Simultaneous conversion and storage ofabundant but intermittent solar energy has been coming into the spotlight as apromising strategy for continuous utilization of solar energy. Solarrechargeable flow cell (SRFC) provides an attractive approach for in-situ capture and storage ofintermittent solar energy via photoelectrochemical regeneration of dischargedredox species for electricity generation. However, overall SFRC performance isrestricted by inefficient photoelectrochemical reactions.

　　Recently, the DICP & DNL researchteams led by Prof. Can Li, Dr. Jingying Shi, and Prof. Jian Chen, reported anefficient SRFC based on a dual-silicon photoelectrochemical cell and aquinone/bromine redox flow battery for in-situsolar energy conversion and storage. Using narrow bandgap silicon for efficientphoton collection and fast redox couples for rapid interface charge injection, ourdevice shows an optimal solar-to-chemical conversion efficiency of 5.9% and anoverall photon–chemical–electricity energy conversion efficiency of 3.2%,which, to the best of our knowledge, outperforms previously reported SRFCs. Theproposed SRFC can be self-photocharged to 0.8 V and delivers a dischargecapacity of 730 mAh^-1. The manuscript has been published in NatureCommunications (ShichaoLiao, Jingying Shi, Jian Chen and Can Li et al., Nature Communications, 2016,7:11474, doi:10.1038/ncomms11474). This work may guide future designs forhighly efficient solar rechargeable devices.