Charge-doped electrodes for power production using the salinity gradient in CapMix

Abstract

In this paper, we show the effects of various types of polyelectrolytes and functionalized particles on the properties of soft electrodes in the CapMix process. To build negatively charged electrodes, poly(acrylic acid), poly(methacrylic acid), mixture poly(acrylic acid) and poly(methacrylic acid) and poly (4-styrenesulfonic acid) sodium salt polyelectrolytes were selected, while ethylenediamine, polyethyleneimine 25,000 g/mol, polyethyleneimine 750,000 g/mol were employed as positively charged electrodes. Based on the power production, system effectiveness, operating potential window and potential rise, the best pair of soft electrodes was composed of ethylenediamine and mixture poly(acrylic acid) and poly(methacrylic acid). This combination exhibited power production at a level of 293 mW/m2 and a power efficacy of 61.4%; furthermore, it showed very stable performance over 20 cycles. The investigated charge-doped ethylenediamine and mixture poly(acrylic acid) and poly(methacrylic acid). pair of electrodes exhibited power production that was almost 1 and 10 times higher than the power production in systems with ion-exchange membranes or neat AC electrodes, respectively.