Zinc dendrite removal in a nickel-zinc battery with flow-through electrodes

The development and deployment of inexpensive energy storage technologies is critical to realizing a clean energy grid. Batteries are being used in this role, but there remains a need for research on systems that are designed specifically for stationary energy storage, with a focus on lowering the overall cost rather than prioritizing the system energy density, specific energy, and power output. Here, we report the development of ultra-thick (1 cm thick) electrodes with engineered flow channels and explore the variables determining how thick these electrodes can feasibly be. Our proof of concept cell, utilizing the alkaline Ni-Zn chemistry, shows stable cycling over the initial 60 cycles but still suffers from the common Zn dendrite growth at the anode. To extend the life of these systems we report our novel methodology to completely remove Zn dendrites by exploiting the flow-through nature of our electrode architecture.