How to electrochemically store potassium in selenium

Potassium-selenium (K-Se) batteries are an interesting alternative to lithium-selenium (Li-Se) batteries with some notable advantages, such as a reduced cost of production and an environmentally cleaner way of production. Although the idea of K-Se batteries emerged a couple of years ago, in the last few years they have been taken seriously as a capable energy storage. Despite some disadvantages, such as a cathode volume expansion and the shuttle effect, it is considered as an interesting research field and many studies have been carried out. Herein, a carbon host to encapsulate selenium was made to try to reduce the shuttle effect. The defects in the carbon host will be controlled by H2O2 and the products will be analyzed to understand the correlation between the amount of H2O2 and the defects. After encapsulating selenium, the electrochemical proprieties will be analyzed using cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge/discharge. (Additionally, the influence of the concentration of electrolyte will be studied due to the fact that it can modify the electrochemical properties of the batteries). The present project aims to determine if there is a considerable influence on the battery performance owing to the defects of the carbon hosts and the concentration of the electrolyte, and hence to find the best working condition both for K-Se batteries and for the encapsulation.