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| Home > Publications database > Exploring Electrolyte Additives for Enhancing Zinc Anode Performance in Near-Neutral Zinc-Air Batteries |
| Home > Publications database > Exploring Electrolyte Additives for Enhancing Zinc Anode Performance in Near-Neutral Zinc-Air Batteries |
| Conference Presentation (After Call) | FZJ-2026-00111 |
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2025
Abstract: Metal-air batteries are emerging as promising electrochemical energy storage technologies because of their high theoretical energy densities and the use of cost-effective, safe, and abun-dant active materials. Among the various types, zinc-based metal-air batteries are particularly noteworthy for both primary and secondary applications. While primary zinc-air batteries (ZABs) have already been commercialized for various areas, secondary batteries face chal-lenges especially in alkaline environments. To overcome these issues, using aqueous neutral electrolytes offers several benefits, such as reducing electrolyte carbonization and preventing dendrite formation. However, the performance of ZABs with neutral electrolytes can be hin-dered by zinc surface passivation, the formation of insoluble zinc compounds, and corrosion.This study aims to evaluate the impact of glycine (Gly) and iminodiacetic acid (IDA) as elec-trolyte additives on the electrochemical behavior of zinc electrodes in near-neutral secondary Zn-air batteries. Initially, spectroscopy techniques were employed to understand the interac-tions between the additives and zinc ions in the electrolyte. Then, the open-circuit, potentiody-namic polarization, and galvanostatic discharge experiments were conducted to determine the electrochemical behavior of the zinc electrodes, including corrosion parameters, discharge po-tentials at various current densities, and the effectiveness and buffering capabilities of the ad-ditives. Additionally, microscopy techniques were used to characterize the electrode surfaces after discharge experiments to examine dissolution behavior and discharge products. In-oper-ando X-ray computed tomography (XCT) was employed to study the plating and stripping be-havior of zinc electrodes with and without the electrolyte additives. Long-term full-cell gal-vanostatic discharge experiments demonstrated discharge specific energies of up to 850 Wh/kgZn, while galvanostatic cycling lasted up to 550 hours, showing significantly im-proved overpotentials in cells containing the electrolyte additives. Overall, the study highlights the importance of using electrolyte additives to overcome passivation and pH instability issues and optimize the electrochemical performance while providing valuable insights for the devel-opment of neutral electrolyte-based zinc-air batteries.
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