Membrane-Free Battery for Harvesting Low-Grade Thermal Energy
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- 作者：Yuan Yang ; James Loomis ; Hadi Ghasemi ; Seok Woo Lee ; Yi Jenny Wang ; Yi Cui ; Gang Chen
- 刊名：Nano Letters
- 出版年：2014
- 出版时间：November 12, 2014
- 年：2014
- 卷：14
- 期：11
- 页码：6578-6583
- 全文大小：372K
- ISSN：1530-6992
文摘
Efficient and low-cost systems are desired to harvest the tremendous amount of energy stored in low-grade heat sources (<100 掳C). An attractive approach is the thermally regenerative electrochemical cycle (TREC), which uses the dependence of electrode potential on temperature to construct a thermodynamic cycle for direct heat-to-electricity conversion. By varying the temperature, an electrochemical cell is charged at a lower voltage than discharged; thus, thermal energy is converted to electricity. Recently, a Prussian blue analog-based system with high efficiency has been demonstrated. However, the use of an ion-selective membrane in this system raises concerns about the overall cost, which is crucial for waste heat harvesting. Here, we report on a new membrane-free battery with a nickel hexacyanoferrate (NiHCF) cathode and a silver/silver chloride anode. The system has a temperature coefficient of 鈭?.74 mV K鈥?. When the battery is discharged at 15 掳C and recharged at 55 掳C, thermal-to-electricity conversion efficiencies of 2.6% and 3.5% are achieved with assumed heat recuperation of 50% and 70%, respctively. This work opens new opportunities for using membrane-free electrochemical systems to harvest waste heat.