https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=usdoepub

A review of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells: Technology, applications,and needs on fundamental research

Although current high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have taken over the commercial rechargeable battery market, increasing concerns about limited lithium resources, high cost, and insecurity of organic electrolyte scale-up limit their further development. Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs), an alternative battery chemistry, have paved the way not only for realizing environmentally benign and safe energy storage devices but also for reducing the manufacturing costs of next-generation batteries. This Review underscores recent advances in aqueous ZIBs; these include the design of a highly reversible Zn anode, optimization of the electrolyte, and a wide range of cathode materials and their energy storage mechanisms. We also present recent advanced techniques that aim at overcoming the current issues in aqueous ZIB systems. This Review on the future perspectives and research directions will provide a guide for future aqueous ZIB study.

Recent Advances in Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries

Power consumption is forecast by the International Technology Roadmap of Semiconductors (ITRS) to pose long-term technical challenges for the semiconductor industry. The purpose of this paper is threefold: (1) to provide an overview of strategies for powering MEMS via non-regenerative and regenerative power supplies; (2) to review the fundamentals of piezoelectric energy harvesting, along with recent advancements, and (3) to discuss future trends and applications for piezoelectric energy harvesting technology. The paper concludes with a discussion of research needs that are critical for the enhancement of piezoelectric energy harvesting devices.

/pdf/powering-mems-portable-devices-a-review-of-non-regenerative-30r5zxggdp.pdf

Powering MEMS portable devices—a review of non-regenerative and regenerative power supply systems with special emphasis on piezoelectric energy harvesting systems

With a worldwide trend towards the efficient use of renewable energies and the rapid expansion of the electric vehicle market, the importance of rechargeable battery technologies, particularly lithium-ion batteries, has steadily increased. In the past few years, a major breakthrough in electrolyte materials was achieved by simply increasing the salt concentration in suitable salt–solvent combinations, offering technical superiority in numerous figures of merit over alternative materials. This long-awaited, extremely simple yet effective strategy can overcome most of the remaining hurdles limiting the present lithium-ion batteries without sacrificing manufacturing efficiency, and hence its impact is now widely felt in the scientific community, with serious potential for industrial development. This Review aims to provide timely and objective information that will be valuable for designing better realistic batteries, including a multi-angle analysis of their advantages and disadvantages together with future perspectives. Emphasis is placed on the pathways to address the remaining technical and scientific issues rather than re-highlighting the many technical advantages. New electrolyte materials can offer breakthroughs in the development of next-generation batteries. Here Atsuo Yamada and colleagues review the progress made and the road ahead for salt-concentrated electrolytes, an emerging and promising electrolyte candidate.

Advances and issues in developing salt-concentrated battery electrolytes

The push towards miniaturized electronics calls for the development of miniaturized energy-storage components that can enable sustained, autonomous operation of electronic devices for applications such as wearable gadgets and wireless sensor networks. Microsupercapacitors have been targeted as a viable route for this purpose, because, though storing less energy than microbatteries, they can be charged and discharged much more rapidly and have an almost unlimited lifetime. In this Review, we discuss the progress and the prospects of integrated miniaturized supercapacitors. In particular, we discuss their power performances and emphasize the need of a three-dimensional design to boost their energy-storage capacity. This is obtainable, for example, through self-supported nanostructured electrodes. We also critically evaluate the performance metrics currently used in the literature to characterize microsupercapacitors and offer general guidelines to benchmark performances towards prospective applications.

Microsupercapacitors as miniaturized energy-storage components for on-chip electronics

Energy autonomous sensor systems: Towards a ubiquitous sensor technology

Sea water magnesium fuel cell power supply

Recently, there is a growing interest in very small micro-batteries with footprint in the 1 mm range, in particular for medical applications. For such small batteries, only the volume and not the weight matters. Generally, the practical energy density of such small cells is much lower than that of the active materials and it decreases with decreasing battery size. State-of-the-art micro-batteries have their limits when it comes to micro–sizes; their fabrication and packaging is such that the inner contact surface, wall thickness and the safety distance between anode and cathode (separator membrane) outweigh the active volume and thus significantly reduces the achievable volumetric energy density. Fig. 1 shows some characteristics of today’s rechargeable lithium-based micro-batteries.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsenergylett.8b00500

Attainable Energy Density of Microbatteries

An Aluminum/Graphite Battery with Ultra-High Rate Capability

The invention relates to a planar fuel cell system comprising at least two fuel cells which are electrically mounted in series by means of horizontally overlapping connecting lugs (8 and 8', 18 and 18') and/or strip conductors (40), and a polymer electrolyte membrane (3). According to the invention, the current path is guided around the polymer electrolyte membrane, the fuel cell system is embodied as an arrangement of two printed circuit boards, according to printed circuit board technique, and the current collectors and connecting lugs are embodied as strip conductors of said printed circuit boards.

Robert Hahn

Papers

Energy autonomous sensor systems: Towards a ubiquitous sensor technology

Sea water magnesium fuel cell power supply

Attainable Energy Density of Microbatteries

An Aluminum/Graphite Battery with Ultra-High Rate Capability

Fuel cell system in the form of a printed circuit board