Aluminum-anode, silicon-based micro-cells for powering expendable MEMS and lab-on-a-chip devices

Novel enhancement of thin-form-factor galvanic cells: Probing halogenated organic oxidizers and metal anodes

“…In addition, even though the columbic (about 50% for the oxidizers) and the overall Faradic efficiencies (16% with the sodium dichloroisocyanurate and 20% with the chlorosuccinimide) of the galvanic cells are relatively low, the overall specific energy is very attractive (90-110 Wh kg −1 ), since it is of similar magnitude to commercial systems currently used to power deployable instrumentation, including marine and oceanographic equipment [43,44]. In the past, specific energies between 40 and 120 Wh kg −1 were found for cells activated with hypochlorite ions [34]. In the present work, if only the materials involved in the reactions are considered, values between 170-200 Wh kg −1 are obtained.…”

“…where m represents the oxidation-state change that the metal undergoes [27,30,34]. The reaction implies decomposition of hypochlorite into chloride and hydroxide ions during the cathode half-reaction…”

“…and oxidation of M, releasing m electron-moles per mole of M, in the anode half-reaction [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] …”

“…1B shows a process-flow for the fabrication of these cells. Details concerning the microfabrication process can be found elsewhere [33,34]. The resulting thickness of the cells was 0.25 cm and a footprint of 6 cm × 6 cm.…”

“…Aluminum anode cells, with electrode interspacing on the order of microns, have been recently fabricated and studied [19][20][21][32][33][34]. Bleach solutions coupled with Al and Zn in thinform-factor, MEMS-fabricated cells provided sufficient specific energy and energy densities to power MEMS and/or other lowpower-requirement devices [35].…”