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The role of gallium and indium in improving the electrochemical characteristics of Al–Mg–Sn-based alloy for Al–air battery anodes in 2 M NaCl solution

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Abstract

The electrochemical discharge behaviours of Al–0.5Mg–0.1Sn (wt%), Al–0.5Mg–0.1Sn–0.05In (wt%), Al–0.5Mg–0.1Sn–0.05Ga (wt%) and Al–0.5Mg–0.1Sn–0.05Ga–0.05In (wt%) alloys are investigated in 2 M NaCl solution. Based on electrochemical responses and microstructure observations, the influence mechanism of indium and gallium on the discharge behaviour of Al–Mg–Sn-based anode is clarified. The result indicates that Al–0.5Mg–0.1Sn–0.05Ga–0.05In (wt%) anode has the best discharge characteristics. Adding gallium accelerates active dissolution of Al–Mg–Sn anode. And adding indium leads to the appearance of discharge products (ie, In and In(OH)3), which inhibits the self-corrosion reaction of the anode. The peak power and peak energy density of Al–0.5Mg–0.1Sn–0.05Ga–0.05In (wt%) anodes reach approximately 92.96 mW cm−2 (at 140 mA cm−2) and 3385.4 W h kg−1 (at 20 mA cm−2) in 2 M NaCl solution, which increases by 447% and 104% compared with that of Al–0.5Mg–0.1Sn (wt%) anodes, respectively. Therefore, Al–Mg–Sn–Ga–In anodes could be a good and promising choice for high-speed discharge Al–air batteries in brine electrolytes.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. U1864209).

Funding

This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number U1864209).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Processing of Materials, Ministry of Education, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110819, China

    Zibin Wu, Haitao Zhang, Kunlun Qin, Jing Zou, Ke Qin, Chunyan Ban & Jianzhong Cui

  2. Soochow University, Suzhou, 215000, China

    Hiromi Nagaumi

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  1. Zibin Wu
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  2. Haitao Zhang
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  3. Kunlun Qin
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Contributions

ZW: Conceptualization, methodology, software, investigation, writing-original draft. HZ: Validation, formal analysis, visualization, project administration, resources, writing-review and editing, funding acquisition. KQ: validation, formal analysis, visualization. JZ: resources, writing-review and editing, supervision, data curation. KQ: resources, writing-review and editing, supervision, data curation. CB: writing-review and editing. JC: writing-review and editing. HN: writing-review and editing, funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Haitao Zhang.

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Author Haitao Zhang, Hiromi Nagaumi and Zibin Wu have received research grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China. No conflict of interest exits in the submission of this manuscript, and manuscript is approved by all authors for publication.

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Wu, Z., Zhang, H., Qin, K. et al. The role of gallium and indium in improving the electrochemical characteristics of Al–Mg–Sn-based alloy for Al–air battery anodes in 2 M NaCl solution. J Mater Sci 55, 11545–11560 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-04755-8

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