Electrochemical Synthesis and Performance of AgCl/Ag/Sliver Mesh Collector Composite Electrode for Seawater Batteries

Abstract

High-energy-density and easy-to-implement battery storage technologies are essential for the exploitation of marine resources. AgCl is a promising cathode material for seawater batteries due to its environmental friendliness and high capacities density, but its inherent low conductivity limits its application in specific scenarios. In this paper, AgCl was electrochemically grown on a sparsely conductive Ag/Sliver mesh collector (SMC) substrate, and an excellent performance AgCl/Ag/SMC composite electrode is obtained. The cathodic polarization curves indicate that the current density of the AgCl/Ag/SMC electrode was 208.2 mA cm−2 at 0.4 V (vs RHE) potential, which is significantly higher than that of the conventional AgCl cathode material. The AgCl/Ag/SMC electrode demonstrated a very high discharge capacity of 181.7 mAh g−1 at 30 mA cm−2, and the assembled cell was found to be in good condition at 100 mA cm−2 with a power density of up to 154.7 mW cm−2, showing very excellent performance. Furthermore, investigation of the mechanism and depth of discharge experiment reveal the kinetic and microscopic reasons for the high performance of AgCl/Ag/SMC composite electrodes. Therefore, this study provides an efficient and feasible solution for the electrochemical preparation of highly active cathode materials for Mg-AgCl seawater batteries.