The Super-Iron Boride Battery

A high-capacity alkaline redox storage chemistry is explored based on an environmentally benign zirconia-stabilized chemistry. This super-iron boride battery sustains an electrochemical potential matched to the pervasive, conventional battery chemistry, but with a much higher electrochemical storage capacity. Whereas a conventional alkaline battery pairs the zinc anode with a cathode, the new alkaline cell couples an boride anode, such as , with a storage hexavalent iron cathode. The cell has an open circuit and discharge potential comparable to the conventional, commercial alkaline battery. Based on and the salt , the super-iron boride cell has an 11 Faraday theoretical capacity of . Added mediates and further facilitates the reductive charge transfer, and we demonstrate for super-iron boride that over is approached experimentally, which is substantially higher than the conventional alkaline battery with an experimental capacity (to ) of and a theoretical capacity of .