Performance Improvement of Alkaline–Electrolyte Aluminum–Air Batteries by NH4VO3-Based Additives

Abstract

Due to their high theoretical volumetric capacity, aluminum–air batteries are an up-and-coming alternative for energy storage in mobile applications. However, there are still several problems that need to be solved to make the technology commercially viable. One of the most significant problems in this type of battery is self-corrosion in alkaline electrolytes. For that reason, in this study, we implemented NH4VO3 and NH4VO3 derivatives mixed with carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as high-performance anticorrosive additives in cells that contain commercial aluminum alloys (Al7475, Al6062, and Al5052) as anode and alkaline liquid or gelled electrolytes. We compared these batteries with blank batteries (no additive) and batteries that contain the most studied ZnO additive. We observed that cells with NH4VO3 additives outperformed blank cells or cells with ZnO additives in terms of specific capacity and energy. Notably, in the case of cells with liquid electrolytes, NH4VO3 and NH4VO3 + CMC additives also duplicated the battery’s performance time. We also implemented NH4VO3-based additives in four-battery-stack configurations connected in series and concluded that these additives are promising candidates for aluminum–air cells.