Engineering of Solvation Entropy by Poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid) Additive in an Aqueous Electrochemical System for Enhanced Low-Grade Heat Harvesting.

Li, Jia; Li, Xiaoya; Lee, Donghoon; Yun, Jeonghun; Wu, Angyin; Jiang, Cheng; Lee, Seok Woo · Nano Lett · 2023

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The thermally regenerative electrochemical cycle (TREC) is a reliable and efficient approach to converting low-grade heat into electricity. A high temperature coefficient (α) is the key to maximize the energy conversion efficiency of the TREC system. In this study, we present significant improvement of α of a Prussian blue analogue (PBA)-based electrochemical cell by adding poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid) (PSS) to the electrolyte. Raman spectra showed that water-soluble charged polymers strongly affect the ion hydration structure and increase the entropy change (Δ<i>S</i>) during ion intercalation in PBA. A large α of -2.01 mV K<sup>-1</sup> and high absolute heat-to-electricity conversion efficiency up to 1.83% was achieved with a TREC cell in the temperature range 10-40 °C. This study provides a fundamental understanding of the origin of α and a facile method to boosting the temperature coefficient for building a highly efficient low-grade heat harvesting system.