Abstract
The decrease of Cobalt content in alloy is very beneficial to reduce the production cost of the alloy, whereas the effect of Co on cycle life of the AB(5)-type hydrogen-storage alloys is extremely important. Therefore, it is interesting to investigate low-Co and/or Co-free AB(5)-type alloys in which Co was substituted by other elements. Iron is a key element in the development of low-Co AB(5)-type alloys. The aim of this work is to systematically investigate the effect of the real surface area on the all kinetic properties of a low-Co LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.6Fe0.15 alloy under cycling using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique. All kinetic properties of the electrode, such as exchange density, limiting current density, high-rate charge/discharge ability, cycle life time, electrocatalytic activity, and diffusion rate are related to the real surface area. During the EIS analysis, interestingly, we found that with increasing number of charge/discharge cycles, the metal hydride alloy powders undergo micro-cracking into smaller particles, and thus the real surface area of the alloy increases, which then influences the kinetic properties of the electrode reactions.