Development of A New Cell Design for Battery Research and an Investigation of Electrode Materials and Electrolyte Systems For Mg Batteries

Abstract

Magnesium batteries are considered as an inexpensive and high energy density alternative to Li-ion batteries. One of these challenges in Mg batteries is the lack of rigid, inexpensive cell hardware to test new electrode materials and electrolyte systems. Therefore, a new electrochemical test cell design based on low cost, readily available Conflat vacuum fittings that can easily be adapted to either 2 or 3- electrode cell set-ups capable of operating at temperatures up to 200°C has been introduced. As an alternative to Mg metal anode, sputtered Pb films were found to reversibly alloy electrochemically with Mg in Grignard based electrolytes. The voltage curve shows a single plateau at about 125 mV vs. Mg, corresponding to the formation of Mg2Pb, as confirmed by ex-situ X-ray diffraction. Pb was found to be the highest energy density Mg alloy yet reported, with the lowest voltage and highest volumetric capacity of any Mg alloy.