Chemical-to-Electricity Carbon: Water Device

Sisi He; Yueyu Zhang; Longbin Qiu; Longsheng Zhang; Yun Xie; Jian Pan; Peining Chen; Bingjie Wang; Xiaojie Xu; Yajie Hu; Cao Thang Dinh; Phil De Luna; Mohammad Norouzi Banis; Zhiqiang Wang; Tsun-Kong Sham; Xingao Gong; Bo Zhang; Huisheng Peng; Edward H Sargent

doi:10.1002/adma.201707635

Chemical-to-Electricity Carbon: Water Device

Adv Mater. 2018 May;30(18):e1707635. doi: 10.1002/adma.201707635. Epub 2018 Mar 26.

Authors

Sisi He¹, Yueyu Zhang², Longbin Qiu¹, Longsheng Zhang¹, Yun Xie², Jian Pan¹, Peining Chen¹, Bingjie Wang¹, Xiaojie Xu¹, Yajie Hu¹, Cao Thang Dinh³, Phil De Luna⁴, Mohammad Norouzi Banis⁵, Zhiqiang Wang⁵, Tsun-Kong Sham⁵, Xingao Gong², Bo Zhang¹, Huisheng Peng¹, Edward H Sargent³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Department of Macromolecular Science and Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200438, China.
² Key Laboratory for Computational Physical Sciences (MOE), State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
³ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, 10 King's College Road, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3G4, Canada.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, 10 King's College Road, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3G4, Canada.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5B7, Canada.

PMID: 29578268
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201707635

Abstract

The ability to release, as electrical energy, potential energy stored at the water:carbon interface is attractive, since water is abundant and available. However, many previous reports of such energy converters rely on either flowing water or specially designed ionic aqueous solutions. These requirements restrict practical application, particularly in environments with quiescent water. Here, a carbon-based chemical-to-electricity device that transfers the chemical energy to electrical form when coming into contact with quiescent deionized water is reported. The device is built using carbon nanotube yarns, oxygen content of which is modulated using oxygen plasma-treatment. When immersed in water, the device discharges electricity with a power density that exceeds 700 mW m^-2 , one order of magnitude higher than the best previously published result. X-ray absorption and density functional theory studies support a mechanism of operation that relies on the polarization of sp² hybridized carbon atoms. The devices are incorporated into a flexible fabric for powering personal electronic devices.

Keywords: carbon nanotubes; chemical; electricity; energy; water.