Issue 19, 2022

Efficient harvesting and storage of solar energy of an all-vanadium solar redox flow battery with a MoS2@TiO2 photoelectrode

Abstract

Solar redox flow batteries constitute an emerging technology that provides a smart alternative for the capture and storage of discontinuous solar energy through the photo-generation of the discharged redox species employed in traditional redox flow batteries. Here, we show that a MoS2-decorated TiO2 (MoS2@TiO2) photoelectrode can successfully harvest light to be stored in a solar redox flow battery using vanadium ions as redox active species in both the catholyte and anolyte, and without the use of any bias. The MoS2@TiO2 photoelectrode achieved an average photocurrent density of ∼0.4 mA cm−2versus 0.08 mA cm−2 for bare TiO2, when tested for the oxidation of V4+ to V5+, attributed to a more efficient light harvesting and charge separation for the MoS2@TiO2 relative to TiO2. The designed solar redox flow cell exhibited an optimal overall solar-to-output energy conversion efficiency (SOEE) of ∼4.78%, which outperforms previously reported solar redox flow batteries. This work demonstrates the potential of the MoS2@TiO2 photoelectrode to efficiently convert solar energy into chemical energy in a solar redox flow battery, and it also validates the great potential of this technology to increase reliability in renewable energies.

Graphical abstract: Efficient harvesting and storage of solar energy of an all-vanadium solar redox flow battery with a MoS2@TiO2 photoelectrode

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Janv. 2022
Accepted
05 Apr. 2022
First published
05 Apr. 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2022,10, 10484-10492

Efficient harvesting and storage of solar energy of an all-vanadium solar redox flow battery with a MoS2@TiO2 photoelectrode

G. Tian, R. Jervis, J. Briscoe, M. Titirici and A. Jorge Sobrido, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2022, 10, 10484 DOI: 10.1039/D2TA00739H

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