Zinc-Air Batteries

Researchers: Dr Khaleel Dilshad, Mobbassar Hassan, Professor Stuart Clarke

The Problem

Zinc-air batteries have great energy storage potential as a less costly and more sustainable alternative to Lithium batteries, but unwanted chemical reactions on zinc surfaces reduce their efficiency, durability, and performance.

Work Needed

We need to develop durable Zinc-air batteries with better practical energy density, and improve our understanding of how current and organic additives affect them. This will help to improve the operating potential of these batteries.

Our Work

Our researchers are investigating the problems surrounding Zinc batteries, deploying electrochemical techniques to design innovative battery set-ups and potentially improve real-world performance.

Background

Batteries are central to many aspects of present-day human life and they seem to be spreading, with new end‐uses every minute, including mobile phones, laptops, electric vehicles (EV), and many other portable electronic gadgets. The immense, multi-billion pound global energy market has created a technological race to develop new even more advanced batteries. Almost all devices and EVs use lithium-ion batteries owing to their versatility, high energy/ power density, and the light weight of lithium. But there are certain challenges such as safety, high cost, and limited availability of lithium, meaning alternate technologies are being sought. In this regard, metal−air batteries might be considered as good alternatives. Among the various metal-air batteries being investigated, Zinc-air (Zn-air) batteries are extremely promising due to their practical performance. This is because Zn has particularly favourable electrochemical properties and superior compatibility with cathode materials for rechargeable batteries.

Our Work

We aim to improve Zn-air battery performance by taking a comprehensive approach building on several disciplines such as surface science, molecular engineering, material science, and nanotechnology.

This includes detailed studies of Zn as an electrode, examining what the surface of the electrode ‘looks like’ as the battery is charged and discharged. We have also moved on to investigate the role of small molecular additives that can be used to control the Zn electrode surface nano-morphology and will then connect this to the battery application. Recently, significant emphasis has also been given to the design and fabrication of a portable Zn-air battery setup for electrochemical testing of lab developed electrodes and electrolytes to make more realistic measurements.

Photo of the new Zn-air battery design with 4 cells internally connected without using any external wired connections.

Top and side views of the Zn-Air battery cell design.

Implications

  • Improvement of Zn-air battery performance by addressing the challenges of Zn anodes.
  • Utilisation and exploration of advanced analytical techniques to better understand the Zn battery electrode chemistries and nano-morphologies.
  • Standardisation of metal-air battery testing at operating potentials to test their practical limits for commercialisation.