Real-time materials evolution visualized within intact cycling alkaline batteries

The scientific community has focused on the problem of inexpensive, safe, and sustainable large-scale electrical energy storage, which is needed for a number of emerging societal reasons such as stabilizing intermittent renewables-based generation like solar and wind power. The materials used for large-scale storage will need to be low cost, earth-abundant, and safe at the desired scale. The Zn-MnO₂ "alkaline" battery chemistry is associated with one-time use, despite being rechargeable. This is due to material irreversibilities that can be triggered in either the anode or cathode. However, as Zn and MnO₂ have high energy density and low cost, they are economically attractive even at limited depth of discharge. As received, a standard bobbin-type alkaline cell costs roughly $20 per kW h. The U.S. Department of Energy ARPA-E $100 per kW h cost target for grid storage is thus close to the cost of alkaline consumer primary cells if re-engineered and/or cycled at 5-20% nominal capacity. Herein we use a deeply-penetrating in situ technique to observe ZnO precipitation near the separator in an alkaline cell anode cycled at 5% DOD, which is consistent with cell failures observed at high cycle life. Alkaline cells designed to avoid such causes of cell failure could serve as a low-cost baseload for large-scale storage.