Development of Nickel Zinc Technology for Military and Civilian Energy Storage Applications

摘要

Nickel Zinc technology was originally developed and patented in 1901 by Thomas Edison. The historical performance limitation has been the cyclic capability and stability of the rechargeable system. Recently, technological advancement and development activities have addressed this issue. The aqueous Nickel Zinc electrochemical system offers very attractive levels of both energy density and power density combined with good cyclic capability across a broad and flat electrical discharge spectrum. The energy and power performance metrics of today's advanced Nickel Zinc technology offer significant improvement compared to lead-acid battery configurations and approach the metrics of lithium-ion battery systems. EnerSys has invested and focused on the development of Nickel Zinc cells and batteries to evaluate the performance for a range of applications. At this stage of our activity, it has become increasingly apparent that Nickel Zinc electrochemical systems can offer several very attractive performance attributes that align well to the demands for both military (such as combat vehicles) and civilian markets (such as Uninterruptible Power Systems). Our paper will focus on results of electrical characterization (including constant current and constant power performance), float life testing to date, open circuit (stand loss) testing, cycle life evaluation, high power discharge, charging options, charge acceptance/efficiency, and abuse testing.