Aluminium is an attractive active material for battery systems due to its abundance, low cost, a gravimetric energy density of 2.98 Ah g −1 (c.f. lithium 3.86 Ah g −1 ) and a volumetric energy density of 8.04 Ah cm −3 (c.f. lithium 2.06 Ah cm −3 ). An aqueous electrolyte-based aluminium-ion cell is described using TiO 2 nanopowder as the negative electrode, CuHCF (copper-hexacyanoferrate) as the positive electrode and an electrolyte consisting of 1 mol dm −3 AlCl 3 and 1 mol dm −3 KCl. Voltammetric and galvanostatic analyses have shown that the discharge voltage is circa 1.5 V. Both a single-cell and 2-cell battery are demonstrated using 10 cm 2 electrodes and 126 and 256 mg total active material for the 1-cell and 2-cell batteries, respectively. The single cell exhibits an energy density of circa 15 mW h g −1 (combined positive and negative electrode masses) at a power density of 300 mW g −1 with energy efficiency remaining above 70% for over 1750 cycles. Initial characterisation shows that charge storage is due to the presence of Al 3+ . Cell capacity is circa 10 mA h g −1 and operates with a discharge voltage of circa 1.5 V (efficiency > 80% at 20C charge/discharge rate).
Graphical AbstractKeyword Aqueous aluminium ion battery
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.