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SPECIAL SECTION B A T T E R Y CHEMISTRY

A new energy storage principle for

electricity and
Hydrogen
Lower storage costs and reduced requirements in plant
construction and process engineering for a zinc-
hydrogen system

Keywords

• Battery chemistry, zinc

• Battery storage, capacity
• Hydrogen, electrolysis

Green hydrogen is to be used as an energy storage medium in future renewable energy systems. The key
success factors here are efficiency and cost. The core of the system described below is an electrochemical
cell that stores electrical energy in the form of deposited zinc and releases energy in the form of hydrogen
and electricity when required - at comparatively low system costs and high storage efficiency.

climate-friendly future. However, as

The economic viability of hydrogen as an This is precisely where the Fraunhofer IZM-
long as there is a lack of efficient
energy source can only be achieved if the led consortium comes in, developing a novel
storage technologies, moving away
overall efficiency of production is further and cost-effective zinc battery based on the
from fossil fuels remains a challenge. A
increased and storage and transport losses principles of the company Zn2H2, which can be
German research
as well as investment costs are significantly used not only for long-term energy storage but
reduced. A hybrid system consisting of a also for hydrogen production. Initial tests show
battery and electrolyser is characterized by an efficiency of 50 % for electricity storage and
system costs that are 10 times lower than 80 % for hydrogen production with a predicted
today's battery technology. The storage service life of ten years. In a combination of
efficiency for electricity storage is around basic research and the development of a
twice as high as with the power-to-gas demonstrator, the Zn-H2 project is setting the
process considered so far. course for the successful implementation of
the energy transition.
Motivation for alternative energy systems
Heating with solar power even in winter - The basic principle of the
the energy transition aims to secure a Zinc-hydrogen system

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During charging, oxygen is produced at the gas
(negative pole), as would be the case in the
electrode (positive pole), at the counter electrode
electrolyzer. Instead, zincate dissolved in
electrolytes is reduced to metallic zinc and
removed at the negative pole. This
reaction takes place at a potential that is
0.43 volts more negative than the hydrogen
evolution reaction, but is possible due to the
high hydrogen overpotential of the zinc.
During hydrogen production during
discharge, no external energy needs to be
supplied because the cell functions like a
battery in which electric current and
hydrogen are generated simultaneously at
a low potential. The whole process takes
place in an alkaline electrolyte (KOH). The
current density is limited by the zinc reaction
and is significantly lower than with
electrolysers, but is partially compensated for
by the fact that large storage capacities also
require correspondingly large electrodes.

