Zinc-nickel batteries and lithium-ion batteries are two different types of rechargeable batteries. The following is a performance comparison analysis of zinc-nickel batteries and lithium-ion batteries from three core dimensions: safety, temperature adaptability, and cost.
Safety comparison
Zinc-nickel batteries
Significant advantages: using aqueous electrolytes (such as potassium hydroxide aqueous solution), non-flammable and thermally stable, it is not easy to cause thermal runaway or fire even in extreme conditions such as short circuit and overcharge, and has high intrinsic safety.
Structural characteristics: The electrochemical reaction of the zinc negative electrode and the nickel positive electrode is mild, there is no risk of dendrites piercing the diaphragm (the growth of dendrites in traditional lithium batteries may cause internal short circuits), and the system design does not require complex explosion-proof measures.
Application scenarios: Suitable for fields with extremely high safety requirements, such as home energy storage, mining equipment, gas station backup power, etc.
Lithium-ion batteries
Risk points: Using organic electrolytes, it is easy to decompose and produce flammable gases under overcharge, over-discharge or high temperature, which may cause thermal runaway or even explosion (such as the high probability of fire in the puncture test of ternary lithium batteries).
Dependency control: It is necessary to use a sophisticated battery management system (BMS) to monitor voltage, temperature and current in real time to prevent overcharging and over-discharging, and control the temperature through heat dissipation design (such as liquid cooling plate), which increases the complexity and cost of the system.
Typical cases: Electric vehicle spontaneous combustion accidents, power bank explosions, etc. are mostly related to thermal runaway of lithium batteries.
Comparison of temperature adaptability
Zinc-nickel battery
Excellent low temperature performance: The aqueous electrolyte can still maintain fluidity at -20℃, and the battery capacity decay is only about 30%-40% (the capacity decay of lithium-ion batteries at the same temperature is more than 50%), and it can work normally without an additional heating system.
High temperature tolerance: The upper limit of the operating temperature is 80℃. When it exceeds this limit, the evaporation rate of the electrolyte accelerates, which may affect the cycle life, but compared with the thermal runaway risk of lithium batteries at high temperatures, safety is still superior.
Application scenarios: Suitable for cold areas (such as Arctic scientific research equipment, Northeast energy storage power stations), outdoor low-temperature equipment (such as winter backup power supply).
Lithium-ion battery
The low temperature shortcoming is obvious: the viscosity of organic electrolyte increases at -20℃, the ion conduction rate decreases, and the capacity decays significantly (ternary lithium battery usually has less than 50% capacity left), and a heating film or PTC heating plate is required to maintain the working temperature, which increases energy consumption and cost.
Strict high temperature limit: When the working temperature exceeds 55℃, the thermal stability of the positive electrode material (such as ternary lithium) decreases, the decomposition of the electrolyte intensifies, which may cause side reactions and rapid capacity decay, and it needs to be maintained in the optimal range of 25-40℃ through a temperature control system (such as liquid cooling).
Special design: High-power lithium batteries (such as lithium titanate) have slightly better low-temperature performance, but lower energy density.
Cost comparison
Zinc-nickel battery
Zinc-nickel battery materials zinc and nickel are rich in resources and low in cost, which can greatly reduce the manufacturing cost of the battery. Moreover, after the battery is discarded, its recovery rate is high (up to about 90%), and it can be recycled and reused to a greater extent. And the battery processing cost is low.
Lithium-ion battery
The main material of lithium battery, lithium, has limited resources, and the cost will rise in the later period. In addition, the production process cost of lithium batteries is relatively high, and the recycling difficulty is also high.
Compared with lithium-ion batteries, zinc-nickel batteries have better market development potential in terms of performance. More and more domestic companies are investing in the research and development and production of zinc-nickel batteries. With the improvement of their process technology, it is believed that zinc-nickel batteries will be more widely used.
