• Singh, P.
• Minakshi, Manickam

Abstract

The availability of an efficient and low cost battery is the key for developing practical electric vehicles (EV). The currently available nickel-metal hydride battery could be a good candidate for EV but it is too expensive and not environmentally acceptable for EV applications. Rechargeable lithium ion batteries that use non-aqueous (organic solvents) electrolytes have been available in the market for over a decade are the most attractive power sources that are vital to meet the challenge of global warming, greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption. These can be readily used for powering consumer electronic devices. However, it is quite difficult to make a large lithium battery which is both safe and inexpensive. This is due to the reactivity of the electrode materials with the non-aqueous electrolytes i.e. thermally unstable. In order to realize a perfect safety even at high temperature, non-aqueous (organic) electrolyte may be replaced by aqueous electrolyte system. In the case of non-flammable (aqueous) electrolyte, lithium hydroxide may have an advantage in terms of high conductivity that lowers the charge transfer resistance and cell impedance. The Zn|LiOH|MnO2 battery chemistry reported in this work delivered 142 mAh/g and the cell was rechargeable for multiple cycles. Alternatively, Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) coated MnO2 showed improved discharge capacity of 200 mAh/g but a larger amount of PVP coating causes a decrease in capacity to 83 mAh/g. The incorporation of Bi2O3 + TiS2 (3 wt% each) additives into the MnO2 cathode was found to improve the overall cell performance, this is partly due to the suppression of proton insertion.

Topics

• density
• impedance spectroscopy
• energy density
• nickel
• composite
• Lithium