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 SPECIAL SECTION
B A T T E R Y CHEMISTRY
While reversible redox reactionsWater supply
take
place at both electrodes in a rechargeable
battery, the Zn-H2 system only involves a
reaction at the negative terminal, which is
reversed during charging and discharging.
At the positive pole, on the other hand,
different reactions take place during
charging and discharging: During charging,
gaseous oxygen is produced, the atoms of
which ultimately come from the zinc oxide,
which is reduced to zinc; during discharging,
on the other hand, the water contained in the
electrolyte is split into hydrogen at the positive
pole and the oxygen atom of the water binds
to the zinc. The ion transport takes place
via OH ions (Fig. 1). A corresponding amount
of water must be added during discharge.
Accordingly, this special battery has different
resting voltages when charging (1.66 V) and
discharging (0.43 V).
A decisive innovation that leads to func-
The catalytic converter electrode, which has
led to the development of the catalytic cells, is
a bi-functional gas electrode that can
alternately generate hydrogen or oxygen
over several thousand cycles and operating
hours. The catalyst electrode can also be
produced over a large area at very low cost.
The second key feature is the
rechargeability of the zinc electrode. To date,
there is no significant battery technology
that uses rechargeable zinc electrodes, such
as rechargeable alkaline manganese or
zinc-air batteries. However, this would be
desirable, as zinc has a very high energy
density and aqueous systems offer greater
safety than lithium-ion batteries, especially
for large-scale applications. In the Zn-H2
system, charging could be solved by an
adaptive pulse charging algorithm and the
problems that occur with other battery
systems are partially eliminated. Very thick
zinc electrodes in the range of 270 mAh/cm2 can
be deposited, which have a coarse-grained
surface but a high density and are
mechanically stable (Fig. 2).
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Gas
discharge
Fig.1: Functional principle of the Zn-H2 system, (a) charging with zinc deposition and oxygen evolution;
(b) Discharge with zinc dissolution, hydrogen production and release of electricity.
The current state of development
A nickel alloy that is easy to produce by
electroplating is used for the gas electrode. This
means that no precious metals are required
and stable steel foils can be used as current
collectors in an alkaline environment. The
activity of the currently available catalyst
decreases over time, but up to 900 full cycles
and 9,000 fast OER/HER alternating cycles
(oxygen and hydrogen generation reaction)
have been achieved with test cells [1].
The problem of the formation of foamy
zinc layers or dendrites, which lead to short
circuits, was solved by pulse charging. The
charging parameters must be adjusted
depending on the temperature and charge state
(zinc concentration). The charging time can
be increased by reducing the duty cycle
(shorter charging pulses and longer pauses
between the pulses). The maximum current is
approx. 50 mA/cm2 and thus limits the power
density. The Zn-H2 system is therefore best
suited for longer charging and discharging
cycles (approx. > 10 h). Looking at the
electrical power at
Active cell area
If the hydrogen is used in a fuel cell, a power
density of 67 W/l results for a current
density of 20 mA/cm2 with an electrode spacing
of 3 mm.
However, the energy density is high: in
earlier work at Fraunhofer IZM with primary
systems, 1,300 Wh/l was achieved for
electricity storage[2]. The rechargeable
system starts in a discharged state and is
filled with ZnO paste in the spaces between
the electrodes. The maximum capacity
depends on the density of the ZnO paste
used. The density of the bulk material of
ZnO is 5.61 g/cm3; a density of the ZnO-KOH
paste of around 2 g/cm3 would result in 1,300
Wh/l. Our tests have shown that cells can be
operated with a ZnO paste density of 1.2 g/cm3 ,
which corresponds to an energy density for
electricity storage of 780 Wh/l. If hydrogen is
used as an alternative and the lower
calorific value of hydrogen is taken into
account, the energy density in this case
would be
1,200 Wh/l.
As there are no significant losses due to
storage and transportation of the hydrogen,
the efficiency of the electricity storage can
be determined as the quotient of the
discharge and charging voltage and is
around 50 %. This is lower than the
efficiency of lithium batteries, but
significantly better
Fig. 2: The image of a charged zinc electrode with 270
mAh/cm2
with a scanning electron microscope (left) and
macroscope (right) shows layers with a coarse-
grained surface, but which have a high density and
are mechanically stable.
There are no dendrites, which would otherwise lead to
short circuits.
 SPECIAL SECTION
B A T T E R Y CHEMISTRY
Water supply
Fig. 3: Virtual model
representation of two
design variants with
battery housing (left)
and as a
stack (stack,
right).
than with the conversion of intermediate,
electrolytically produced hydrogen.
Technical challenges
The performance data given so far relates to
the cell level and must now be transferred
to larger systems. A distinction can be made
between two different types of structure (Fig.
3):
▪ The design as a battery pack, in which
a certain number of electrode pairs are
connected in parallel in each housing
and the battery cells are connected in
series via the external connections.
▪ The design as a stack with bipolar plates
is similar to that of fuel cells or
electrolysers, in which the cells are
connected internally in series.
Both concepts are characterized by a
number of challenges. A quantity of water
proportional to the hydrogen produced must
be supplied to each cell during charging and
the gas must be removed from each cell
both during charging and discharging. As the
discharge voltage is very low, but the
currents per cell are relatively high, the cell
connectors used to connect the cells of the
battery variant in series must have a very low
resistance. The contact resistances can be
kept low by welding.
With the stack variant, there are no pro-
The electrical series connection is not a
problem, but the connecting lines for gas
and liquid pose a challenge. The resistance
for ion transport between the cells via these
channels must be very high. As the current
through the cells in the
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Gas
discharge
active cell area
is significantly lower compared to electrolyser
stacks, even small ion bridges can reduce the
efficiency. Electrolyte bridges from one side of
the bipolar plate to the other act like a short
circuit in this cell - the KOH-tight insulation of
the bipolar plates in the stack is therefore
very important.
Another point is the purification of the
hydrogen. If the hydrogen is fed into a fuel
cell, KOH residues cannot be tolerated.
The control technology or operational
management used to achieve reversible zinc
deposition must now be transferred from the
individual cells to the stack or battery pack.
Particular attention must be paid here to a
homogeneous temperature distribution in the
system, as even small temperature differences
necessitate changes to the charging parameters.
Scaling: Various sizes and designs for
different applications
When designing the overall system, there are
various degrees of freedom to adapt the
parameters to the specific requirements of the
diverse applications. Smaller applications are
home energy solar power storage systems that
store energy during the day, for example, and
release it continuously in the afternoon and
night to operate the air conditioning system.
Charging and discharging times of ten hours
each are feasible if the system is designed for a
high power density. However, the usable
electrical energy is only insignificant compared
to hydrogen production. This reduces the cost
advantages compared to the solutions already
available and, above all, the advantages of
greater safety and the low consumption of
critical raw materials remain.
Active cell area
© Zn2H2
Water supply
By storing and extracting energy over
longer periods of time, e.g. to balance the
energy demand within a week, the system
can be operated with a high degree of
efficiency. Due to the low material costs, very
large storage systems can also be realized
here, which could not previously be covered
by electrochemical systems.
Sample calculation for the application
Fig. 5 shows a highly simplified example for
a small craft business with a five-day week.
Assumption: The business reduces its
energy costs with a photovoltaic system of
150 kWp and generates approx. 750 kWh
at weekends during the lighter months
(March to October), which are not used
immediately and are to be stored
temporarily for use during working days - so
only 35 storage cycles per year are
achieved. A usage period of 20 years is
assumed to determine the costs. With
conventional batteries, the low number of
cycles leads to completely uneconomical
costs that would be less than 50
cents/kWh. If this is realized with
conventional electrolysis and reconversion
to electricity - as shown schematically in
Fig. 5 - only 250 kWh of the 750 kWh
stored in each case remain for use, which
would then still cost in the order of 44
cents/kWh. With the help of the Zn-H2 cell,
a system can be created that provides 400
kWh of usable energy and, at 18 cents/kWh,
achieves a realistic cost level even for a
relatively low number of annual cycles. Of
course, the picture becomes even more
favorable if at least
 SPECIAL SECTION B A T T E R Y
CHEMISTRY
References
Fraunhofer IZM

