Researchers at Case Western Reserve University directly photo-charged lithium batteries with 7.8 percent efficiency

As reported bu Phys.org : Researchers at Case Western Reserve University, however, have wired four perovskite solar cells (PSC) in series to enhance the voltage and directly photo-charged lithium batteries (LIB) with 7.8 percent efficiency—the most efficient reported to date, the researchers believe.

The research, published in the Aug. 27 issue of Nature Communications, holds promise for cleaner transportation, home power sources and more.

Efficiently photo-charging lithium-ion battery by perovskite solar cell [Open Access]

Jiantie Xu, Yonghua Chen & Liming Dai Nature Communications 6, Article number:8103 doi:10.1038/ncomms9103

 Schematic diagram of the fabricated system of PSC–LIB. (Nature Communications 6, Article number:8103)

Abstract:  Electric vehicles using lithium-ion battery pack(s) for propulsion have recently attracted a great deal of interest. The large-scale practical application of battery electric vehicles may not be realized unless lithium-ion batteries with self-charging suppliers will be developed. Solar cells offer an attractive option for directly photo-charging lithium-ion batteries. Here we demonstrate the use of perovskite solar cell packs with four single CH3NH3PbI3 based solar cells connected in series for directly photo-charging lithium-ion batteries assembled with a LiFePO4 cathode and a Li4Ti5O12 anode. Our device shows a high overall photo-electric conversion and storage efficiency of 7.80% and excellent cycling stability, which outperforms other reported lithium-ion batteries, lithium–air batteries, flow batteries and super-capacitors integrated with a photo-charging component. The newly developed self-chargeable units based on integrated perovskite solar cells and lithium-ion batteries hold promise for various potential applications.

The structure and the preparation procedures of CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite films (Supplementary information)