Discharge Performance of Zinc-Air Flow Batteries Under the Effects of SDS and Pluronic F-127

Soraya Hosseini, Woranunt Lao-atiman, Siow Jing Han, Amornchai Arpornwichanop,

Tetsu Yonezawa & Soorathep Kheawhom*

Zinc-air batteries are a promising technology for large-scale electricity storage. However, their practical deployment has been hindered by some issues related to corrosion and passivation of the zinc anode in an alkaline electrolyte. In this work, anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and nonionic surfactant Pluronic F-127 (P127) are examined their applicability to enhance the battery performances. Pristine zinc granules in 7M KOH, pristine zinc granules in 0–8mM SDS/7M KOH, pristine zinc granules in 0–1000ppm P127/7M KOH, and SDS coated zinc granules in 7M KOH were examined. Cyclic voltammograms, potentiodynamic polarization, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy confrmed that using 0.2mM SDS or 100ppm P127 efectively suppressed the anode corrosion and passivation. Nevertheless, direct coating SDS on the zinc anode showed adverse efects because the thick layer of SDS coating acted as a passivating flm and blocked the removal of the anode oxidation product from the zinc surface. Furthermore, the performances of the zinc-air fow batteries were studied. Galvanostatic discharge results indicated that the improvement of discharge capacity and energy density could be sought by the introduction of the surfactants to the KOH electrolyte. The enhancement of specifc discharge capacity for 30% and 24% was observed in the electrolyte containing 100ppm P127 and 0.2mM SDS, respectively.

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