Upcycling end of life solar panels to lithium-ion batteries via a low temperature approach

The massive adoption of renewable energy especially photovoltaic (PVs) panel is expected to create a huge waste stream once it reaches end-of-life (EoL). Despite having the highest embodied energy, present photovoltaic recycling neglected the high purity silicon found in the PV cell. Herein, a scalable and low energy process was developed to recover pristine silicon from EoL solar panel through a process which avoids energy-intensive high temperature processes. The extracted silicon was upcycled to form lithium-ion battery anodes with performances comparable to as-purchased silicon. The anodes retained 87.5 % capacity after 200 cycles while maintaining high coulombic efficiency (>99 %) at 0.5 Ag -1 charging rate. This simple and scalable process to upcycle EoL-solar panels into high value silicon-based anode can narrow the gap towards net-zero waste economy.National Environmental Agency (NEA)National Research Foundation (NRF)Submitted/Accepted versionThis research/project is supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore, and National Environment Agency, Singapore under its Closing the Waste Loop Funding Initiative (Award No. USS-IF-2018-4)

Diffusive and drift halide perovskite memristive barristors as nociceptive and synaptic emulators for neuromorphic computing

With the current research impetus on neuromorphic computing hardware, realizing efficient drift and diffusive memristors are considered critical milestones for the implementation of readout layers, selectors, and frameworks in deep learning and reservoir computing networks. Current demonstrations are predominantly limited to oxide insulators with a soft breakdown behavior. While organic ionotronic electrochemical materials offer an attractive alternative, their implementations thus far have been limited to features exploiting ionic drift a.k.a. drift memristor technology. Development of diffusive memristors with organic electrochemical materials is still at an early stage, and modulation of their switching dynamics remains unexplored. Here, halide perovskite (HP) memristive barristors (diodes with variable Schottky barriers) portraying tunable diffusive dynamics and ionic drift are proposed and experimentally demonstrated. An ion permissive poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate interface that promotes diffusive kinetics and an ion source nickel oxide (NiOx) interface that supports drift kinetics are identified to design diffusive and drift memristors, respectively, with methylammonuim lead bromide (CH3NH3PbBr3) as the switching matrix. In line with the recent interest on developing artificial afferent nerves as information channels bridging sensors and artificial neural networks, these HP memristive barristors are fashioned as nociceptive and synaptic emulators for neuromorphic sensory signal computing.Ministry of Education (MOE)National Research Foundation (NRF)Accepted versionNRF‐CRP14‐2014‐03NRF2018‐ITC001‐001MOE2016‐T2‐1‐100MOE2018‐T2‐2‐08

Self healable neuromorphic memtransistor elements for decentralized sensory signal processing in robotics

Sensory information processing in robots relies on a centralized approach with issues of wiring, fault-tolerance and latency. Here, the authors report a decentralized neuromorphic approach with self-healable memristive elements enabling intelligent sensations in a prototypical robotic nervous system