Abstract
In nature, self-healing can be induced by sunlight for damage and wound repair, and this phenomenon is very important to living species for prolonging their lives. This self-repairing feature is obviously highly desirable for non-biological materials and manmade systems. In this paper, we demonstrate, for the first time, that battery electrodes can be self-repaired when exposed to sunlight. Here, we show that the optical, and photoelectrochemical (PEC) properties can be controlled by varying structural and compositional parameters of copper selenide nanocrystals (NCs). Cation to anion ratio in copper selenide (Cu2±xSe) NCs can be controlled over a wide range of 1.3–2.7 by simply changing the reaction temperature and impurity. Light-induced self-repairable behavior is demonstrated with electrochemical (EC) and PEC performances of electrodes made with stoichiometric copper selenide NCs. This nature-inspired, self-repairing behavior can be applied to batteries, supercapacitors, and photo-electrochemical fuel generators.
Highlights
Today, an average person throws away eight batteries per year millions of batteries are wasted imposing an immeasurable, adverse effect on our environment [1]
Scherrer formula (D = λ/2βcosθ; where λ = 1.54056 is X-ray line from Cu-Kα source, β is full width at half maximum in radian and θ is half of the peak center) for (111) plane results for crystalline size around 10.56 and 18.14 nm for the copper oxide NCs produced at reaction temperatures of 230 and 260 °C, respectively
The effects of reaction temperature and silver doping on the structural, compositional and morphological evolution of copper selenide nanocrystals are presented in this paper
Summary
An average person throws away eight batteries per year millions of batteries are wasted imposing an immeasurable, adverse effect on our environment [1]. Sunlight is an important self-repairing activator in plants and animals, where photons are absorbed through electronic absorption of some molecular chromophores or photoacceptors, which turns on intensified physiological activities to repair wounds [2]. Inspired by this phenomenon, it is highly desirable to incorporate self-reparability features in energy harvesting, e.g. electrochemical cells, as well as in energy storage devices, e.g. batteries and capacitors, to prolong their lifetime. Self-reparability features require structural and compositional control of the electrode material over many cycles to ensure its prolonged operation
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