Production of green electricity from strained BaTiO3 and TiO2 ceramics based hydroelectric cells

Abstract

Electricity generation from water molecules dissociation instantly without use of any chemical/light by invented hydroelectric cell (HEC) has emerged a new field of green energy generation without disturbing the environment. Specially engineered nanoporous and oxygen deficient metal oxides have already shown drastic capability of water dissociation at room temperature. In this direction we have heat treated TiO2 (TO) and synthesized BaTiO3 (BTO) in which oxygen defect induced strain through processing has been obtained. Oxygen vacancies produced in TO and BTO have been confirmed by Photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). The cation-oxygen vacancy pairs (Ti+3-Vo) on the BTO surface provide acid-base pair to attract polar water molecules to get chemidissociated into OH− and H3O+ ions. Further chemisorbed surface hydroxyl ions provide high surface charge potential to physisorbed multilayer of water molecules dissociation and some of H3O+ ions get trapped inside the nanopores. The trapped ions inside nanopores generate enough charge potential to further physi-dissociate adsorbed water molecules. Titanium dioxide samples exhibit increase in strain that has been estimated from the X-ray diffraction results. Bond length and bond angle in both of TiO2 (TO) and BaTiO3 (BTO) decrease while strain increases in their lattice structure. A circular disc of 2 cm diameter and 1 mm thickness of TiO2 and BaTiO3 have been fabricated as hydroelectric cell. BTO based HEC of area 3.14 cm2 generated maximum current 3.66 mA and voltage 0.975 V. Varying the synthesis parameters to produce more defects in the compound may further increase electricity generation. Perovskite based HEC is very stable, repetitive and eco-friendly technique for portable green electricity generation.