Multiplex measurement of diffusion in zinc battery electrolytes from microfluidics using Raman microspectroscopy
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Chen, Binbin
Xuan, Jin
Offer, Gregory James
Wang, Huizhi
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Rechargeable zinc batteries have emerged as an inexpensive and safe post-lithium-ion battery technology and have received increasing research interest. Developing suitable electrolytes and understanding their transport properties lie at the heart of successful zinc battery technologies as the battery behaviour is a strong function of ion transport in the electrolytes. To accelerate the research and development process, herein we demonstrate a low-cost and high-throughput approach to measure the diffusion in zinc electrolytes at different concentrations simultaneously. The new approach combines Raman microspectroscopy and a multiplexed microfluidic chip with integrated micromixers, concentration gradient generators and a Y-sensor array. Aqueous-based zinc sulphate electrolytes, widely used in zinc batteries, were used for a proof-of-concept. The measured diffusion coefficients for different electrolyte concentrations show good agreement with literature values. With four electrolyte samples in this study, the developed approach requires minimum 0.5 mL of the electrolyte solutions and 30 mins, which is over ten times faster than a typical diffusion measurement with the conventional electrochemical approach in restricted-diffusion cells. The microfluidic chip is readily scalable to further increase the throughput, and can be extended to for use of measuring different (i.e. organic and aqueous) and even mixtures of electrolytes (i.e. ethylene carbonate and dimethyl carbonate) as well as salts (Li+, Na+, Mg2+, etc.).
Date Issued
2020-12-01
Date Acceptance
2020-07-26
Citation
Applied Energy, 2020, 279, pp.1-6
ISSN
0306-2619
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Start Page
1
End Page
6
Journal / Book Title
Applied Energy
Volume
279
Copyright Statement
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920311843?via%3Dihub
Subjects
09 Engineering
14 Economics
Energy
Publication Status
Published online
Article Number
115687
Date Publish Online
2020-09-02