NEW YORK: Last October, researchers at Ohio State demonstrated the world’s first solar battery—a solar cell and a lithium-oxygen (Li-O2) battery combined into a single device. The main attraction of the solar battery concept is that, because it can harvest, convert, and store solar energy as chemical energy all in one device, it eliminates losses that occur when transferring electrons between multiple devices. The researchers estimate that this integration can potentially reduce overall costs by about 25%.
Although the solar-charged Li-O2 battery represented a novel and promising concept, it had a drawback: its electrolyte was made of organic solvents, which are non-aqueous and therefore not compatible with aqueous (water-based) redox flow batteries, limiting the device’s performance. Organic solvents also face problems with environmental impact and cost.
Now in a new paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Ohio State Professor Yiying Wu and his research group have improved upon their original design by developing a solar battery that replaces the organic solvents with a more environmentally friendly and cost-effective iodine redox-based aqueous solution. The new version is an aqueous lithium-iodine (Li-I) solar flow battery, which integrates an aqueous Li-I redox flow battery with a dye-sensitized solar cell. This compatibility allows the device to operate at a higher voltage, improving its overall performance and bringing the solar battery a step closer to commercialization.
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