Category

Renewable energy

ApplicationCharacterizationCustomer publicationsMaterialPorous materialRenewable energySAXSSizeTechnique

Application of Experimental Design to Hydrogen Storage: Optimisation of Lignin-Derived Carbons

Rowlandson, Jemma L.; Coombs OBrien, James; Edler, Karen J.; Tian, Mi; Ting, Valeska P.

Lignin is a significant by-product of the paper pulping and biofuel industries. Upgrading lignin to a high-value product is essential for the economic viability of biorefineries for bioethanol production and environmentally benign pulping processes. In this work, the feasibility of lignin-derived activated carbons for hydrogen storage was studied using a…
12 March 2021
(Natural) polymersApplicationCharacterizationCustomer publicationsGIWAXSMaterialOtherRenewable energyTechnique

Effect of Solvent Additives on the Morphology and Device Performance of Printed Nonfullerene Acceptor Based Organic Solar Cells

Wienhold, Kerstin S.; Körstgens, Volker; Grott, Sebastian; Jiang, Xinyu; Schwartzkopf, Matthias; Roth, Stephan V.; Müller-Buschbaum, Peter

Printing of active layers of high-efficiency organic solar cells and morphology control by processing with varying solvent additive concentrations are important to realize real-world use of bulk-heterojunction photovoltaics as it enables both up-scaling and optimization of the device performance. In this work, active layers of the conjugated polymer with benzodithiophene…
12 March 2021
ApplicationCharacteristic dimensionCharacterizationCustomer publicationsMaterialPorous materialRenewable energySAXSTechnique

Bromomethylation of high-surface area carbons as a versatile synthon: adjusting the electrode–electrolyte interface in lithium–sulfur batteries

Fretz, Samuel J.; Lyons, Christopher T.; Levin, Ella; Chidsey, Christopher E. D.; Palmqvist, Anders E. C.; Stack, T. Daniel P.

A two-step procedure for the surface functionalization of carbon materials has been developed. In the first step, mesoporous carbon (CMK3), carbon black (XC-72R Vulcan), and activated carbon (AC) are bromomethylated efficiently under mild conditions using commercially available reagents, resulting in reproducible surface bromine loadings, the concentrations of which correlate to…
12 March 2021
ApplicationCatalystsCharacterizationCustomer publicationsMaterialPhase analysisPorous materialRenewable energySAXSTechnique

Influence of Iron Salt Anions on Formation and Oxygen Reduction Activity of Fe/N-Doped Mesoporous Carbon Fuel Cell Catalysts

Fretz, Samuel J.; Janson, Caroline; Rosas-Arbelaez, Walter; Palmqvist, Anders E. C.

Doping carbon materials with transition metal ions can greatly expand their utility, given these metal ions’ unique catalytic activity, for example, in oxygen reduction in proton exchange membrane fuel cells. Unlike main group dopants, a counter anion to the metal cation must be selected and this choice has hitherto received…
12 March 2021
ApplicationCharacterizationCustomer publicationsMaterialPhase analysisPorous materialRenewable energySAXSTechnique

Novel S-doped ordered mesoporous carbon nanospheres toward advanced lithium metal anodes

Zhang, Fei; Liu, Xiaoyan; Yang, Menghua; Cao, Xiaoqing; Huang, Xingyu; Tian, Yue; Zhang, Fang; Li, Hexing

Lithium metal anode has been considered as an ideal anode for the next generation lithium batteries owing to its high energy density. However, its practical application is still limited by the low Coulombic efficiency and poor safety performance due to the lithium dendrites caused by uncontrollable lithium deposition and unstable…
12 March 2021
(Natural) polymersApplicationCharacterizationCustomer publicationsMaterialOtherRenewable energySAXSTechniqueTemperature

An “interaction-mediating” strategy towards enhanced solubility and redox properties of organics for aqueous flow batteries

Huang, Zhifeng; Kay, Christopher W. M.; Kuttich, Björn; Rauber, Daniel; Kraus, Tobias; Li, Hongjiao; Kim, Sangwon; Chen, Ruiyong

