An enhanced quasicrystalline Ti1.4V0.6Ni alloy electrode modified by uniformly covered RGO for nickel metal hydride battery
Introduction
Ti-base alloys with icosahedral quasicrystal structure have been proved possessing better hydrogen storage ability than the conventional hydrogen storage alloys owing to that there is more Pauling–Bergman and Mackay atomic clusters in the structure [[1], [2], [3]]. Ti1.4V0.6Ni quasicrystal alloy has the best cycle discharge performance among the Ti base quasicrystal alloys working as the negative electrode in nickel metal-hydride (Ni-MH) secondary battery but the stability is still unsatisfactory [[4], [5], [6]]. The major factors leading the capacity fading of the alloy are because of the dissolution of V in the alkaline electrolyte and the volume expansion of alloy structure which have been discussed in our reported works [[7], [8], [9], [10]]. To effectively enhance the electrochemical stability of Ti1.4V0.6Ni alloys, surface coating is an optional measure which could inhibit the direct contact between the alloy surface and electrolyte.
Graphene has a better anti-corrosion ability than Cu or Ni as a coating layer [13]. However, the surface of alloy electrode which is prepared under high pressure is not flat enough for the deposition of graphene by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) [14,15]. Reduced graphene oxide (RGO) is an accessible substitution of graphene for it is simplified to get and do not need sophisticated equipment. For Ti1.4V0.6Ni alloy is easily to be oxidized, the conventional hydrothermal reduction of graphene oxide (GO) under a high temperature and pressure in water solution is not suitable. To coat a GO layer on the electrode surface and meantime have no side effect to the alloy, electrodeposition is the optimal choice which is reported by Liu et al. [16]. However, it remains a challenge to wrap GO evenly around the electrode surface and reduces it without causing irreversible effects to the electrode materials. Herein, we suggested a two steps route for covering alloy electrode with RGO film by a combination of electrochemical deposition and a further reduction with HI [17].
Section snippets
Materials and methods
Graphene oxide was prepared by Hummers' method [18] and the Ti1.4V0.6Ni alloy powers were prepared using pure Ti, V and Ni (>99.9 wt%) according to the method in the literature [8]. Ti1.4V0.6Ni power and carbonyl nickel power (1:1) was pressed on a nickel foam (2 × 2 cm2) under 20 MPa. For GO electrodepositon, the alloy electrode connected with negative pole and a large piece of Ni foam connects with cathode, the distance was 1 cm. The deposition process sustained for 150 s under 5 V and there
Results and discussion
Fig. 1 shows the XRD patterns of Ti1.4V0.6Ni and Ti1.4V0.6Ni@RGO materials. The diffraction peaks of the pristine sample could be indexed to the icosahedral phase (I-phase), Ti2Ni-type face center cubic (fcc) phase (JCPDS # 18-0898) and V-based body center cubic (bcc) solid solution phase (JCPDS # 22-1058). The peaks indexed to iphase use the scheme first proposed by Bancel [23]. Simultaneously, it could be observed that peaks of i-phase are so close to peaks of Ti2Ni-type FCC phase that
Conclusion
A gentle and handy method to prepare RGO coating with a reduction process on Ti1.4V0.6Ni alloy electrode was successfully accomplished in this work. The enhanced electrochemical properties of RGO coated Ti1.4V0.6Ni proves that the high quality RGO film could offer a good conductivity and thermal dispersion to strengthen hydrogen diffusion on the surface and accelerates H-kinetics. The coated electrode materials showed excellent discharge capacity of maximum 290.3 mA h/g and 23.8% higher than
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work is financially supported by Science and Technology Service (STS) Network Initiative Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (KFJ-STS-QYZD-088), the Scientific and Technological Developing Project of Jilin Province (20180201098GX, 20200401039GX), the Special Fund of Industrial Innovation of Jilin Province (2019C058-5) and Natural Science Foundation of the Education Department of Anhui Province (KJ2020A0109), Nature Science Research Project of Anhui province (1908085QE172), the Changchun
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