Issue 4, 2020

Microdroplet photofuel cells to harvest high-density energy and dye degradation

Abstract

In this study, a membraneless photofuel cell, namely, μ-DropFC, was designed and developed to harvest chemical and solar energies simultaneously. The prototypes can also perform environmental remediation to demonstrate their multitasking potential as a sustainable hybrid device in a single embodiment. A hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) microdroplet at optimal pH and salt loading was utilized as a fuel integrated with Al as an anode and zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPC)-coated Cu as a cathode. The presence of n-type semiconductor ZnPC in between the electrolyte and metal enabled the formation of a photo-active Schottky junction suitable for power generation under light. Concurrently, the oxidation and reduction of H2O2 on the electrodes helped in the conversion of chemical energy into the electrical one in the same membraneless setup. The suspension of Au nanoparticles (Au NPs) in the droplet helped in enhancing the overall power density under photonic illumination through the effects of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). Furthermore, the presence of photo-active n-type CdS NPs enabled the catalytic photo-degradation of dyes under light in the same embodiment. A 40 μL μ-DropFC could show a significantly high open circuit potential of ∼0.58 V along with a power density of 0.72 mW cm−2. Under the same condition, the integration of ten such μ-DropFCs could produce a power density of ∼7 mW cm−2 at an efficiency of 3.4%, showing the potential of the prototype for a very large scale integration (VLSI). The μ-DropFC could also degrade ∼85% of an industrial pollutant, rhodamine 6G, in 1 h while generating a power density of ∼0.6 mW cm−2. The performance parameters of μ-DropFCs were found to be either comparable or superior to the existing prototypes. In a way, the affordable, portable, membraneless, and high-performance μ-DropFC could harvest energy from multiple resources while engaging in environmental remediation.

Graphical abstract: Microdroplet photofuel cells to harvest high-density energy and dye degradation

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
16 дек 2019
Accepted
27 фев 2020
First published
28 фев 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale Adv., 2020,2, 1613-1624

Microdroplet photofuel cells to harvest high-density energy and dye degradation

S. Thakur, N. M. Das, S. Kumar, A. K. Dasmahapatra and D. Bandyopadhyay, Nanoscale Adv., 2020, 2, 1613 DOI: 10.1039/C9NA00785G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements