Photo-Assisted Rechargeable Battery Desalination

Herein, we propose a novel design of photo-assisted battery desalination, which provides the tri-function within a single device including the photo-assisted charge (electrical energy saving), energy storage, and desalination (salt removal). The photoelectrode (N719/TiO2) is directly integrated into the zinc-iodide (Zn-I) battery with the desalination stream in the middle portion of the device. This architecture can provide a reduced energy consumption up to 50%, an energy output of 42 W h mol-1NaCl, and a desalination rate of 13 μg/cm2 min-1. This work is significant for the inter-discipline study of the redox flow energy storage and energy-saving desalination.