Comparative study of intrinsically safe zinc-nickel batteries and lead-acid batteries for energy storage

This work developed intrinsically safe zinc–nickel batteries (ZNB) with different capacities of 20 Ah and 75 Ah, respectively, for future fundamental studies and applications. The developed ZNB has much better rate performance and higher mass and volume energy density than those of LAB. The application of the ZNB stacks as a power supply of an electric bicycle and a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is demonstrated. In addition, a solar power system and a 10 kWh ZNB energy storage system is built and tested to indicate the potential of ZNB in the application of energy storage devices. Interestingly, the ZNB has more economic advantages for the construction and operation of an energy storage system under high discharge rate. This work demonstrates the promising commercial application potential of ZNB and provides a new design methodology for energy storage.