1
© National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC 2021
M. Alston, T. N. Lambert (eds.), Energy-Sustainable Advanced Materials,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57492-5_1
Aqueous Mn-Zn and Ni-Zn Batteries
for Sustainable Energy Storage
Damon E. Turney, Gautam G. Yadav, Joshua W. Gallaway, Snehal Kolhekar,
Jinchao Huang, Michael J. D’Ambrose, and Sanjoy Banerjee
Abstract Energy storage is a key hurdle for the transition of electrical systems to
sustainable solar and wind power. Massive deployment of solar and wind with
energy storage is needed for significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,
requiring manufacturing scales on par with the global automobile industry. Here we
review the materials chemistry of rechargeable aqueous Mn-Zn and Ni-Zn because
they have outstanding characteristics of sustainability, cost, and safety. Mn cathodes
are found to be evolving rapidly under recent research, to potentially offer a breakthrough in cost, and to remain mostly untested at large scale. The limiting chemical
processes are (1) the Zn anode cycle life, and (2) the Zn-ion crossover through the
separator, for both of which recent research is presented.
Keywords Batteries · Energy storage · Electrochemistry · Alkaline battery · Zinc ·
Manganese · MnO 2 · Aqueous battery · Grid storage · Sustainable energy · Smart
grid · Green chemistry · Clean technology · Clean energy · Renewable energy
1 Background
Battery systems for energy storage are a key component to enable rollout of solar
and wind power, allowing reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. They also mitigate toxic air emissions such as mercury from coal power or NOx, smog, and particulates from gas-fired peaker plants or internal-combustion vehicles. Sustainability
of the battery systems themselves is an emerging research field motivated by rapidly
growing markets for large-scale energy storage. Until approximately 2015, the
global battery market predominantly served applications below 100 Wh and produced an order of magnitude of ~50 GWh (~1 billion kg) of product per year [1, 2].
At this small scale, the material supply chains did not cause major environmental
concern other than recapturing toxic metals from end-of-life nickel-cadmium
D. E. Turney (*) · G. G. Yadav · J. W. Gallaway · S. Kolhekar · J. Huang
M. J. D’Ambrose · S. Banerjee
Energy Institute, Department of Chemical Engineering, City University of New York,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: dturney@ccny.cuny.edu; banerjee@ccny.cuny.edu
© National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC 2021
M. Alston, T. N. Lambert (eds.), Energy-Sustainable Advanced Materials,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57492-5_1
Aqueous Mn-Zn and Ni-Zn Batteries
for Sustainable Energy Storage
Damon E. Turney, Gautam G. Yadav, Joshua W. Gallaway, Snehal Kolhekar,
Jinchao Huang, Michael J. D’Ambrose, and Sanjoy Banerjee
Abstract Energy storage is a key hurdle for the transition of electrical systems to
sustainable solar and wind power. Massive deployment of solar and wind with
energy storage is needed for significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,
requiring manufacturing scales on par with the global automobile industry. Here we
review the materials chemistry of rechargeable aqueous Mn-Zn and Ni-Zn because
they have outstanding characteristics of sustainability, cost, and safety. Mn cathodes
are found to be evolving rapidly under recent research, to potentially offer a breakthrough in cost, and to remain mostly untested at large scale. The limiting chemical
processes are (1) the Zn anode cycle life, and (2) the Zn-ion crossover through the
separator, for both of which recent research is presented.
Keywords Batteries · Energy storage · Electrochemistry · Alkaline battery · Zinc ·
Manganese · MnO 2 · Aqueous battery · Grid storage · Sustainable energy · Smart
grid · Green chemistry · Clean technology · Clean energy · Renewable energy
1 Background
Battery systems for energy storage are a key component to enable rollout of solar
and wind power, allowing reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. They also mitigate toxic air emissions such as mercury from coal power or NOx, smog, and particulates from gas-fired peaker plants or internal-combustion vehicles. Sustainability
of the battery systems themselves is an emerging research field motivated by rapidly
growing markets for large-scale energy storage. Until approximately 2015, the
global battery market predominantly served applications below 100 Wh and produced an order of magnitude of ~50 GWh (~1 billion kg) of product per year [1, 2].
At this small scale, the material supply chains did not cause major environmental
concern other than recapturing toxic metals from end-of-life nickel-cadmium
D. E. Turney (*) · G. G. Yadav · J. W. Gallaway · S. Kolhekar · J. Huang
M. J. D’Ambrose · S. Banerjee
Energy Institute, Department of Chemical Engineering, City University of New York,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: dturney@ccny.cuny.edu; banerjee@ccny.cuny.edu