Improvement efficiency of AgO cathode and zinc anode for AgO/Zn alkaline primary cell

Abstract

In this work, we presented an improvement in specific capacity of AgO cathode and zinc anode for AgO/Zn primary alkaline cell. The coprecipitation process was used to introduce different amount of Pb additive to the AgO structure (n%Pb-AgO). The four point probe method revealed that the electrical resistivity of AgO decreased with addition of Pb Additive. The galvanostatic discharge of the prepared cathode electrodes at current density of 250 mA g-1 showed increased specific capacity by 15% which is clearly resulted from the decreased the electrical resistivity. Also, the electrodeposition method was employed to prepare dendritic zinc metal powder under different applied current densities. The prepared dendritic zinc powder at current density of 250 mA cm-2 showed a great potential to serve as anode material for AgO/Zn cell. The galvanostatic discharge of AgO/Zn cells at current density of 300 mA g-1 indicated that the discharge capacity of cell increased to 174 mAh g-1 when Pb additive was introduced to the AgO cathode material. In contrast, AgO/Zn cell comprising the AgO cathode without any Pb additive showed the discharge capacity of 155 mAh g-1.