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Updated: Jul 21, 2025
Zinc-Sponge Battery Electrodes that Suppress Dendrites
Published on: September 29, 2020
Anodic instability of carbon in non-alkaline Zn-air batteries
Roman R Kapaev1, Malachi Noked1
1Department of Chemistry and BINA - BIU Center for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel. kapaevr@biu.ac.il.
Abstract:
Although non-alkaline rechargeable Zn-air batteries (RZABs) are promising for energy storage, their chemistry is still underdeveloped and unclear. It was suggested that using Zn(OAc)2 or Zn(OTf)2 aqueous solutions as electrolytes enables reversible, corrosion-free charge-discharge processes, but the anodic stability of carbon in these cells has remained poorly studied. We report that CO2 evolution is manifested during the oxygen evolution reaction in non-alkaline RZABs, which is associated with the corrosion of carbon scaffolds. This corrosion is observed for different electrolyte compositions, such as Zn(OAc)2, ZnSO4 and Zn(OTf)2 solutions of various concentrations. The corrosion rate decreases when the overpotentials during the oxygen evolution reaction are lower. This study underlines the importance of addressing the anodic instability of carbon in non-alkaline RZABs.
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