The Outreach group POM committee is pleased to announce the ‘Paper of the Month’ for March 2018 is a study contributed to by Sean Lim and Thomas Leoni from EMU, in conjunction with:
Shi Nee Lou, Neeraj Sharma, Damian Goonetilleke, Wibawa Hendra Saputera, Paul Brockbank, Da‐Wei Wang, Jason Scott, Rose Amal, Yun Hau Ng.
An Operando Mechanistic Evaluation of a Solar‐Rechargeable Sodium‐Ion Intercalation Battery.
Published in: Advanced Energy Materials. 2017, 1700545
This work is significant because the insights achieved from this study can aid the development of more advanced photointercalation electrodes and solar batteries with greater performances
Solar‐intercalation batteries, which are able to both harvest and store solar energy within the electrodes, are a promising technology for the more efficient utilization of intermittent solar radiation. However, there is a lack of understanding on how the light‐induced intercalation reaction occurs within the electrode host lattice. Here, an in operando synchrotron X‐ray diffraction methodology is introduced, which allows for real‐time visualization of the structural evolution process within a solar‐intercalation battery host electrode lattice. Coupled with ex situ material characterization, direct correlations between the structural evolution of MoO3 and the photo‐electrochemical responses of the solar‐intercalation batteries are established for the first time. MoO3 is found to transform, via a two‐phase reaction mechanism, initially into a sodium bronze phase, Na0.33MoO3, followed by the formation of solid solutions, NaxMoO3 (0.33 < x < 1.1), on further photointercalation. Time‐resolved correlations with the measured voltages indicate that the two‐phase evolution reaction follows zeroth‐order kinetics. The insights achieved from this study can aid the development of more advanced photointercalation electrodes and solar batteries with greater performances.
To read more, follow this link:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aenm.201700545
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Fig. 1: In operando synchrotron XRD PEC experiment in the custom‐designed LED integrated cell MoO3 “solar battery” on the beam line, inset shows a photograph of the LED ring; schematics illustrating the assembly of the cell and the back‐view of the cell showing the arrangement of the electrodes.
