Issue 8, 2014

Real-time materials evolution visualized within intact cycling alkaline batteries

Abstract

The scientific community has focused on the problem of inexpensive, safe, and sustainable large-scale electrical energy storage, which is needed for a number of emerging societal reasons such as stabilizing intermittent renewables-based generation like solar and wind power. The materials used for large-scale storage will need to be low cost, earth-abundant, and safe at the desired scale. The Zn–MnO2 “alkaline” battery chemistry is associated with one-time use, despite being rechargeable. This is due to material irreversibilities that can be triggered in either the anode or cathode. However, as Zn and MnO2 have high energy density and low cost, they are economically attractive even at limited depth of discharge. As received, a standard bobbin-type alkaline cell costs roughly $20 per kW h. The U.S. Department of Energy ARPA-E $100 per kW h cost target for grid storage is thus close to the cost of alkaline consumer primary cells if re-engineered and/or cycled at 5–20% nominal capacity. Herein we use a deeply-penetrating in situ technique to observe ZnO precipitation near the separator in an alkaline cell anode cycled at 5% DOD, which is consistent with cell failures observed at high cycle life. Alkaline cells designed to avoid such causes of cell failure could serve as a low-cost baseload for large-scale storage.

Graphical abstract: Real-time materials evolution visualized within intact cycling alkaline batteries

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
12 Dec 2013
Accepted
07 Jan 2014
First published
09 Jan 2014

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2014,2, 2757-2764

Author version available

Real-time materials evolution visualized within intact cycling alkaline batteries

J. W. Gallaway, C. K. Erdonmez, Z. Zhong, M. Croft, L. A. Sviridov, T. Z. Sholklapper, D. E. Turney, S. Banerjee and D. A. Steingart, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2014, 2, 2757 DOI: 10.1039/C3TA15169G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements