A flexible fiber-shaped solar chargeable zinc–polyaniline battery with a fullerene-based electron transfer layer
Minh Xuan Tran, Guicheng Liu, Ryanda Enggar Anugrah Ardhi, Sang‐Wha Lee, Joong Kee Lee
Abstract
Wearable electronic devices demand monolithic solar rechargeable batteries that directly convert photon energy into electricity. Solar rechargeable batteries consist of an active material with electron-hole separation and energy storage ability. In an aqueous zinc-ion battery, a staggered p-n junction comprising n-type fullerene plasma-induced carbon clusters (FPC) and p-type polyaniline (PANI) is employed for a photoelectrode active material. The FPC material acts as an electron transfer layer to block the recombination of photoexcited electrons and holes generated in PANI under illumination. We fabricated an FPC–PANI-based solar battery that exhibited photo-enhanced capabilities of 300% at a high C-rate, with a high capacity of 310 mAh g−1 and a capacity retention of 91.3% for 2000 cycles upon light irradiation. After illumination for 10 h, the synergy between the photocathode and photoanode in the fiber-shaped configuration resulted in a record-high photon energy conversion efficiency of 1.15%, with high-flexibility performances as a wearable device.