Triboelectric nanogenerator based on Teflon/vitamin B1 powder for self-powered humidity sensing

• Liangyi Zhang,
• Huan Li,
• Yiyuan Xie,
• Jing Guo and
• Zhiyuan Zhu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1394–1401, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.123

• development of methods for harvesting energy from the surrounding environment and converting it into electrical power. Through the design of portable electronics and wireless sensor systems [13][14][15][16], which harvest energy from the environment, the adverse environmental effects caused by battery-powered

• ]. Recently, TENG-based sensors have attracted increased attention [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. In 2014, Ga-doped ZnO was used for the fabrication of piezo-humidity sensors with a high sensitivity and a fast response [42]. In 2018, Vivekananthan et al. proposed sustainable energy harvesting and battery

Gas sorption porosimetry for the evaluation of hard carbons as anodes for Li- and Na-ion batteries

• Yuko Matsukawa,
• Fabian Linsenmann,
• Maximilian A. Plass,
• George Hasegawa,
• Katsuro Hayashi and
• Tim-Patrick Fellinger

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1217–1229, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.106

• descriptors to the obtained capacities remains a scientific challenge. Keywords: alkaline-ion secondary battery; gas sorption porosimetry; hard carbon; irreversible capacity; ultramicroporosity; Introduction Lithium-ion battery (LIB)-based energy storage devices have been gaining high interest in the recent

• years in many industrial branches, ranging from electronic devices over battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to applications in grid energy storage. Since for grid energy storage a large amount of installed absolute capacity (rather than specific capacity) is required and LIB cells are still expensive

• capacity. The most common method to determine SSAs and nanoporosity in the battery community are nitrogen (N2) sorption porosimetry, as well as krypton (Kr) sorption porosimetry in case of very low surface areas. A precise quantification of microporosity (pore diameters smaller than 2 nm), however, cannot

Atomic layer deposition for efficient oxygen evolution reaction at Pt/Ir catalyst layers

• Stefanie Schlicht,
• Korcan Percin,
• Stefanie Kriescher,
• André Hofer,
• Claudia Weidlich,
• Matthias Wessling and
• Julien Bachmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 952–959, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.79

• approach yields improved mass activity (557 A·g−1 as compared to 80 A·g−1 at 0.39 V overpotential) on the basis of the noble-metal loading, as well as improved stability. Keywords: atomic layer deposition (ALD); oxygen evolution reaction (OER); redox flow battery; vanadium–air redox flow battery (VARFB

• to stability measurements on very long operation timescales (years) or accelerated degradation tests. Under the operating conditions of a vanadium–air redox flow battery, however, the ALD-treated electrodes show a significant stability improvement towards the strongly acidic vanadium electrolyte

Exfoliation in a low boiling point solvent and electrochemical applications of MoO₃

• Matangi Sricharan,
• Bikesh Gupta,
• Sreejesh Moolayadukkam and
• H. S. S. Ramakrishna Matte

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 662–670, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.52

• were mixed with 5 wt % of PVDF and stirred overnight in NMP to form a thick paste. The paste was used to make a thin electrode film on carbon paper (1.5 cm × 1.5 cm) and dried in an oven at 60 °C. To fabricate two-electrode supercapacitors, two such electrodes were sandwiched between battery-grade

Comparison of fresh and aged lithium iron phosphate cathodes using a tailored electrochemical strain microscopy technique

• Matthias Simolka,
• Hanno Kaess and
• Kaspar Andreas Friedrich

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 583–596, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.46

• microscopy (ESM); LiFePO4; Introduction The growing demand for safe, reliable and efficient energy storage is supporting the development and improvement of current battery technology. Since the introduction of the first Li-ion battery by Sony in the 1990s, the energy and power density have increased yearly

• and commercial cells are much safer now as compared to their first entrance to the market. However, especially for the automotive sector, the current battery capabilities are still inferior with respect to the expectations of many users regarding energy density and recharging time. Furthermore, recent

• life-cycle analysis (LCA) studies have emphasized the issues associated with battery production and recycling [1][2][3]. As a consequence there is a trend to reduce or eliminate cobalt as a critical raw material [4][5]. Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4 or LFP) is highly promising to achieve this goal

Current measurements in the intermittent-contact mode of atomic force microscopy using the Fourier method: a feasibility analysis

