A Study on the Electrode Characteristics of a New High Capacity Non-Stoichiometry Zr-Based Laves Phase Alloys for Anode Materials of Ni/MH Secondary Battery

For the purpose of developing the non-stoichiometric Zr-based Laves phase alloy with higher capacity and better performance for electrochemical application, extensive work has been carried out in KAIST. After careful alloy design of $ZrMn_2-based$ hydrogen storage alloys through varing their stoichiometry while susbstituting or adding some alloying elements, the $Zr-Ti-(Lh-V-Ni)_{2.2},\;Zr-Ti-(Mn-V-Cr-Ni)_{1.8\pm0.1}$ with high capacity and better performance was developed. Consequently the $Zr-Ti-(Mn-V-Ni)_{2.2}$ alloy has a high discharge capacity of 394mAh/g and shows a high rate capability equaling to that of commercialized $AB_5$ type alloys. On the other hand, in order to develop the hydrogen storage alloy with higher discharge capacity, the hypo-stoichiometric $Zr(Mn-V-Ni)_{2-\alpha}$ alloys substituted by Ti are under developing. As the result of competitive roles of Ti and $stocihiometry({\alpha})$, the discharge capacity of $Zr-Ti-(Mn-V-Cr-Ni)_{l.8\pm0.1}$ alloys is about 400mAh/g(410 mAh/g, which shows the highest level of performance in the Zr-based alloy developed. Our sequential endeavor is improving the shortcoming of Zr-based Laves phase alloy for commercialization, i.e., poor activation property and low rate capability, etc. It is therefore believed that the commercialization of Zr-based Laves phase hydrogen storage alloy for Ni-MH rechargeable battery is in near future.