More sustainable energy storage: lignin based electrodes with glyoxal crosslinking

Abstract

Lignin is a promising material to be used in sustainable energy storage devices. It may act as active component due to hydroquinone motives or as binder in electrodes. While usually it is blended or modified with unsustainable chemicals, we investigate crosslinking with glyoxal as a new route to more benign electrodes. For combining advantages of high charge (lignin as active material) and electrode stability (lignin as binder), we chose a two-step process in which we first form lignin-carbon composites and subsequently crosslink lignin on the carbon. We discuss crosslinking of the material as well as influences on charge storage. Final electrodes benefit from combined faradaic and non-faradaic charge storage and reach a capacity of 80 mAh/g at a discharge rate of 0.2 A/g

Sustainable Battery Materials from Biomass

“…Furthermore, instead of conjugated polymers different carbon materials may be added to lignin not only to promote conductivity but also to provide the possibility of synergistic charge storage on carbon surfaces and in catechol groups. Different carbonaceous species, such as graphene, carbon nanotubes, or other high‐surface area carbons have been presented in this regard. Besides providing conductivity, intelligent design of the carbonaceous material may increase stability by preventing dissolution of the active material .…”

“…In terms of sustainability, the use of biomass‐based carbons is especially appealing, and resulting hybrid materials showed reasonable performance with a clear combination of battery‐like and capacitor‐like charge storage mechanism . For enhanced sustainability of lignin‐carbon hybrid materials, fluorinated binders may be omitted, especially if lignin is crosslinked to promote stability . Importantly, the combination of redox‐active biopolymers and carbon materials results in synergistic enhancement of capacitive and battery‐like charge storage and is not merely a combination of the two.…”

Enhancing Energy Storage Devices with Biomacromolecules in Hybrid Electrodes

“…[92,93] In recent years, the research related to the use of various lignins for the development of energy storage devices has vastly increased. [94][95][96][97][98][99][100] The report from Milczarek on redox of alkaline kraft lignin adsorbed on a polycrystalline gold electrode revealed that the electroactive quinone functionalities can undergo reversible proton-coupled two-electron showing high catalytic activity toward the electrooxidation of ascorbic acid. [25] He also observed that electropoly-merized lignosulfonate from an acidic electrolyte on to a glassy carbon electrode exhibited high redox activity, which could be practically applied to the electrocatalytic reduction of acidic nitrite.…”

Interplay of Porosity, Wettability, and Redox Activity as Determining Factors for Lithium–Organic Electrochemical Energy Storage Using Biomolecules

“…[3] Since then, many endeavorst oi mprove lignin-based cathodes have been undertaken. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Additionally,c athodes based on polymers from biorefined monomers such as guaiacol and syringol, [13] phenolic acids, [14] and vanillin [15] have been investigated in acidic aqueous electrolytes. Aqueouse lectrolytes are importantf or energy storagei nt hese materials as the established process for the formation of quinones requires the presence of water.…”

“…PEDOT constitutes the majority of the electrode, which limits the sustainability of such am aterial. [16] In polymer-based electrodes, redox-active polymers are always mixed with conductive additives such as carbon nano-tubes, [17] porous carbons, [9,10,15,18] and conductive polymers, [3,19] all of which contributes ignificant capacitive energy storage. Both cyclic voltammograms and galvanostaticm easurements of the mixed cathode materials are used to show influences of both distinct redox-activeg roups (high current only at distinct voltages in cyclic voltammetry and plateau-like galvanostatic behavior) and capacitive behavior (rectangular cyclic voltammogram and triangularg alvanostatic curve).…”