Electrochemical Power Sources Development in IEES-BAS. Nickel-zinc battery - principle of operation and main features.
IEES activities in the research and development of advanced technologies for energy storage and conversion and the basic equipment provided by CoC HITMOBIL “Technologies and Systems for Generation, Storage and Consumption of Clean Energy“ will be presented. Some basic results, obtained in the frame of Task 2 (“Ni - Zn battery”) of the project will be shown. Within this task, two symmetrical Ni-Zn cells were assembled and electrochemically tested in order to study the effect of the Zn active mass deposition method on the battery performance. In the first cell, the negative electrode (anode) was made by introducing Zn powder into the pores of a foamed copper current collector, and in the second cell - by electroplating of zinc on the surface of the copper foam. Two ways of electrolyte immobilization was applied: (i) in highly absorbed pocket type separator - for the first cell; (ii) in quasi-solid flexible polymer (gel) - for the second cell. The dependence of the discharge/charge capacity on the number of cycles is investigated and compared. The results obtained show that the cell, assembled with electroplated Zn electrode and gel electrolyte possesses longer cycling life compared to that prepared by pasting of Zn powder.
