Effects of metallic cobalt addition on the performance of pasted nickel electrodes

A study is made on the performance of Ni-foam pasted nickel electrodes prep ared from co-precipitated Ni1-xZnx(OH)(2) with and without cobalt powder. T he addition of cobalt provides higher performance in terms of both discharg e capacity and cycle life. Cobalt increases remarkably the active-material utilization through enhancement of the discharge depth clue to the formatio n of conducting CoOOH during the first activation charging. The superior ca pacity stability during cycling is attributed to the synergistic action of zinc and cobalt, especially to the co-precipitation of zinc hydroxide which is considered to inhibit the formation of gamma-NiOOH. (C) 1999 Elsevier S cience S.A. All rights reserved.