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An Aluminum/Graphite Battery with Ultra‐High Rate Capability
Author(s) -
Elia Giuseppe A.,
Kyeremateng Neil A.,
Marquardt Krystan,
Hahn Robert
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
batteries and supercaps
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2566-6223
DOI - 10.1002/batt.201800114
Subject(s) - graphite , battery (electricity) , electrolyte , electrochemistry , materials science , cathode , aluminium , chloride , current (fluid) , analytical chemistry (journal) , composite material , electrical engineering , chemistry , electrode , metallurgy , chromatography , thermodynamics , power (physics) , physics , engineering
A high‐performance Al/graphite battery has been investigated, employing a natural graphite cathode (NG) and 1‐ethyl‐3‐methylimidazolium chloride (EMIMCl):AlCl 3 as electrolyte. The employed graphite is characterized by excellent reversibility as revealed by electrochemical tests and ex‐situ XRD. The Al/EMIMCl:AlCl 3 /NG battery showed extraordinary performance in terms of rate capability, and cycle life. The cell delivered a capacity of 110 mAh g −1 at lower current values, retaining 90 % and 60 % of the capacity employing a current of 20 A g −1 and 50 A g −1 , respectively (i. e., a complete charge‐discharge cycle in 35 and 9 seconds, respectively). Furthermore, the cycling test performed using a current of 20 A g −1 revealed an extremely long calendar life of half million of cycles. The practical applicability of the investigated Al/graphite system has been ascertained; this involved estimating the energy efficiency as a function of current rate and carefully calculating the practical energy densities that can be obtained from the system.