On the hydrophilicity of electrodes for capacitive energy extraction
- Univ. of California, Riverside, CA (United States). Dept. of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. Dept. of Mathematics
- East China Univ. of Science and Technology, Shanghai (China). State Key Lab. of Chemical Engineering
The so-called Capmix technique for energy extraction is based on the cyclic expansion of electrical double layers to harvest dissipative energy arising from the salinity difference between freshwater and seawater. Its optimal performance requires a careful selection of the electrical potentials for the charging and discharging processes, which must be matched with the pore characteristics of the electrode materials. While a number of recent studies have examined the effects of the electrode pore size and geometry on the capacitive energy extraction processes, there is little knowledge on how the surface properties of the electrodes affect the thermodynamic efficiency. In this paper, we investigate the Capmix processes using the classical density functional theory for a realistic model of electrolyte solutions. The theoretical predictions allow us to identify optimal operation parameters for capacitive energy extraction with porous electrodes of different surface hydrophobicity. Finally, in agreement with recent experiments, we find that the thermodynamic efficiency can be much improved by using most hydrophilic electrodes.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of California, Riverside, CA (United States); East China Univ. of Science and Technology, Shanghai (China); Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures and Transport Center (FIRST)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Chinese Scholarship Council
- Contributing Organization:
- Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 1340470
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1324475
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Physics. Condensed Matter, Vol. 28, Issue 46; ISSN 0953-8984
- Publisher:
- IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
Direct Electricity Generation Mediated by Molecular Interactions with Low Dimensional Carbon Materials—A Mechanistic Perspective
|
journal | October 2018 |
Time-dependent density functional theory for the charging kinetics of electric double layer containing room-temperature ionic liquids
|
journal | November 2016 |
Study of a water-graphene capacitor with molecular density functional theory
|
journal | September 2019 |
Computational Insights into Materials and Interfaces for Capacitive Energy Storage
|
journal | April 2017 |
Similar Records
A molecular theory for optimal blue energy extraction by electrical double layer expansion
High Ion-Accessible Surface Area CNT-Ultracapacitors for Groundwater Desalination