• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.9-18
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• 2013

Components of zinc-air battery and their problems are explained. Energy density of zinc air battery is superior to other commercial ones including Li-ion batteries. Cycle life of the zinc air batteries is poor because of irreversible redox reactions on both electrodes. In order to improve the performance of the zinc air battery, catalysts, passivation, and the new structure of electrodes should be developed to optimize several reactions in an electrode. Multidisciplinary efforts, such as mechanics, corrosion science, composite materials are necessary from the beginning of the research to obtain a meaningful product.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.709-714
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• 2020

For zinc-air batteries, there are several limitations associated with zinc anodes. The self-discharge behavior of zinc-air batteries is a critical issue that is induced by corrosion reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) of zinc anodes. Aluminum and indium are effective additives for controlling the hydrogen evolution reaction as well as the corrosion reaction. To enhance the electrochemical performances of zinc-air batteries, mechanically alloyed Zn-Al and Zn-In materials with different compositions are successfully fabricated at 500rpm and 5h milling time. Investigated materials are characterized by X-ray diffractometer (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). Alloys are investigated for the application as novel anodes in zinc-air batteries. Especially, the material with 3 wt% of indium (ZI3) delivers 445.37 mAh/g and 408.52 mAh/g of specific discharge capacity with 1 h and 6 h storage, respectively. Also, it shows 91.72 % capacity retention and has the lowest value of corrosion current density among attempted materials.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.936-941
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• 2004

In recent years, the rapid growth of portable electronic devices requires the high-energy density characteristics of batteries. Zinc air batteries have specific capacity as high as 820mAh/g. However, Zinc air batteries used for hearing aid applications only so far, because the atmosphere could affect it, and it has weakness in the rate capability. However, recent developments of electrode manufacturing technologies made us to overcome that weakness. And the efforts of applying zinc air batteries to portable electronic devices, especially in cellular phone application have been increased. In this paper, the effects of conducting material and polymer binder in cathode on the electrochemical characteristics were investigated. Our research team succeeded in producing 2.4Ah class zinc air battery for cellular phone application. Its volumetric energy density was 920 wh/l, and gravimetric energy density was 308 wh/kg. The volumetric energy density of our zinc air battery is two times higher than one of lithium secondary battery, and three times higher than that of alkaline manganese battery.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.687-692
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• 2020

A zinc-air battery consists of a zinc anode, an air cathode, an electrolyte, and a separator. The active material of the positive electrode is oxygen contained in the ambient air. Therefore, zinc-air batteries have an open cell configuration. The external condition is one of the main factors for zinc-air batteries. One of the most important external conditions is temperature. To confirm the effect of temperature on the electrochemical properties of zinc-air batteries, we perform various analyses under different temperatures. Under 60 ℃ condition, the zinc-air cell shows an 84.98 % self-discharge rate. In addition, high corrosion rate and electrolyte evaporation rate are achieved at 60 ℃. Among the cells stored at various temperature conditions, the cell stored at 50 ℃ delivers the highest discharge capacity; it also shows the highest self-discharge rate (65.33 %). On the other hand, the cell stored at 30 ℃ shows only 2.28 % self-discharge rate.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.688-693
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• 2014

Zinc-air batteries which has various merits in the aspect of energy density, power density and price relative to lithium based second batteries were extensively investigated recently. To develope and optimize these zinc-air batteries, the method of M&S is so efficient solution to reduce price and time. Therefore, in this paper, after executing mathematical modeling, I optimized the zinc-air battery through the simulation and make bolt-cell and discharge it to compare with simulation result. As a result, predictions are well agreed with experimental results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.07b
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• pp.1083-1088
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• 2004

Zinc air batteries obtain their energy density advantage over the other batteries by utilizing ambient oxygen as the cathode materials, and reusing cathode as recycled form. And specific capacity of zinc powder is as high as 820mAh/g. Our research team succeeded in producing 2.4 Ah class zinc air battery for cellular phone application. In this paper we had studied performance of cathode according to various factors and demonstrated the performance of 2.4 Ah class zinc air battery for cellular phone application.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.533-537
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• 2022

