Highly improved voltage efficiency of seawater battery by use of chloride ion capturing electrode

Cost-effective and eco-friendly battery system with high energy density is highly desirable. Herein, we report a seawater battery with a high voltage efficiency, in which a chloride ion-capturing electrode (CICE) consisting of Ag foil is utilized as the cathode. The use of Ag as the cathode leads to a sharp decrease in the voltage gaps between charge and discharge curves, based on reversible redox reaction of Ag/AgCl (at ∼2.9 V vs. Na⁺/Na) in a seawater catholyte during cycling. The Ag/AgCl reaction proves to be highly reversible during battery cycling. The battery employing the Ag electrode shows excellent cycling performance with a high Coulombic efficiency (98.6-98.7%) and a highly improved voltage efficiency (90.3% compared to 73% for carbonaceous cathode) during 20 cycles (total 500 h). These findings demonstrate that seawater batteries using a CICE could be used as next-generation batteries for large-scale stationary energy storage plants.