A salt water battery with high stability and charging rates made from solution processed conjugated polymers with polar side chains

We report a neutral salt water based battery which uses p-type and n-type solution processed polymer films as the cathode and the anode of the cell. The specific capacity of the electrodes (approximately 30 mAh cm-3) is achieved via formation of bipolarons in both the p-type and n-type polymers. By...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2017-11
Main Authors: Moia, Davide, Giovannitti, Alexander, Szumska, Anna A, Schnurr, Martin, Rezasoltani, Elham, Maria, Iuliana P, Barnes, Piers R F, McCulloch, Iain, Nelson, Jenny
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Batteries
Charging
Electrodes
Energy storage
Ethylene glycol
Ion transport
Polymer films
Polymers
Saline water
Stability
Zwitterions
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Summary:We report a neutral salt water based battery which uses p-type and n-type solution processed polymer films as the cathode and the anode of the cell. The specific capacity of the electrodes (approximately 30 mAh cm-3) is achieved via formation of bipolarons in both the p-type and n-type polymers. By engineering ethylene glycol and zwitterion based side chains attached to the polymer backbone we facilitate rapid ion transport through the non-porous polymer films. This, combined with efficient transport of electronic charge via the conjugated polymer backbones, allowed the films to maintain constant capacity at high charge and discharge rates (>1000 C-rate). The electrodes also show good stability during electrochemical cycling (less than 30% decrease in capacity over >1000 cycles) and an output voltage up to 1.4 V. The performance of these semiconducting polymers with polar side-chains demonstrates the potential of this material class for fast-charging, water based electrochemical energy storage devices.
ISSN:2331-8422