Challenges and Prospect of Non-aqueous Non-alkali (NANA) Metal–Air Batteries

Abstract

Non-aqueous non-alkali (NANA) metal-air battery technologies promise to provide electrochemical energy storage with the highest specific energy density. Metal-air battery technology is particularly advantageous being implemented in long-range electric vehicles. Up to now, almost all the efforts in the field are focused on Li-air cells, but other NANA metal-air battery technologies emerge. The major concern, which the research community should be dealing with, is the limited and rather poor rechargeability of these systems. The challenges we are covering in this review are related to the initial limited discharge capacities and cell performances. By comprehensively reviewing the studies conducted so far, we show that the implementation of advanced materials is a promising approach to increase metal-air performance and, particularly, metal surface activation as a prime achievement leading to respectful discharge currents. In this review, we address the most critical areas that need careful research attention in order to achieve progress in the understanding of the physical and electrochemical processes in non-aqueous electrolytes applied in beyond lithium and zinc air generation of metal-air battery systems.

Analysis on discharge behavior and performance of As- and B-doped silicon anodes in non-aqueous Si–air batteries under pulsed discharge operation

“…Increased demand on new battery technologies for electrical energy storage devices, possessing very high-theoretical energy densities and being abundant in terms of resource availability motivate the ongoing research on metal-air batteries progressively [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Among the resource-efficient anode materials, the highest theoretical energy densities can be realized with aluminium and silicon; specific energies are 8091 Wh kg Al −1 and 8461 Wh kg Si −1 while energy densities are 21,845 Wh L Al −1 and 19,715 Wh L Si −1 .…”

Suppression of byproduct accumulation in rechargeable aluminum–air batteries using non-oxide ceramic materials as air cathode materials

“…[7][8][9][10][11][12] In this regard, various kinds of ionic-liquidbased electrolytes including 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride, [13][14][15][16] 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium bis(tri-uoromethylsulfonyl)imide, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis (triuoromethylsulfonyl)amide, and trihexyl tetradecyl phosphonium bis(triuoromethylsulfonyl)imide have been investigated as electrolytes. [17][18][19] Especially aluminium oxide or hydroxide has been successfully eliminated by applying 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium oligo-uoro-hydrogenate as an electrolyte, by replacing the aluminium oxide layer with an Al-O-F layer. Shvartsev et al exhibited that this newly built up layer restricts Al corrosion while enabling high rates of Al anodic dissolution.…”

“…20,21 Nevertheless, byproducts are still observed with the use of ionic liquid based electrolytes on the air cathode, which inhibit further electrochemical reactions. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19] On the other hand, non-oxide ceramic materials, e.g., nitride, carbide, oxynitride, and carbonitride, have been applied for use as cathodic materials for PEFCs (polymer electrolyte fuel cells) as well as Li-air and Zn-air batteries, due to their oxygen reduction reaction catalytic effect. 22,23 For example, Sampath et al had reported that air cathodes composed of titanium carbonitride (TiCN) nanostructures could exhibit excellent electrochemical performance for the oxygen reduction reaction in alkaline media for both primary and rechargeable zinc air batteries.…”

Silicon and Iron as Resource-Efficient Anode Materials for Ambient-Temperature Metal-Air Batteries: A Review

“…However, while there are several excellent reviews about other metal-air battery systems such as zinc-air- [44,[113][114][115] and lithium-air [36,40,81,116,117], as well as metal-air batteries in general [37,38,79,118], very few has been written about silicon-and iron-air batteries. To the best of the author's knowledge, only the review by Gelman et al is concerned with (non-aqueous) silicon-air batteries [50], while there is also only one recent minireview about iron-air batteries written by McKerracher et al [119]. Accordingly, in the present review, we will focus on aqueous silicon-and iron-air batteries.…”

“…Present Al-air-and Li-O2 cells exhibit specific discharge capabilities of up to 1500 Wh/kgMe and more, but are only rechargeable for a few tens of cycles, yet [41,55,98,105]. Furthermore, in case of Si-air batteries, electrochemical rechargeability has not been shown yet, which is, however, no reason to discontinue the research on this type of battery [50,52]. Considering primary applications, silicon-based batteries from scrap material could be a decent option to replace primary Zn-air batteries in the future, given the excellently flat and long-lasting discharge characteristics of silicon in comparison to zinc.…”