[1] Robert Hahn, Oren Rosenfeld, Chaim

Markheim, Andreas Schamel, The Zn-H2 storage
system, Fuel Cells, Electrolysers & H2
Processing, EFCF 2023,
July 4-7, 2023 Lucerne

[2] Robert Hahn, Andreas Gabler, Axel Thoma, Fabian

Glaw, K.-D. Lang, Small fuel cell system with
cartridges for controlled hydrogen generation. Int.
Journal of Hydrogen Energy 40 (2015) pp. 5340-
5345

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDCadjlaQ00
[4] https://zn2h2.com/news/

Dr. Robert Hahn, Andreas Schamel,

Group Managing
management, Director, Zn2H2
Fig. 4: Test stand at Fraunhofer IZM. A filling level sensor (bottom left) and filters that retain Fraunhofer Institute
electrolyte residues can be seen. for Reliability and
Microintegration IZM

The storage system is assumed to be Fraunhofer IFAM, Technische Universität Berlin,

partially used for daily surplus in the midday
hours for use in the morning and evening
hours - for example, 100 full cycles per year
would result in less than 10 cents/kWh.
Project data and partners
The Zn-H2 project is funded by the BMBF
under grant number 03SF0630A and will run
until September 2025: Zn2H2, Steel PRO
Maschinenbau,
© Zn2H2
Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society
and Fraunhofer IZM. Although the system
still has to go through several stages of
upscaling before it is ready for industrial use, Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and
the company Zn2H2 has already carried out Microintegration IZM, Berlin
significant preliminary work and applied for Phone: +49 30 46403 - 611 - www.izm.fraunhofer.de
patents. It and the entire research consortium
are thus paving the way for innovative energy Zn2H2 GmbH, Erftstadt
Phone: +49 151 20717 - 888
storage and hydrogen production solutions
info@zn2h2.com - www.zn2h2.com
for the energy transition era.

Fig. 5: Comparison of an electrolyzer combined with hydrogen storage in a pressurized tank with the Zn-H2 system. The use of the energy stored at the weekend during the
working week is considered for a usage period of 20 years. In this case, the stored electricity from the Zn-H2 system costs 18 cents/kWh, while the electrolyser costs 44
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 cents/kWh (without subsidies).

SPECIAL SECTION
B A T T E R Y CHEMISTRY
Water supply Gas Active cell area
discharge

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