Concept and electrochemical mechanism of an Al metal anode - organic cathode battery
Journal article, 2020

Aluminum (Al) batteries are fundamentally a promising future post-Li battery technology. The recently demonstrated concept of an Al-graphite battery represents some significant progress for the technology, but the cell energy density is still very modest and limited by the quantity of the AlCl3 based electrolyte, as it relies on AlCl4- intercalation. For further progress, cathode materials capable of an electrochemical reaction with Al positively charged species are needed. Here such a concept of an Al metal anode - organic cathode battery based on anthraquinone (AQ) electrochemistry with a discharge voltage of 1.1 V is demonstrated. Further improvement of both the cell capacity retention and rate capability is achieved by nano-structured and polymerized cathodes. The intricate electrochemical mechanism is proven to be that the anthraquinone groups undergo reduction of their carbonyl bonds during discharge and become coordinated by AlCl2+ species. Altogether the Al metal anode - AQ cathode cell has almost the double energy density of the state-of-the-art Al-graphite battery.

Organic cathode

Energy Storage

Mechanism

Operando ATR-IR

Aluminum batteries

Author

Jan Bitenc

National Institute of Chemistry

Niklas Lindahl

Chalmers, Physics, Materials Physics

Alen Vizintin

National Institute of Chemistry

Muhammad Abdelhamid

Chalmers, Physics, Materials Physics

Robert Dominko

University of Ljubljana

Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)

National Institute of Chemistry

Patrik Johansson

Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)

Chalmers, Physics, Materials Physics

Energy Storage Materials

2405-8297 (eISSN)

Vol. 24 379-383

Subject Categories

Inorganic Chemistry

Materials Chemistry

Other Chemical Engineering

Other Physics Topics

DOI

10.1016/j.ensm.2019.07.033

More information

Latest update

4/6/2022 8