Fabrication of Zn-air Battery with Sugar-derived Carbon-based Electrocatalyst

• Main Author: Agung Marsudi, Maradhana
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/42768
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Among all metal-air battery systems, zinc-air battery has shown itself to be the most promising candidate for commercialization. Recently, innovations regarding rechargeable zinc-air battery has shown much progress thanks to the development of bifunctional electrocatalyst. Although the battery has high capacity and low production cost in regard to other commercially available rechargeable batteries (e.g. lithium-ion batteries), rechargeable zinc-air battery still suffers from low charge-discharge performance, thus hindering its marketability. The high overpotential during charging/discharging causes the battery to be unable to be operated under high current densities. High overpotential is caused by the sluggish kinetics of oxygen reactions, thus the need for electrocatalyst to speed up the reactions happening in the cathode. A good but cheap electrocatalyst is needed to help the production of zinc-air battery. Sugar is a readily available and renewable source of carbon, and by growing MnOx on the carbon surface using a very simple process, an electrocatalyst with excellent performance can be made. The resulting battery in 6 M KOH electrolyte has an open circuit voltage of 1,443 V, lower charging overpotential when compared to Pt/C at every current density, peak power density of 115,92 mW cm-2, and relatively consistent performance until 215 cycles of repeated use. With a relatively decent performance, and even surpassing Pt/C in some aspects, coupled with high yield percentage and cheap, non-precious raw materials, this research can help to promote the commercialization of zinc-air battery as an environmentally friendly, rechargeable battery with high capacity.