Aqueous redox flow batteries using electroactive organic materials are currently attracting significant attention. However, the influence of supporting electrolytes on the aqueous solubility, electrochemical reversibility and chemical stability of the organic components has rarely been investigated. Here, a new electrolyte design strategy towards enhanced solubility and chemical stability of…
12 March 2021
(Natural) polymersApplicationCharacteristic dimensionCharacterizationCrystalline fractionCustomer publicationsGISAXSGIWAXSMaterialRenewable energySurface structure and patternsTechniqueThin films

Revisiting the Role of Graphene Quantum Dots in Ternary Organic Solar Cells: Insights into the Nanostructure Reconstruction and Effective Förster Resonance Energy Transfer

Sung, Sae Jin; Kim, Jae Ho; Gihm, Se Hoon; Park, Jisoo; Cho, Young Shik; Yang, Seung Jae; Park, Chong Rae

Recent studies have introduced the graphene quantum dot (GQD) as a third material for the bulk-heterojunction polymer:fullerene solar cell (PSC) to improve light conversion efficiency. Although exciton generation/dissociation and carrier transport in the GQD-incorporated light-absorbing layer are strongly influenced by the ternary component, detailed analysis on the role of GQD…
12 March 2021
(Natural) polymersApplicationCharacterizationCustomer publicationsGIWAXSMaterialOrientation analysisRenewable energySurface structure and patternsTechniqueThin films

Surface modification of ZnO electron transport layers with glycine for efficient inverted non-fullerene polymer solar cells

Zhu, Xiaoqian; Guo, Bing; Fang, Jin; Zhai, Tianshu; Wang, Yanan; Li, Guangwei; Zhang, Jianqi; Wei, Zhixiang; Duhm, Steffen; Guo, Xia; Zhang, Maojie; Li, Yongfang

Interfacial engineering is crucial to improve the photovoltaic performance of polymer solar cells (PSCs). In this study, we demonstrate efficient inverted non-fullerene PSCs with ZnO modified by nontoxic glycine (Gly) as the electron transport layer (ETL). With the modification of Gly, work function of the ETL interlayer was decreased from…
12 March 2021
(Natural) polymersApplicationCharacteristic dimensionCharacterizationCustomer publicationsGIWAXSMaterialRenewable energySurface structure and patternsTechniqueThin films

Large Crystalline Domains and an Enhanced Exciton Diffusion Length Enable Efficient Organic Solar Cells

Zhang, Yiwei; Sajjad, Muhammad T.; Blaszczyk, Oskar; Parnell, Andrew J.; Ruseckas, Arvydas; Serrano, Luis A.; Cooke, Graeme; Samuel, Ifor D. W.

We studied crystallinity and exciton harvesting in bulk heterojunctions of the semiconducting polymer PffBT4T-2OD and electron acceptor PC71BM that are used to make highly efficient organic solar cells. Grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering shows that the size of crystalline domains of PffBT4T-2OD increases to ?18 nm in photovoltaic blends upon…
12 March 2021
(Natural) polymersApplicationCharacteristic dimensionCharacterizationCustomer publicationsGIWAXSMaterialOrientation analysisRenewable energySurface structure and patternsTechniqueThin films

Overcoming the energy loss in asymmetrical non-fullerene acceptor-based polymer solar cells by halogenation of polymer donors

Fan, Qunping; Liu, Tao; Gao, Wei; Xiao, Yiqun; Wu, Jingnan; Su, Wenyan; Guo, Xia; Lu, Xinhui; Yang, Chuluo; Yan, He; Zhang, Maojie; Li, Yongfang

To achieve efficient polymer solar cells (PSCs), it is important to overcome the energy loss (Eloss) from the optical bandgap to the open-circuit voltage (Voc) of the device by properly matching donor/acceptor (D/A) photovoltaic materials. Here, we develop efficient PSCs based on the absorption complementary pairs of halogenated polymer donors…
12 March 2021