• Berkin Uluutku and
• Santiago D. Solares

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 453–465, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.37

• developed, such as for the intermodulation AFM method, which uses a battery of lock-in amplifiers [30][31], but the amplification in that case is much smaller than what would be required for ICM-AFM. In addition to the above challenges, which may not represent an exhaustive list, there are challenges that

DFT calculations of the structure and stability of copper clusters on MoS₂

• Cara-Lena Nies and
• Michael Nolan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 391–406, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.30

• the targeted battery applications [30]. Studies of the adsorption of larger structures include the adsorption of 1D metal chains of Cu, Ag and Au [24] on a monolayer of graphene, in which two different conformations of metal chains, namely zig-zag and armchair, are studied. The metal chains physisorb

An advanced structural characterization of templated meso-macroporous carbon monoliths by small- and wide-angle scattering techniques

• Felix M. Badaczewski,
• Marc O. Loeh,
• Torben Pfaff,
• Dirk Wallacher,
• Daniel Clemens and
• Bernd M. Smarsly

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 310–322, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.23

• are potential candidates for lithium or lithium–sulfur battery systems, in which the carbon acts as a conductive matrix [41][42][43]. Other important features for this kind of applications are the connectivity and the accessibility of the pore network. The connection between large and small pores can

High-performance asymmetric supercapacitor made of NiMoO₄ nanorods@Co₃O₄ on a cellulose-based carbon aerogel

• Meixia Wang,
• Jing Zhang,
• Xibin Yi,
• Benxue Liu,
• Xinfu Zhao and
• Xiaochan Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 240–251, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.18

• redox peaks increased linearly with v1/2 demonstrating the battery behavior of NiMoO4@Co3O4/CA [44][45]. The specific capacities of NiMoO4@Co3O4/CA become diffusion-controlled in the high scan rate range (above 30 mV/s) and the peak current (i) response is proportional to the square root of the scanning

• rate (i ∼ v1/2) owing to the diffusion-controlled battery behavior. This is further confirmed by the linear change of the current of the CV redox peaks as a function of v1/2 (Figure S3, Supporting Information File 1). To further evaluate the charge storage ability of the electrodes, galvanostatic

• accordance with the battery characteristics derived from the CV results. Based on the GCD curves, the specific capacitance values of the NiMoO4@Co3O4/CA ternary composite are calculated to be 436.9, 394.1, 368.6, 349.9, 337.8, 321.8 and 308.9 C/g at 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 A/g, respectively. These

Antimony deposition onto Au(111) and insertion of Mg

• Lingxing Zan,
• Da Xing,
• Abdelaziz Ali Abd-El-Latif and
• Helmut Baltruschat

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2541–2552, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.245

• surface has never been reported. Using this layer for such an insertion study in fundamental research offers the advantage of a better defined structure of the insertion compound as compared to the use of small particles in battery research. The initial cyclic voltammetry study of antimony electrochemical

Design and facile synthesis of defect-rich C-MoS₂/rGO nanosheets for enhanced lithium–sulfur battery performance

• Chengxiang Tian,
• Juwei Wu,
• Zheng Ma,
• Bo Li,
• Pengcheng Li,
• Xiaotao Zu and
• Xia Xiang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2251–2260, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.217

• construction of other high-performance metal disulfide electrodes for electrochemical energy storage. Keywords: annealing; double modification; high-performance electrodes; lithium–sulfur battery; molybdenum disulfide (MoS2); reduced graphene oxide (rGO); Introduction Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries have

• discharge products (Li2S2 and Li2S) and sulfur result in a slow charge and discharge process and a low specific capacity [3]. Intermediate products of battery charge and discharge (Li2Sn, where 3 ≤ n ≤ 8) are soluble in the electrolyte and can also migrate to the lithium metal anode and precipitate there [4

• voltammetry tests were carried out on a LAND battery cycler (CT2001A) in a voltage range of 1.7 to 2.9 V (vs Li/Li+). The specific capacity was calculated based on the mass of sulfur. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) tests were carried out between 1.6 and 2.9 V at a scan rate of 0.1 mV·s−1. The electrochemical

A novel all-fiber-based LiFePO₄/Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ battery with self-standing nanofiber membrane electrodes

• Li-li Chen,
• Hua Yang,
• Mao-xiang Jing,
• Chong Han,
• Fei Chen,
• Xin-yu Hu,
• Wei-yong Yuan,
• Shan-shan Yao and
• Xiang-qian Shen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2229–2237, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.215

