Hydrogen generation with acid/alkaline amphoteric water electrolysis

To reduce the energy consumption of the electrolytic hydrogen generation process, we propose a novel approach to generate hydrogen with acidic/alkaline amphoteric water electrolysis, wherein hydrogen is produced inside an acidic solution and oxygen evolved under alkaline condition, and a membrane is employed in the middle of the electrolyzer to restrain neutralization. The electrode polarization is greatly reduced due to the specific arrangement of the acidic/alkaline amphoteric electrolyzer. The rate of hydrogen production achieves over four times higher than that of the alkaline aqueous solution at 2.2 V, and the energy consumption is reduced approximately 30% under the current density of 200 m A/cm ^2. The investigation of transmembrane potential drop indicates water splitting on the membrane surfaces, which compensates for acid or alkaline loss on-site and maintains the concentration approximately constant during electrolysis process. The acidic/alkaline amphoteric water electrolysis is promising as an energy saving, clean and sustainable hydrogen production technology.

A thermoresponsive composite separator loaded with paraffin@SiO_(2) microparticles for safe and stable lithium batteries

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs)-related accidents have been reported for years and safety issues are stumbling blocks for the practical applications of lithium metal batteries (LMBs) with higher energy density. More effective strategies to shut down the battery at the early stage of thermal runaway with less side effects on the electrochemical performance are greatly desired. In this work, the core–shell structural paraffin@SiO_(2) microparticles were synthesized by in situ emulsion interfacial hydrolysis and polycondensation and the paraffin@SiO_(2)-loaded separator (PSS) was prepared by a facile filtration method. The introduction of hydrophilic silica shells in paraffin@SiO_(2) enhanced the wettability of carbonate electrolyte with the composite separator and improved the processability of soft paraffin. As a result, when used in LMBs at room temperature, the cell with PSS inside had a more uniform deposition of lithium, a much lower overpotential and a more stable electrochemical performance than the cell with the blank separator or the conventional pure paraffin-loaded separator inside. More significantly, when a heating stimulation (i.e. 115 ℃) was subjected to the cell with PSS inside, the paraffin in the core of paraffin@SiO_(2) could be released, blocking the gaps between particles and the pores in the separator and efficiently stopping the transportation of Li+ between two electrodes, resulting in the thermally-induced shutdown of the cell below the melting temperature of PE (~135 ℃) in the Celgard2325 separator. The core–shell structure of paraffin@SiO_(2) enables the maintaining of each component’s benefits while avoiding each one’s drawbacks by elaborating microstructural design. Therefore, the conventional dilemma between the electrochemcial performance and safety of LMBs could be solved in the future.

Regulating the growth of lithium dendrite by coating an ultra-thin layer of gold on separator for improving the fast-charging ability of graphite anode

With the ever-growing application of lithium-ion batteries(LIBs), their fast-charging technology has attracted great interests of scientists. However, growth of lithium dendrites during fast charge of the bat teries with high energy density may pose great threats to the operation and cause serious safety issues Herein, we prepared a functional separator with an ultra-thin(20 nm) layer of Au nanoparticles deposited by evaporation coating method which could regulate growth direction and morphology of the lithium dendrites, owing to nearly zero overpotential of lithium meal nucleation on lithiated Au. Once the Li den drites are about to form on the graphite anode during fast charging(or lithiation), they plate predomi nantly on the Au deposited separator rather than on the graphite. Such selective deposition does no compromise the electrochemical performance of batteries under normal cycling. More importantly, i enables the better cycling stability of batteries at fast charge condition. The Li/Graphite cells with Au nanoparticles coated separator could cycle stably with a high areal capacity retention of 90.5% over 95 cycles at the current density of 0.72 m A cm^(-2). The functional separator provides an effective strategy to adjust lithium plating position at fast charge to ensure high safety of batteries without a compromise on the energy density of LIBs.

Continuous synthesis of few-layer MoS_(2) with highly electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

As one of the most promising alternative fuels,hydrogen is expected with high hopes.The electrolysis of water is regarded as the cleanest and most efficient method of hydrogen production.Molybdenum disulfide(MoS_(2))is deemed as one of the most promising alternatives HER catalysts owing to its high catalytic activity and low cost.Its continuous production and efficient preparation become the key problems in future industrial production.In this work,we first developed a continuous micro-reaction approach with high heat and mass transfer rates to synthesize few-layer MoS_(2)nanoplates with abundant active sites.The defective MoS_(2)ultrathin nanoplates exhibit excellent HER performance with an overpotential of 260 m V at a current density of 10 m A cm^(-2),small Tafel slope(53.6 m V dec^(-1))and prominent durability,which are comparable to most reported MoS_(2)based catalysts.Considering the existence of continuous devices,it's suitable for the synthesis of MoS_(2)as highperformance electrocatalysts for the industrial water electrolysis.The novel preparation method may open up a new way to synthesize all two-dimension materials toward HER.