The Effect of a Nonionic Surfactant/ZnO Hybrid Inhibitor on the Self‐Corrosion of Al Alloy in Alkaline Electrolyte and its Application to Al‐air Batteries

Abstract

Abstract Al self‐corrosion in alkaline electrolytes is a critical issue that restricts the practical application of alkaline Al‐air batteries. To inhibit Al self‐corrosion, a hybrid of nonionic surfactant (branched alkyl glycoside, abbreviated as BAG) and ZnO is developed. Hydrogen evolution test, potentiodynamic polarization, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy are performed to investigate the corrosion behavior of the Al electrode in inhibitor‐containing solutions. The findings show that the hybrid inhibitor successfully inhibits Al self‐corrosion, with an inhibition efficiency of 85.7 %. SEM and FTIR are employed to analyze the corrosion surface. It reveals the formation of the glucoside‐Al and glucoside‐Zn bonds on Al surface. As a result, the synergistic effect between BAG and ZnO is presented. The results of galvanostatic discharges demonstrate that the BAG/ZnO hybrid can improve the discharge performances of Al‐air batteries. The specific capacity at 20 mA cm−2 reaches 2396 Ah kg−1, with a high anode utilization efficiency of 80.4 %.

Keywords

• Al-air battery
• glucoside group
• hydrogen evolution
• nonionic surfactant
• self-corrosion