Development of flexible nickel-zinc and nickel-iron batteries

Author

Xianyang Meng, New Jersey Institute of Technology

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

12-31-2018

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry - (Ph.D.)

Department

Chemistry and Environmental Science

First Advisor

S. Mitra

Second Advisor

Tamara M. Gund

Third Advisor

Robert Benedict Barat

Fourth Advisor

Yuanwei Zhang

Fifth Advisor

Mengyan Li

Abstract

The fabrication of flexible nickel-zinc batteries using a facile mixing of electroactive components for electrode preparation is presented. Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is found to be an effective binder by reducing concentration polarization, providing chemical/physical stability and enhancing flexibility. The zinc electrode containing PTFE maintains its original porous morphology even after hundreds of cycles while polymers such as PEO show morphology change. Each component, as well as the assembled flexible cells show desired flexibility and stability even under bending conditions.

The fabrication of flexible nickel-iron batteries using printable composite electrodes embedded with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNT) is also presented. All the metal oxides composites are one-step prepared by precipitation method of the metal oxides on the CNTs. After the deposition process, high loading ratio of conductive materials increases the efficiency of electroactive materials. Compared with Ni(OH)₂-CNT, β-NiOOH increases Fe_xO-CNT discharging voltage in flexible cells. All the components of flexible cells show good performance under bending conditions and even deeply bending conditions. Under low discharging currents, the Ni-Fe flexible battery shows a specific capacity of more than 300 mAh g^-1 in 6 M KOH electrolyte saturated with LiOH, and 5% Co(NO₃)₂ in anode formulation. Furthermore, nickel-iron cell with Fe_xO-CNT_25.7 composite presents better results than using mixed Fe₂O₃ nickel-iron cell. Nickel-iron cells have better performance than nickel-zinc cells in rope batteries.

Recommended Citation

Meng, Xianyang, "Development of flexible nickel-zinc and nickel-iron batteries" (2018). Dissertations. 1739.
https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/dissertations/1739