amorphous silicon surface is identified to be an efficient cocatalyst for PEC oxidation of TEMPO species during photocharging. This work provides an insight to construct highly efficient SRFBs by boosting the photocharging efficiency.

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来源期刊

Chemical Engineering Journal 工程技术-工程：化工

CiteScore

21.70

自引率

9.30%

发文量

6781

审稿时长

2.4 months

期刊介绍： The Chemical Engineering Journal is an international research journal that invites contributions of original and novel fundamental research. It aims to provide an international platform for presenting original fundamental research, interpretative reviews, and discussions on new developments in chemical engineering. The journal welcomes papers that describe novel theory and its practical application, as well as those that demonstrate the transfer of techniques from other disciplines. It also welcomes reports on carefully conducted experimental work that is soundly interpreted. The main focus of the journal is on original and rigorous research results that have broad significance. The Catalysis section within the Chemical Engineering Journal focuses specifically on Experimental and Theoretical studies in the fields of heterogeneous catalysis, molecular catalysis, and biocatalysis. These studies have industrial impact on various sectors such as chemicals, energy, materials, foods, healthcare, and environmental protection.