Corrosion of AB{sub 5} metal hydride electrodes

Metal hydride electrodes are an attractive substitute for the cadmium electrode in Cd/Ni batteries because of their relatively benign environmental impact and higher energy density. However, even though MH{sub x}/Ni batteries are currently competitive in certain applications, their full potential as cheap, reliable, energy storage devices is not yet realized: a severe penalty has been incurred in storage capacity and materials costs in order to inhibit corrosion and attain acceptable electrode cycle life. Currently there are two types of alloys which are useful as metal hydride electrodes, the AB{sub 5} and the AB{sub 2} classes of intermetallic compounds. Commercial AB{sub 5} electrodes use mischmetal, a low cost combination of rare earth elements. The B{sub 5} component remains primarily Ni but is substituted in part with Co, Mn, Al etc. The partial substitution of Ni increases thermodynamic stability of the hydride phase and corrosion resistance. Such an alloy is commonly written as MmB{sub 5} where Mm represents the mischmetal component; the B{sub 5} composition in commercial batteries is variable but electrodes consisting of MmNi{sub 3.55}Co{sub .75}Mn{sub .4}Al{sub .3} have good storage capacity and cycle life and most AB{sub 5} battery electrodes have a similar composition. The authors have been concerned with the function that individual components play in such an alloy with respect to lattice expansion, hydride stability, and surface passivation. Thus they have focused on the properties of a similar alloy, A(NiCoMnAl){sub 5} where A is La or La{sub 1{minus}x}Ce{sub x}. Some of their results noted here have previously appeared in separate publications; the purpose of this paper is to combine them with new data to give a more coherent and complete whole