A novel plating process was applied to the surface modification of the metal hydride (MH) electrode of the MH/Ni batteries. The electrode was plated with a thin nickel film about 0.1 μm thick by using multi-arc ion plating technique. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to analyze the electrodes. Influence of the surface modification on the performance of the MH/Ni batteries was studied. It is shown that the surface modification could enhance the electrode conductivity and decrease the batteries ohimic resistance by 28.2%. After surface modification, the discharge capacity of the batteries at 5C (8.5 A) is increased by 212 mA·h and discharge voltage is increased by 0.09 V. The surface modification also improves the cyclic durability of the batteries. The inner pressure of the batteries with modified electrode during overcharging is much lower than that with unmodified electrode. The experimental results demonstrate that this process is an effective way for the surface modification of the electrode of MH/Ni batteries.
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