In zinc-air batteries, the gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) is an important factor for improving performance. The rigid physical properties of polyvinyl alcohol reduce ionic conductivity, which degrades the performance of the batteries. Zinc acetate is an effective additive that can increase ionic conductivity by weakening the bonding structure of polyvinyl alcohol. In this study, polymer electrolytes were prepared by mixing polyvinyl alcohol and zinc acetate dihydride. The material properties of the prepared polymer electrolytes were analyzed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Also, Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used to calculate ionic conductivity. The electrolyte resistances of GPE, 0.2 GPE, 0.4 GPE, and 0.6 GPE were 0.394, 0.338, 0.290, and 0.213 Ω, respectively. In addition, 0.6 GPE delivered 0.023 S/cm high ionic conductivity. Among all of the polymer electrolytes tested, 0.6 GPE showed enhanced cycle life performance and the highest specific discharge capacity of 11.73 mAh/cm2 at 10 mA. These results verified that 0.6 GPE improves the performance of zinc-air batteries.

Li1.5Al0.5Ti1.5(PO4)3 (LATP) is considered to be one of the promising solid-state electrolytes owing to its excellent chemical and thermal stability, wide potential range (~5.0 V), and high ionic conductivity (~10-4 S/cm). LATP powders are typically prepared via the sol-gel method by adding and mixing nitrate or alkoxide precursors with chelating agents. Here, the thermal properties, crystallinity, density, particle size, and distribution of LATP powders based on chelating agents (citric acid, acetylacetone, EDTA) are compared to find the optimal conditions for densely sintered LATP with high purity. In addition, the three types of LATP powders are utilized to prepare sintered solid electrolytes and observe the microstructure changes during the sintering process. The pyrolysis onset temperature and crystallization temperature of the powder samples are in the order AC-LATP > CA-LATP > ED-LATP, and the LATP powder utilizing citric acid exhibits the highest purity, as no secondary phase other than LiTi2PO4 phase is observed. LATP with citric acid and acetylacetone has a value close to the theoretical density (2.8 g/cm3) after sintering. In comparison, LATP with EDTA has a low sintered density (2.2 g/cm3) because of the generation of many pores after sintering.

Lithium lanthanum titanium oxide (LLTO) is a promising ceramic electrolyte because of its high ionic conductivity at room temperature, low electrical conductivity, and outstanding physical properties. Several routes for the synthesis of bulk LLTO are known, in particular, solid-state synthesis and sol-gel method. However, the extremely low ionic conductivity of LLTO at grain boundaries is one of the major problems for practical applications. To diminish the grain boundary effect, the structure of LLTO is tuned to nanoscale morphology with structures of different dimensionalities (0D spheres, and 1D tubes and wires); this strategy has great potential to enhance the ion conduction by intensifying Li diffusion and minimizing the grain boundary resistance. Therefore, in this work, 0D spherical LLTO is synthesized using ultrasonic spray pyrolysis (USP). The USP method primarily yields spherical particles from the droplets generated by ultrasonic waves passed through several heating zones. LLTO is synthesized using USP, and the effects of each precursor and their mechanisms as well as synthesis parameters are analyzed and discussed to optimize the synthesis. The phase structure of the obtained materials is analyzed using X-ray diffraction, and their morphology and particle size are analyzed using field-emission scanning electron microscopy.

Flexible zinc-air batteries have many merits, including low cost, high safety, environmentally friendliness applicability, etc. One of the key factors to improve the performance of flexible zinc-air batteries is to use a gel electrolyte. In this study, gel electrolytes were synthesized from potato, sweet potato, and corn starch. In a comparison of each starch, the corn starch-based gel electrolyte showed the highest discharge capacity of 12.41 mAh/cm2 in 20 mA and 6.47 mAh/cm2 in 30 mA. It also delivered a higher specific discharge capacity of 7.06 mAh/cm2 than the other materials after 100° bending. In addition, the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was analyzed to calculate the ionic conductivity. The potato, sweet potato, and corn starch-based gel electrolytes showed electrolyte resistances (Re) of 0.306, 0.298, and 0.207 Ω, respectively. In addition, the corn starch-based gel electrolyte delivered the highest ionic conductivity of 0.121 S cm-1 among the other gel electrolytes. Thus, the corn starch-based gel electrolyte was verified to improve the performance of flexible zinc-air batteries