Cold Sintering as a Cost-Effective Process to Manufacture Porous Zinc Electrodes for Rechargeable Zinc-Air Batteries

Abstract

Zinc-air batteries (ZABs) offer a sustainable and safe pathway to low-cost energy storage. Recent research shows that thermally-sintered porous Zn electrodes with a three-dimensional network structure can enhance the performance and lifetime of ZABs, but they are expensive and energy-intensive to manufacture. In this work, monolithic porous Zn electrodes fabricated through an efficient cold sintering process (CSP) were studied for rechargeable ZABs. Electrochemical studies and extended charge-discharge cycling show good Zn utilization with no observable performance degradation when compared to Zn foil. Post-mortem analysis after 152 h of cycling reveals that the cold-sintered electrodes retain their original structure. A techno-economic assessment of the cold sintering process confirms significant reductions in both the time and energy required to manufacture Zn electrodes compared to a comparable thermal sintering process.

Influence of Ice Templating on Oxygen Reduction Catalytic Activity of Metal‐Free Heteroatom‐Doped Mesoporous Carbon Derived from Polypyrrole for Zinc–Air Batteries

“…The initial voltage drop from OCV corresponds to the nucleation of ZnO at the anode surface. [ 52 ] Further, the slight voltage drop in the discharge plateau is due to the relatively sluggish four‐electron ORR in the system [52b] . The F‐ADC‐1000 cell showed a specific capacity of 685 mAh g −1 and an energy density of 770 Wh kg −1 compared with 700 mAh g −1 and 900 Wh kg −1 , respectively, for the Pt/C‐based ZAB cell (Figure 6c).…”

Biodegradable, Biocompatible, and Implantable Multifunctional Sensing Platform for Cardiac Monitoring

“…This biodegradable chemiresistor sensor was constructed with biodegradable metal nanoparticles functionalized with various functional groups. Zn NPs were selected for the array due to their unique characteristics, including biocompatibility, biodegradability, affordability, and sensitivity. , Zn NPs tend to form an oxide layer that makes them nonconductive; one way to overcome this is by adding acetic acid to dissolve the oxide layer. , This was followed by modification with different functional groups of thiols and chemical groups including furan, benzyl mercaptan (B228), dodecyl, fluorine, and cysteine (Cys) to produce a chemiresistor array with varying sensing abilities (Figures l and S4). The chemiresistor array was exposed to a range of VOCs with varying concentrations in a continuous flow, including hexanol, hexane, p -xylene, hexanal, furfural, acetonitrile, hexanoic acid, and acetic acid.…”

Fully Biodegradable and Long-Term Operational Primary Zinc Batteries as Power Sources for Electronic Medicine

“…Side reactions could also take place as Zn reacts directly with the electrolyte, accompanied by an increase of pH near the anode electrode. Byproducts such as Zn hydroxide or zinc oxide (ZnO) could form as a coating layer on the surface of Zn electrode, which is soluble slowly in the aqueous environments such as normal saline Zn + 4 OH − ↔ Zn ( OH ) 4 2 − + 2 e − ↔ ZnO + 2 OH − + H 2 O + 2 e − At the cathode, hydrogen evolution (eq ) or oxygen reduction (eq ) could occur: , 2 H 2 O + 2 e − ↔ H 2 + 2 OH − O 2 + 2 H 2 O + 4 e − ↔ 4 OH − The discharge behavior of batteries in normal saline appears in Figure d.…”