Light Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Batteries Using V2O5 Cathodes

Solar energy is one of the most actively pursued renewable energy sources, but like many other sustainable energy sources, its intermittent character means solar cells have to be connected to an energy storage system to balance production and demand. To improve the efficiency of this energy conversion and storage process, photobatteries have recently been proposed where one of the battery electrodes is made from a photoactive material that can directly be charged by light without using solar cells. Here, we present photorechargeable lithium-ion batteries (Photo-LIBs) using photocathodes based on vanadium pentoxide nanofibers mixed with P3HT and rGO additives. These photocathodes support the photocharge separation and transportation process needed to recharge. The proposed Photo-LIBs show capacity enhancements of more than 57% under illumination and can be charged to ∼2.82 V using light and achieve conversion efficiencies of ∼2.6% for 455 nm illumination and ∼0.22% for 1 sun illumination

A flexible ternary oxide based solid-state supercapacitor with excellent rate capability

A porous vanadium doped-zinc–nickel–cobalt ternary oxide (VZnNiCo) nanostructure is presented for a high performance flexible supercapacitor (SC).</p

Nickel hydroxide coated carbon nanoparticles mediated hybrid three-dimensional graphene foam assembly for supercapacitor

A binder-free novel three-dimensional assembly comprising graphene, carbon nanoparticles and nickel hydroxide is presented as a supercapacitor electrode.</p

Voltage Generation in Optically Sensitive Supercapacitor for Enhanced Performance

An optically sensitive solid-state supercapacitor (SSC) is presented for direct utilization of optical energy for charge storage in a compact opto-electrochemical system. Optically and electrochemically active, energy efficient heterostructure nanomaterials of zinc cobalt oxide and zinc oxide (ZCZO) nanorods (NRs) were used as electrodes for the SSC, where the energy storage performance of the as-fabricated SSC displays highly sensitive behavior toward ultraviolet (UV) illumination, where the photoinduced electrons under UV radiation notably participate in the energy storage process that boosts the overall charge storage capacity (174%) of the SSC. The photogenerated areal capacitance and energy density under UV were found to be 150 μF/cm2 and 11.8 × 10–3 μWh/cm2. Moreover, SSC can be charged by exposure to UV radiation without any integration of an external electrical power source, where the self

Conjugated assembly of colloidal zinc oxide quantum dots and multiwalled carbon nanotubes for an excellent photosensitive ultraviolet photodetector.

Conjugation of highly dense colloidal zinc oxide quantum dots (ZnO QDs) on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (ZnO QDs@MWCNTs) is achieved for high performance ultraviolet (UV) photodetection. Significant improvement in the photoresponse of the ZnO QDs@MWCNTs photodetector (PD) is established as compared to a pristine ZnO QDs PD. The conjugation of two constituents allows the direct transfer of photoinduced charge carriers in ZnO QDs to MWCNTs for an efficient electrical path that considerably reduces charge recombination during UV exposure. Linearity in the response current with both the UV illumination intensity as well as external bias voltage reveals the photoelastic behavior of the ZnO QDs@MWCNTs PD. Moreover, the PD displays faster response and recovery times of 1.6 s and 1.9 s, respectively, than the most conventional PDs. In addition, spectral photoresponse analysis of the PD presents visible-blind behavior. Overall, conjugation of the hybrid heterostructure presented excellent photoelastic, high performance and visible-blind UV photodetection