An easily assembled boltless zinc–air battery configuration for power systems.

A novel, boltless and easily assembled zinc–air battery configuration is developed to compare with the conventional configuration commonly used in most academic studies. A zinc–air battery with a boltless configuration can fundamentally avoid the man-made leakage risk by sealing the internal environment via mechanical fasteners on the battery body and enhancing the cell capacity by modifying the battery configuration. The volume energy density and the mass energy density of zinc–air battery stacks with five zinc–air batteries in series are 117.3 Wh L−1 and 68.0 Wh kg−1, respectively, both exceeding those of commercial lead-acid batteries. This study simulates the static and dynamic application of zinc–air battery stacks as a power supply for an electric motorcycle and a single flow battery energy storage unit, showing high commercial application potential in mobile power supply and scale energy storage. Image 1 • A boltless zinc–air battery configuration with good sealing effect is developed. • Man-made leakage risk of zinc–air battery caused by uneven stress is avoided. • Developed configuration has higher mass efficiency than conventional configuration. • Developed zinc–air battery has greater energy density than lead-acid batteries. • Potential of zinc–air batteries in electric motorcycle is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]