Avaliação eletroquímica do desempenho de células termogalvânicas empregando líquidos iônicos como meio eletrolítico e alumínio como eletrodos

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2011

RESUMO

Thermogalvanic cells are thermoconverter electrochemical devices where two electrodes, not necessarily chemically identical or reversible, are held at different temperatures. The temperature difference between the electrodes creates a potential difference that can be used to drive current to an external circuit. Thus, direct conversion from thermal energy to electrical energy occurs. The electrodes usually are made from noble metals and are immersed in an aqueous electrolytic solution containing a redox couple and salts that act as supporting electrolytes. However, these metals have a high cost and the aqueous medium shows a reduced electrochemical working window. This thesis proposes the utilization of aluminum metal, which is a metal of low cost compared to noble metals and has properties such as corrosion resistance that allow its use in the confection of thermogalvanic cells. Moreover, it presents, unprecedentedly, results of the use of BMIBF4 (1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate) and BMPNTf2 (1-n-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide) ionic liquid solutions as solvents and electrolytes instead of water and inorganic and/or organic salts. The goal of this work was to evaluate the performance of these cells employing aluminum electrodes in those media. The electrochemical techniques used to analyse the cell efficiency with different electrolytic solutions composed by the ionic liquids in the presence of the redox couple (1:1 1,4-benzoquinone/hydroquinone) and in the presence or absence of water were: chronopotentiometry, galvanostatic chronopotentiometry, chronoamperometry, linear sweep voltammetry, cyclic voltammetry and charge/discharge chronopotentiometric curves. The influence of the temperature difference between the electrodes was also studied. It was verified that the aluminum and the BMIBF4 solutions are promissory to the application in thermogalvanic cells. The presence of water in the solutions increased significantly the conductivity of the system and its performance and efficiency. The temperature difference between the electrodes is an important factor to be considered during cell operation. All the systems proved to be stable and reproducible during the electrochemical experiments.

ASSUNTO(S)

alumínio líquidos iônicos eletroquimica

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