Addressing of Aluminum Anode Based Battery Challenges: Electrochemical Effect of Zn-Mn Electrodeposition

Aluminum (Al) has emerged to become one of the potential anode materials candidates in metal-based batteries due to its abundant resource, inexpensive cost, good safeness and high theoretical energy density. However, thoughtful challenges have been barriers towards huge progress, including easy aluminum hydroxide formation, low practical voltage, and high corrosion rate. To approach those problems, this article proposes to enhance the electrochemical performance of anode side through electrodeposition of Zn-Mn on aluminum surface. The deposition of Zn-Mn consists of citrate and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) as complexing agent to control the process rate. The effect of various deposition time, 0, 10, and 30 minutes, will be investigated by linear polarization, linear sweep voltammetry, cyclic voltammetry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements. Electrochemical measurement exhibits the deposition effect, minimizes the impedance of Al surface and improved the electrochemical reactions. Moreover, the appearance of Zn-Mn layer has prolonged the discharge performance with battery analyzer measurements. Therefore, energy density increased from 1270.52 to 3327.68 mWh g^-1Al and the specific capacity enhanced from 2779.908 to 7291.651 mAh g^-1. All the measurements applied 3.5% sodium chloride (NaCl). These results pose the enhancement of electrical performance from the anode side, but the development of other sides is also necessary.