Effect of Stannum Ion on the Enhancement of the Charge Retention of Single-Flow Zinc–Nickel Battery

Abstract

This study aims to discuss the effect of stannum ion (potassium stannate) in alkaline zincate solution on the deposition/dissolution behavior of zinc anode for single-flow zinc-nickel battery (SFZNB). Physical analysis is conducted using scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) technologies. The electrochemical performance of the battery is tested using cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic techniques. Results show that adding potassium stannate in alkaline solution promotes crystal seed formation and grain growth and substantially improves the charge retention of the battery. The battery is charged to 18.75 mAh•cm −2 (based on the area of the electrode) at current density of 10 mA•cm −2 and set aside for 12 h. Then, the battery using electrolyte with 0.1 mol•L −1 potassium stannate has a discharge capacity of 15.20 mAh•cm −2 (coulomb efficiency of 81.1%). Moreover, the control sample has a discharge capacity of 11.25 mAh•cm −2 (coulomb efficiency of 60.0%). Thus, the present work provides a simple approach to restrain the SFZNB from self-discharge.

Inhibition of Zinc Dendrites in Zinc-Based Flow Batteries

“…Tin ions promote the formation of crystal seeds and substantially improve the charge retention of the zinc-nickel flow battery. Interestingly, only a slightly negative shift in the initial potential of zinc nucleation was observed, and the rate performance and polarization properties of zinc anodes were no significantly reduced (Yao et al, 2019).…”

“…Polymers include polyethyleneimine (Banik and Akolkar, 2015;Hashemi et al, 2017), Triton X-100 (Kan et al, 1998), polyvinyl alcohol (Ortiz-Aparicio et al, 2013), polyethylene glycol (Lee et al, 2006a;Ballesteros et al, 2007;Banik and Akolkar, 2013), polyacrylamide (Zhang et al, 2019b), Tween 20 (Chladil et al, 2019), and Pluronic F-127 (Hosseini et al, 2018). Metal ions comprise Pb 2+ (Justinijanović et al, 1973; Wen et al, 2012), Sn 2+ (Yuan et al, 2007;Kim and Shin, 2015;Yao et al, 2019), Bi 3+ (Wang et al, 2001), In 3+ (Leung et al, 2011), and La 3+ (Yang et al, 2004).…”