Spray-Coated Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube Composite Electrodes for Thermal Energy Scavenging Electrochemical Cells

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• 作者：Nicolas E. Holubowitch ; James Landon ; Cameron A. Lippert ; John D. Craddock ; Matthew C. Weisenberger ; Kunlei Liu
• 刊名：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：August 31, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：8
• 期：34
• 页码：22159-22167
• 全文大小：507K
• 年卷期：0
• ISSN：1944-8252

文摘

Spray-coated multiwalled carbon nanotube/poly(vinylidene fluoride) (MWCNT/PVDF) composite electrodes, scCNTs, with varying CNT compositions (2 to 70 wt %) are presented for use in a simple thermal energy-scavenging cell (thermocell) based on the ferro/ferricyanide redox couple. Their utility for direct thermal-to-electrical energy conversion is explored at various temperature differentials and cell orientations. Performance is compared to that of buckypaper, a 100% CNT sheet material used as a benchmark electrode in thermocell research. The 30 to 70 wt % scCNT composites give the highest power output by electrode area–seven times greater than buckypaper at ΔT = 50 °C. CNT utilization is drastically enhanced in our electrodes, reaching 1 W g_CNT^–1 compared to 0.036 W g_CNT^–1 for buckypaper. Superior performance of our spray-coated electrodes is attributed to both wettability with better use of a large portion of electrochemically active CNTs and minimization of ohmic and thermal contact resistances. Even composites with as low as 2 wt % CNTs are still competitive with prior art. The MWCNT/PVDF composites developed herein are inexpensive, scalable, and serve a general need for CNT electrode optimization in next-generation devices.