• used as self-standing electrodes for lithium-ion batteries. The structure and morphology of the fibers, and the electrochemical performance of the electrodes and the full battery were characterized. The results show that the LiFePO4 and Li4Ti5O12 fiber membrane electrodes exhibit good rate and cycle

• performance. In particular, the all-fiber-based gel-state battery composed of LiFePO4 and Li4Ti5O12 fiber membrane electrodes can be charged/discharged for 800 cycles at 1C with a retention capacity of more than 100 mAh·g−1 and a coulombic efficiency close to 100%. The good electrochemical performance is

• network; electrospinning; flexible electrodes; lithium ion battery; nanofiber; self-standing electrodes; Introduction With the rapid development of renewable energy technologies, electric vehicles and electronic devices, energy storage technology has become a focus of global research [1][2][3][4][5][6][7

Ultrathin Ni_1−xCo_xS₂ nanoflakes as high energy density electrode materials for asymmetric supercapacitors

• Xiaoxiang Wang,
• Teng Wang,
• Rusen Zhou,
• Lijuan Fan,
• Shengli Zhang,
• Feng Yu,
• Tuquabo Tesfamichael,
• Liwei Su and
• Hongxia Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2207–2216, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.213

• move in the negative direction. Moreover, the similar CV curve shapes suggest battery energy storage characteristics and good rate capabilities of the electrode [38]. Figure 3b shows the GCD curves at different current densities, which were used to calculate the specific capacitance based on Equation 1

• . Because the nickel–cobalt sulfide was specified as a battery-type material, the capacity C was also used for comparison with other materials. The specific capacity was defined by C (C·g−1) = IΔt/m. As shown in Figure 3c, the specific capacitance of Ni–Co oxides at the current densities of 1, 5, 10, 20 A·g

• usable potential windows were found up to 1.6 V. Polarization occurred when the potential was expanded beyond this value (1.7–1.8 V). The as-fabricated asymmetric supercapacitor showed battery behaviour in the range of 0–1.6 V at different scan rates as shown in Figure 4c. The capacity of the device has

Facile synthesis of carbon nanotube-supported NiO//Fe₂O₃ for all-solid-state supercapacitors

• Shengming Zhang,
• Xuhui Wang,
• Yan Li,
• Xuemei Mu,
• Yaxiong Zhang,
• Jingwei Du,
• Guo Liu,
• Xiaohui Hua,
• Yingzhuo Sheng,
• Erqing Xie and
• Zhenxing Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1923–1932, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.188

• a battery-like behaviour of Fe2O3 [34]. We also compared CC-CNT@Fe2O3 with CC-CNT. As shown in Supporting Information File 1, Figure S6a, the CV area of CC-CNT is much smaller than that of CC-CNT@Fe2O3, indicating that Fe2O3 plays a predominant role in the electrode. The galvanostatic charge

• –discharge plateau can be seen, demonstrating the battery-like behaviour of the electrode. The capacities are 226, 184, 137, 116, 101, and 91 mAh·g−1 (based on the mass of Fe2O3, 0.43 mg) at current densities of 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40 A·g−1, respectively (Figure 4c), indicating excellent rate capability of

TiO₂/GO-coated functional separator to suppress polysulfide migration in lithium–sulfur batteries

• Ning Liu,
• Lu Wang,
• Taizhe Tan,
• Yan Zhao and
• Yongguang Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1726–1736, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.168

• . The excellent adhesion between TiO2 nanoparticles and GO sheets resulted in enhanced conductivity, which is highly desirable for an efficient electron transfer process. The Li/S battery with a TiO2/GO-coated separator exhibited a high initial discharge capacity of 1102.8 mAh g−1 and a 100th cycle

• capacity of 843.4 mAh g−1, which corresponds to a capacity retention of 76.48% at a current rate of 0.2 C. Moreover, the Li/S battery with the TiO2/GO-coated separator showed superior cyclic performance and excellent rate capability, which shows the promise of the TiO2/GO composite in next-generation Li/S

• interlayer enhanced the cycling stability and charge storage capacity of Li/S batteries due to excellent conductivity of graphene oxide and strong chemical interactions between nanoporous TiO2 and polysulfides. Results and Discussion Figure 1 presents a schematic of a Li/S battery with a TiO2/GO-coated

