Engineering electrochemical devices: Photosynthetic solar cells and high power capacitors

工程电化学器件：光合太阳能电池和高功率电容器

• 批准号: 261943-2013
• 负责人: Madden, John
• 金额: $ 2.55万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=637514
• 关键词: Engineering; electrochemical; devices; Photosynthetic; solar

Electrochemically active materials will be investigated that aim to provide low cost solar energy harvesting - including built-in energy storage, as well as high power supercapacitors. Photosynthetic protein complexes, also known as reaction centres, absorb light and separate electrical charge. The process is performed with near perfect quantum efficiency (almost every photon is converted to charge). The objective is to create solar cells that employ these proteins, or their synthetic analogs, to generate electrical energy with reasonable power conversion efficiency. In principle -based on the electronic states available in reaction centres - ultimate power conversion efficiencies of as high as 27.5 % are possible (with genetic modification). Previous work has demonstrated generation using photoelectrochemical configurations very similar to dye-sensitized solar cells. We aim to overcome serious challenges that have led to efficiencies well below 1 % including the lack of selectively of electrodes and poor light absorption. Our group has proposed unique implementation to overcome these challenges. A novel cell design enables good light absorption and built-in energy storage. A key reason for poor performance are lack of selectivity of electrodes resulting in poor charge transfer kinetics. This will be overcome by employing semiconductor electrodes, in which band positioning favours charge transfer from one mediator and restricts that of the other. With these and other modifications we hope to produce photo-electrochemical cells that demonstrate power conversion efficiencies in excess of 10 %, and store energy over a period of hours. In the longer term it is hoped that the approach will lead to a commercially relevant and environmentally friendly method of producing electrical energy from sunlight.Also proposed is a method of creating fast charging supercapacitors that can replace tantalum capacitors where low internal resistance and millisecond discharge times are required. A novel separator material and porous metal electrodes proposed to achieve this goal.Finally, the program includes the application of novel nanotube yarn based actuator technology, in much stronger than muscle contractions result for low voltage pulses.

将研究旨在提供低成本太阳能收集的电化学活性材料，包括内置储能以及高功率超级电容器。光合蛋白质复合物，也称为反应中心，吸收光并分离电荷。该过程以近乎完美的量子效率执行（几乎每个光子都转换为电荷）。目标是制造利用这些蛋白质或其合成类似物的太阳能电池，以合理的功率转换效率产生电能。原则上，基于反应中心可用的电子态，最终能量转换效率可能高达 27.5%（通过基因改造）。先前的工作已经证明使用与染料敏化太阳能电池非常相似的光电化学配置进行发电。我们的目标是克服导致效率远低于 1% 的严重挑战，包括缺乏电极选择性和光吸收差。我们的团队提出了独特的实施方案来克服这些挑战。新颖的电池设计可实现良好的光吸收和内置能量存储。性能差的一个关键原因是电极缺乏选择性，导致电荷转移动力学差。这将通过采用半导体电极来克服，其中能带定位有利于一种介体的电荷转移并限制另一种介体的电荷转移。通过这些和其他修改，我们希望生产出功率转换效率超过 10% 并能在数小时内储存能量的光电化学电池。从长远来看，希望该方法将带来一种商业相关且环保的方法，利用阳光产生电能。还提出了一种创建快速充电超级电容器的方法，该超级电容器可以替代需要低内阻和毫秒放电时间的钽电容器。提出了一种新型隔膜材料和多孔金属电极来实现这一目标。最后，该计划包括应用基于新型纳米管纱线的致动器技术，其效果比低电压脉冲的肌肉收缩强得多。