The growing energy demand has underscored the importance of sustainable energy storage devices. Biomass-derived carbon dots (B-Cdots) have gained significant attention for their potential to address this challenge. Utilizing greener routes for the large-scale synthesis of B-Cdots is not only eco-friendly and cost-effective but also promotes sustainability. This review highlights various synthesis methods for B-Cdots, including microwave-assisted, hydrothermal, and pyrolysis-based carbonization processes. It also explores their electrochemical applications in supercapacitors, lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries, and other energy storage devices, along with recent advancements in the field. The fabrication of electrodes using B-Cdots offers several advantages, such as tunable chemical and physical properties, porous structures, efficient heteroatom doping, and excellent electrical conductivity. These attributes make B-Cdots highly attractive for energy storage applications. Overall, this review emphasizes the critical role of sustainable materials in shaping the future of energy storage technologies.

Ionic thermoelectric materials can generate large thermal voltages under temperature gradients while also being low-cost and environmentally friendly. Many electrolytes with large Seebeck coefficients are reported in recent years, however, the mechanism of the thermal voltage is remained elusive. In this work, three types of polyelectrolytes are studied with different cations and identified a significant contribution to their thermal voltage originating from a concentration gradient. This conclusion is based on studies of the loss and gain of water upon temperature changes, variations in conductivity with water content and temperature, and the voltages induced by changes in water content. The results are analyzed by the "hopping mode" dynamics of charge transport in electrolytes. The hydration of different cations influences the water concentration gradient, which affects the barrier height and ion-induced potential in the electrodes. This work shows that the hydro-voltage in ionic thermoelectric devices can be one order of magnitude larger than the contribution from thermodiffusion-induced potentials, and becomes the main contributor to energy harvesting when implemented into ionic thermoelectric supercapacitors. Together with the rationalized theoretical discussion, this work clarifies the mechanism of thermal voltages in electrolytes and provides a new path for the development of ionic thermoelectric materials. The thermal voltage of polyelectrolyte films largely depends on the water concentration gradient under a temperature difference, which can be optimized to promote the generated total voltage up to over 30 mV K-1.image

Intrinsically stretchable energy storage devices are essential for the powering of imperceptible wearable electronics. Organic batteries based on plant-derived redox-active molecules can offer critical advantages from a safety, sustainability, and economic perspective, but such batteries are not yet available in soft and stretchable form factors. Here we report an intrinsically stretchable organic battery made of elastomeric composite electrodes formulated with alizarin, a natural dye derived from the plant Rubia tinctorum, whose two quinone motifs enable its uses in both positive and negative electrodes. The quaternary biocomposite electrodes possess excellent electron-ion conduction/coupling and superior stretchability (>300%) owing to self-organized hierarchical morphology. In a full-cell configuration, its energy density of 3.8 mW h cm(-3) was preserved at 100% strain, and assembled modules on stretchy textiles and rubber gloves can power integrated LEDs during various deformations. This work paves the way for low-cost, eco-friendly, and deformable batteries for next generation wearable electronics.

Next-generation wearables will interface intimately with the human body either on-skin, implanted or woven into clothing. This requires electrical components that match the mechanical properties of biological tissues - stretchability (up to 60% strain) and softness (Youngs modulus of similar to 1 kPa to 1 MPa). As wearables become increasingly complex, the energy and mechanical requirements will increase, and an integrated power supply unit such as a soft and stretchable battery is needed to achieve autonomy and wireless operation. However, two key challenges remain for current stretchable battery technology: the mechanical performance (softness and stretchability) and its relation to the size and charge storage capacity (challenge I), and the sustainability and biocompatibility of the battery materials and its components (challenge II). Integrating all these factors into the battery design often leads to a trade-off between the various properties. This perspective will evaluate current strategies for achieving sustainable stretchable batteries and provide a discussion on possible avenues for future research. Stretchable battery technology still faces several challenges to progress the development of next-generation wearables. This perspective will evaluate current strategies and provide a discussion on possible avenues for future research.

Zn-ion batteries are one of the hot candidates for low-cost and sustainable secondary batteries. The hydrogen evolution and dendritic growth upon zinc deposition are todays challenges for that technology. One of the new strategies to cope with these issues is to use "water-in-salt" electrolyte (WISE), that is, super concentrated aqueous electrolytes, to broaden its electrochemical stability window (ESW), suppressing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), and perturbing the dendritic growth. Herein, this work proposes to use "water-in-polymer salt" electrolyte (WIPSE) concept to mitigate the challenges with Zn ion batteries and bring this technology toward one of the cheapest, greenest, and most sustainable electrodes: Lignin-carbon (L-C) electrode. Potassium polyacrylate (PAAK) as WISE bears out as better electrolyte for L-C electrodes in terms of self-discharge, cyclic stability, and specific capacity compared to conventional electrolyte based on chemically cousin molecule potassium acetate. Zinc bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl) imide (Zn(TFSI)(2)) added into WIPSE shows deposition and dissolution of Zn in Zn//Zn symmetric cell suggesting that Zn2+ are moving into the polyanionic network. Furthermore, the added bis (trifluor omethanesul fonyl) imide (TFSI-) metal salts trigger a approximate to 40% enhancement of the capacity of L-C electrode. These results show a new promising direction toward the development of cost-effective and sustainable Zn-lignin batteries.

Lignin, the most abundant biopolymer on earth, has been explored as an electroactive material in battery applications. One essential feature for such lignin-based batteries to reach successful usage and implementation, e.g., large-scale stationary grid applications, is to have slow self-discharge characteristics on top of the essential safety and life-cycle properties. Water-in-polymer salt electrolytes (WIPSEs) have been demonstrated as an attractive route to solve this issue; however, little has been done to understand the fundamentals of actual self-discharge mechanisms. Herein, the impact of some critical chemical and physical parameters (pH, dissolved oxygen, viscosity, and cutoff potential) on self-discharge of batteries based on WIPSE and lignin has been investigated. The pH range is crucial as there is an interplay between long-term stability and high energy density. Indeed, lignin derivatives typically store relatively more charge in acidic media but later promote corrosion affecting device stability. A robust and high-performing organic battery, incorporating potassium polyacrylate as WIPSE, is demonstrated, which expresses good self-discharge behavior for a broad range of pH and with little impact on the atmosphere used for manufacturing. It is believed that the investigation will provide critical insights to the research community to promote the advancement of printed large-scale energy storage devices.

The mass implementation of renewable energies is limited by the absence of efficient and affordable technology to store electrical energy. Thus, the development of new materials is needed to improve the performance of actual devices such as batteries or supercapacitors. Herein, the facile consecutive chemically oxidative polymerization of poly(1-amino-5-chloroanthraquinone) (PACA) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) resulting in a water dispersible material PACA-PEDOT is shown. The water-based slurry made of PACA-PEDOT nanoparticles can be processed as film coated in ambient atmosphere, a critical feature for scaling up the electrode manufacturing. The novel redox polymer electrode is a nanocomposite that withstands rapid charging (16 A g−1) and delivers high power (5000 W kg−1). At lower current density its storage capacity is high (198 mAh g−1) and displays improved cycling stability (60% after 5000 cycles). Its great electrochemical performance results from the combination of the redox reversibility of the quinone groups in PACA that allows a high amount of charge storage via Faradaic reactions and the high electronic conductivity of PEDOT to access to the redox-active sites. These promising results demonstrate the potential of PACA-PEDOT to make easily organic electrodes from a water-coating process, without toxic metals, and operating in non-flammable aqueous electrolyte for large scale pseudocapacitors.