Cold sintering as a cost-effective process to manufacture porous zinc electrodes for rechargeable zinc-air batteries

Abstract

Zinc-air batteries (ZABs) offer a sustainable and safe pathway to low-cost energy storage. Recent research shows that thermally-sintered porous Zn electrodes with a three-dimensional network structure can enhance the performance and lifetime of ZABs, but they are expensive and energy-intensive to manufacture. In this work, monolithic porous Zn electrodes fabricated through an efficient cold sintering process (CSP) were studied for rechargeable ZABs. Electrochemical studies and extended charge-discharge cycling show good Zn utilization with no observable performance degradation when compared to Zn foil. Post-mortem analysis after 152 h of cycling reveals that the cold-sintered electrodes retain their original structure. A techno-economic assessment of the cold sintering process confirms significant reductions in both the time and energy required to manufacture Zn electrodes compared to a comparable thermal sintering process.