Reviewing recent efforts to improve the reversibility of zinc anodes in rechargeable batteriesRechar
Reviewing recent efforts to improve the reversibility of zinc anodes in rechargeable batteries
Rechargeable zinc metal batteries (RZMBs) could be a viable alternative to lithium ion batteries, which are currently used to power many types of electronic devices, as well as electric vehicles. Recent studies suggest that using optimized electrolytes could lead to RZMBs with highly reversible zinc plating/stripping, achieving Coulombic efficiencies (CEs) close to 100%.
Nonetheless, as teams who set out to design optimized electrolytes for RZMBs used different experimental methods, comparing existing electrolytes and identifying the most efficient ones has so far proved challenging. In a recent paper published in Nature Energy, researchers at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) review recent progress in the development of these electrolytes, outlining a set of protocols that could be used to evaluate them and compare their performance. The lead author of this work is Lin Ma, a distinguished postdoctoral fellow at ARL.
“Our research focuses on developing transformative materials that will enable next-generation batteries for both consumer and army energy storage applications,” Mashall A. Schroeder and Kang Xu, two of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore via email. “After joining the Department of Energy’s Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR 2.0) in the fall of 2018, we took a closer look at multivalent-ion (Mg2+, Ca2+, Zn2+, Al3+, etc.) battery systems, which promise to offer unique benefits compared to Li but at the cost of addressing major fundamental challenges.”
