Electrochemical investigation of the iron-containing and no iron-containing AB5-type negative electrodes

The electrochemical behaviour of LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.75−xFex (x = 0, 0.15, 0.55, 0.75) intermetallic compounds has been studied and presented [C. Khaldi, H. Mathlouthi, J. Lamloumi, A. Percheron-Guégan, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 29 (2004) 307–311; C. Khaldi, H. Mathlouthi, J. Lamloumi, A. Percheron-Guégan, J. Alloys Compd. 360 (2003) 266–271; C. Khaldi, H. Mathlouthi, J. Lamloumi, A. Percheron-Guégan, J. Alloys Compd. 384 (2004) 249–253]. It has been deduced that the LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.4Fe0.35 compound has interesting electrochemical properties. In this paper we present the electrochemical study of LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.4Fe0.35 compound properties compared with the parent LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.75 compound. Several techniques, such as, the chronopotentiometry, the constant potential discharge (CPD), the cyclic voltammetry (CV) and the linear polarization (LP) were applied to characterize these electrochemical properties. The electrochemical discharge capacity of the LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.75 alloy increases to reach 294 mAh g−1 after few cycles only (five cycles). However, the activation of the LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.4Fe0.35 alloy takes more than 20 cycles to be achieved and the obtained maximum discharge capacity is 194 mAh g−1. The hydrogen diffusion coefficient DH was determined by constant potential discharge and cyclic voltammetry techniques. The obtained values of the LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.75 and LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.4Fe0.35 compounds are 6.29 × 10−11 and 7.62 × 10−11, and 2 × 10−8 and 7.5 × 10−8 cm2 s−1 by CPD and CV techniques, respectively. The exchange current density values, determined by a linear polarization technique, are 44 and 27 mA g−1, respectively, for LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.75 and LaNi3.55Mn0.4Al0.3Co0.4Fe0.35 alloys.