Flexible zinc-air batteries have many merits, including low cost, high safety, environmentally friendliness applicability, etc. One of the key factors to improve the performance of flexible zinc-air batteries is to use a gel electrolyte. In this study, gel electrolytes were synthesized from potato, sweet potato, and corn starch. In a comparison of each starch, the corn starch-based gel electrolyte showed the highest discharge capacity of 12.41 mAh/cm² in 20 mA and 6.47 mAh/cm² in 30 mA. It also delivered a higher specific discharge capacity of 7.06 mAh/cm² than the other materials after 100° bending. In addition, the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was analyzed to calculate the ionic conductivity. The potato, sweet potato, and corn starch-based gel electrolytes showed electrolyte resistances (Re) of 0.306, 0.298, and 0.207 Ω, respectively. In addition, the corn starch-based gel electrolyte delivered the highest ionic conductivity of 0.121 S cm^-1 among the other gel electrolytes. Thus, the corn starch-based gel electrolyte was verified to improve the performance of flexible zinc-air batteries.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07b
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• pp.1129-1131
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• 2002

Zinc Air battery obtain their energy density advantage over the other batteries by utilizing ambient oxygen as the cathode materials, and reusing cathode as recycled form. And specific capacity of zinc powder is as high as 820mAh/g. When Zinc Air battery discharged by low rate current discharge voltage profile has very flat pattern until end of voltage. But, when Zinc Air battery discharged by high rate current discharge voltage and capacity become lower. Therefore, we focused on effects of catalyst size in cathode. So we examined performance of zinc air batteries, average discharge voltage, capacity, energy, resistance. And we also obtained resistance by the GSM pulse discharge. So we have got optimum size of catalyst for Zinc Air battery.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.550-557
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• 2023

In zinc-air batteries, the gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) is an important factor for improving performance. The rigid physical properties of polyvinyl alcohol reduce ionic conductivity, which degrades the performance of the batteries. Zinc acetate is an effective additive that can increase ionic conductivity by weakening the bonding structure of polyvinyl alcohol. In this study, polymer electrolytes were prepared by mixing polyvinyl alcohol and zinc acetate dihydride. The material properties of the prepared polymer electrolytes were analyzed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Also, Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used to calculate ionic conductivity. The electrolyte resistances of GPE, 0.2 GPE, 0.4 GPE, and 0.6 GPE were 0.394, 0.338, 0.290, and 0.213 Ω, respectively. In addition, 0.6 GPE delivered 0.023 S/cm high ionic conductivity. Among all of the polymer electrolytes tested, 0.6 GPE showed enhanced cycle life performance and the highest specific discharge capacity of 11.73 mAh/cm² at 10 mA. These results verified that 0.6 GPE improves the performance of zinc-air batteries.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.29 no.12
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• pp.812-817
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• 2019

A zinc-air battery is one of most promising advanced batteries due to its high specific energy density, low cost, and environmental friendliness. However, zinc anodes in zinc-air batteries lead to several issues including self-discharge, corrosion reaction, and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In this paper, viscosity of electrolyte has been controlled to suppress the corrosion reaction, HER, and self-discharge behavior. Various viscosity average molecular weights of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) are adopted to prepare the electrolyte. The evaporation of electrolytes is proportional to the increase in molecular weight. In addition, enhanced self-discharge behavior is obtained when the gelling agent with high molecular weight is used. In addition, the zinc-air cell assembled with lower viscosity average molecular weight of PAA (M_v ~ 450,000) delivers 510.85 mAh/g and 489.30 mAh/g of discharge capacity without storage and with 6 hr storage, respectively. Also, highest capacity retention (95.78 %) is obtained among studied materials.