Effect of Bath Formulation and Plating Current Density on Electrodeposited Zinc Anode’s Capacity in Zinc-Air Cell

Zinc anode is electrodeposited from a 2-M zinc chloride electrolytic bath with varying ammonium chloride supporting electrolyte concentrations (0-5 M) and plating current density (0.1 – 0.6 A cm-2). The total charge quantity supplied during electrodeposition is fixed at 150 mAh. Alkaline zinc-air cell is fabricated using the electrodeposited zinc anode and characterized according to its discharge capacity at constant load current of 20 mA. The effect of various qualities of zinc electrodeposits on the cell discharge performance is discussed. It is found that zinc electrodeposits prepared from electrolytic bath of 5-M ammonium chloride and 0.5 A cm-2 plating current density produced zinc-air cell with the highest output energy i.e. 24 mWh. We observe that the influence of plating current density is more prominent than the plating bath formulation on the zinc anode performance in the cell.