A Renewable Sedimentary Slurry Battery: Preliminary Study in Zinc Electrodes

Low-cost, scalable energy storage is the key to continuing growth of renewable energy technologies. Here a battery with sedimentary slurry electrode (SSE) is proposed. Through the conversion of discrete particles between sedimentary and suspending types, it not only inherits the advantages of semi-solid flow cell but also exhibits high energy density and stable conductive network. Given an example, the zinc SSE (ZSSE) delivers a large discharge capacity of 479.2 mAh g^-1 at 10 mA cm^-2. More importantly, by renewal of the slurry per 20 cycles, it can run for 112 and 75 cycles before falling below 80% of designed capacity under 10 mA cm^-2 (20% DOD_Zn) and 25 mA cm^-2 (25% DOD_Zn), respectively. The lost capacity after cycles is able to recover after slurry renewal and the end-of-life SSE can be easily reused by re-formation. The concept of SSE brands a new way for electrochemical energy storage.