Discharge performance of a primary alkaline CuO cathode material prepared via a novel non-aqueous precipitation method

Abstract

An amorphous copper oxide material with a large BET surface area (191.9 m² g⁻¹) was prepared via the room temperature conversion of a Cu(OH)₂ intermediate, itself formed via a novel base precipitation technique from an ethylene glycol solvent. The electrochemical discharge rate performance as a primary alkaline cathode material was examined galvanostatically (50 − 2000 mA g⁻¹) in 9.0 mol dm⁻³ KOH electrolyte, and compared to the incumbent primary alkaline cathode material, electrolytic manganese dioxide (EMD). The prepared CuO material performs favourably compared to EMD under high rate discharge conditions (>600 mA g⁻¹), where the material discharges 154 and 135 mA h g⁻¹ capacity at a discharge rate of 1000 and 2000 mA g⁻¹, respectively, compared to 132 and 83 mA h g⁻¹ for EMD under the same conditions