Tuning the performance of vanadium redox flow batteries by modifying the structural defects of the carbon felt electrode

• Ditty Dixon,
• Deepu Joseph Babu,
• Aiswarya Bhaskar,
• Hans-Michael Bruns,
• Joerg J. Schneider,
• Frieder Scheiba and
• Helmut Ehrenberg

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1698–1706, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.165

• battery (VRFB); Introduction In every part of the world, the contribution of electrical energy harvested from a renewable source, such as wind, photovoltaics, etc., to the electrical grid system is increasing. In contrast to electric energy production from fossil or nuclear fuels, the generation of

• energy sources during peak production and supply the stored energy to the grid during a depletion in the production. In this context, the all-vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is one of the most promising and flexible stationary electrical energy storage systems. Unlike Pb acid, Li-ion batteries or even

Graphynes: an alternative lightweight solution for shock protection

• Kang Xia,
• Haifei Zhan,
• Aimin Ji,
• Jianli Shao,
• Yuantong Gu and
• Zhiyong Li

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1588–1595, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.154

• of the absorbed light is tunable by structural modifications of GY (e.g., through increasing the length of the GY chains) [10]. GYs can also be used as Li accommodator in battery anodes, which increases service life and safety of batteries. Under biaxial tensile strain, GY accommodates more Li

Flexible freestanding MoS₂-based composite paper for energy conversion and storage

• Florian Zoller,
• Jan Luxa,
• Thomas Bein,
• Dina Fattakhova-Rohlfing,
• Daniel Bouša and
• Zdeněk Sofer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1488–1496, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.147

• methanol significantly shortens the time necessary for drying. The resulting material was then self-assembled into the form of a paper-like material. After drying under vacuum, the material was directly used. Battery assembly and electrochemical measurements The freestanding MoS2-based composite paper was

• cut into round disks with a diameter of 18 mm (254.5 mm2). They were directly used as an anode in ECC-PAT-Core (EL-Cell) battery test cells assembled in an argon-filled glove box using lithium metal both as the counter and reference electrode and an EL-CELL ECC1-01-0011-A/L glass fiber membrane as a

Growth of lithium hydride thin films from solutions: Towards solution atomic layer deposition of lithiated films

• Ivan Kundrata,
• Karol Fröhlich,
• Lubomír Vančo,
• Matej Mičušík and
• Julien Bachmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1443–1451, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.142

• precursors and at temperatures not suitable for conventional ALD. Keywords: lithiated thin films; lithium hydride; solution atomic layer deposition (sALD); Introduction While the development of electric motors and semiconductor devices is progressing, the pressure on battery development is increasing

• LIPON battery in which the solid electrolyte consists of nitrogen-doped lithium phosphate, present several shortcomings. One of them is the use of sputtering [1] for the deposition of the thin layers. Inherently, sputtering does not yield coatings with high conformity on non-planar substrates. Low

• conformity leads to low surface area and thick films are needed to avoid pinholes. This, in turn, leads to low capacity mainly due to the low surface area. The whole concept of a solid-state battery needs to be reconsidered, particularly if we wish to surpass the capacity of current liquid-electrolyte

Porous N- and S-doped carbon–carbon composite electrodes by soft-templating for redox flow batteries

• Maike Schnucklake,
• László Eifert,
• Jonathan Schneider,
• Roswitha Zeis and
• Christina Roth

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1131–1139, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.113

• Technology, Institute of Physical Chemistry, D-76131 Karlsruhe, Germany 10.3762/bjnano.10.113 Abstract Highly porous carbon–carbon composite electrodes for the implementation in redox flow battery systems have been synthesized by a novel soft-templating approach. A PAN-based carbon felt was embedded into a

• ; porous electrode; redox flow battery; soft-templating approach; vanadium; Introduction In recent years, vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) have attracted significant attention as a promising large-scale system for storing excess energy from renewable sources like wind or solar energy [1][2][3]. The

• conductivity in the acidic and corrosive electrochemical environment of the battery system. Moreover, they are comparatively inexpensive [5]. One disadvantage is their poor electrochemical activity, which makes an activation step necessary [6]. A common way to achieve higher activities is the thermal treatment

Concurrent nanoscale surface etching and SnO₂ loading of carbon fibers for vanadium ion redox enhancement

