Sustainable Gel Electrolyte Containing Pyrazole as Corrosion Inhibitor and Dendrite Suppressor for Aqueous Zn/LiMn2O4 Battery

The Zn anode in secondary aqueous batteries suffers from dendrite formation and corrosion. In this work, dendrite formation was suppressed by using a simple but new gel electrolyte containing fumed silica and an additive. The dendrite suppression was evidenced by chronoamperometry and ex situ scanning electron microscopy examinations. Pyrazole was implemented as the additive in the electrolyte. It was found that the presence of 0.2 wt% pyrazole in the electrolyte helped minimize both corrosion and dendrite formation. The Zn/LiMn2O4 battery using pyrazole-containing gel electrolytes exhibited high cyclability up to 85% capacity retention after 500 charge-discharge cycles at 4C. This was 8% higher than the performance of the reference battery (using aqueous electrolyte containing 2 M Li2SO4 and 1 M ZnSO4). Furthermore, self-discharge of the battery with the pyrazole-containing gel electrolyte was suppressed, as evidenced by an open-circuit voltage loss that was 20% lower than for the reference battery after 24 h monitoring. Float-charge current density under constant voltage (2.1 V) also significantly decreased from approximately 8.0 to 3-6 mu A.