Abstract
Quest for inexpensive, high capacity and sustainable energy storage systems (ESS) is a key objective of the scientific society. Recently, rechargeable aluminum batteries (RABs) have evolved as one of the most promising ESS owing to their high theoretical capacity (8046 mAh gMINUS SIGN 1), low cost and safe nature of aluminum.
However, utilization of expensive and highly corrosive ionic liquid electrolytes and their monovalent intercalation chemistry limit the wide acceptance of this very promising ESS. In this report, an economical and aqueous electrolyte based RAB is proposed with a nanocomposite TiO2/CNT anode material.
The as-synthesized nanocomposite anode material is characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). When tested as anode materials for RABs it demonstrated a superior electrochemical performance to TiO2 nanoparticles with a high discharge capacity of 225.5 mAh gMINUS SIGN 1 at 0.15 C and an excellent rate performance with a discharge capacity of 135 mAh gMINUS SIGN 1 at an extremely high C-rate of 6 C.