• Jun Maruyama,
• Shohei Maruyama,
• Tomoko Fukuhara,
• Toru Nagaoka and
• Kei Hanafusa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 985–992, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.99

• photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The activity for the vanadium ion redox reactions was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) to demonstrate the enhancement of both the positive and negative electrode reactions. A full cell test of the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) showed a significant decrease of the

In situ AFM visualization of Li–O₂ battery discharge products during redox cycling in an atmospherically controlled sample cell

• Kumar Virwani,
• Younes Ansari,
• Khanh Nguyen,
• Francisco José Alía Moreno-Ortiz,
• Jangwoo Kim,
• Maxwell J. Giammona,
• Ho-Cheol Kim and
• Young-Hye La

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 930–940, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.94

• design, fabrication, and successful performance of a sealed AFM cell operating in a controlled atmosphere. Documentation of reversible physical processes on the cathode surface was performed on the example of a highly reactive lithium–oxygen battery system at different water concentrations in the solvent

• conditions. Keywords: AFM; battery; EIS; in situ; Li–O2; Introduction Italian anatomist Luigi Galvani [1] is credited with the birth of electrochemistry in the year 1791. Electrochemistry is the study of chemical processes that cause electrons to move from one element to another causing oxidation (loss of

• electrons) and reduction (gain of electrons) reactions. Hence electrochemical phenomena form the basis of battery technologies that provide power to modern day mobile electronics. Being inherently atomic/molecular in origin, there has been significant interest in understanding electrochemical phenomena of

Trapping polysulfide on two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide for Li–S batteries through phase selection with optimized binding

• Sha Dong,
• Xiaoli Sun and
• Zhiguo Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 774–780, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.77

• density of 2567 Wh/kg, a high theoretical capacity of 1672 mAh/g, low cost, non-toxicity, and the abundance of sulfur [1]. The energy density of a Li–S battery is six times higher than that of current commercially used lithium-ion batteries (387 Wh/kg) [2][3][4][5]. Typically, a rechargeable Li–S battery

• shuttle effect. The shuttle effect aggravates the cyclic performance of the Li–S battery. During recent years, many approaches have been devoted to suppressing the shuttle effect and improving the conductivity. Physical confinement of LPSs within host materials with large surface area, such as carbon

• specific capacity. Nanoflower MoS2/reduced graphene oxides composites exhibited a high specific capacity (1225 mAh/g) and an excellent cycling performance (680 mAh/g) after 250 cycles [19]. MoS2 nanoparticles have been used as a starting material for the synthesis of Li–S battery cathodes, since Li2S and

Review of time-resolved non-contact electrostatic force microscopy techniques with applications to ionic transport measurements

• Aaron Mascaro,
• Yoichi Miyahara,
• Tyler Enright,
• Omur E. Dagdeviren and
• Peter Grütter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 617–633, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.62

• allow for the measurement of time-varying forces arising from phenomena such as ion transport in battery materials or charge separation in photovoltaic systems. These forces reveal information about dynamic processes happening over nanometer length scales due to the nanometer-sized probe tips used in

• ), a relevant lithium-ion battery cathode material. In this configuration the time resolution (and thus the fastest ionic conductor that can be measured) is limited by the time response of the PLL, which depends on many parameters including the free resonance frequency of the cantilever as well as the

A porous 3D-RGO@MWCNT hybrid material as Li–S battery cathode

• Yongguang Zhang,
• Jun Ren,
• Yan Zhao,
• Taizhe Tan,
• Fuxing Yin and
• Yichao Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 514–521, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.52

• battery technologies. The actual application of Li–S batteries, however, is hindered by several challenges, i.e., i) the poor conductivity of sulfur and ii) the “shuttle effect” of polysulfides (Li2Sx, 4 < x ≤ 8) [1][2][3][4]. To achieve a high specific capacity, a sulfur cathode with high electrical

• the shuttle effect by acting as a lithium polysulfide reservoir, and iii) additional empty spaces to buffer the volume expansion/shrinkage in the charge and discharge processes enhancing the cycling performance of the battery. The electrochemical performance of the S-3D-RGO@MWCNT composite will be

• the conductivity during cycling a Li–S battery equipped with the S-3D-RGO@MWCNT cathode, were investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Figure 8 presents the Nyquist plots for the Li–S cell assessed before cycling, and after the 1st and the 4th cycle. In the high-frequency