The effect of boric acid addition on the performance of a gelled electrolyte

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of boric acid as an additive for gelled electrolytes. Cyclic voltammetry(CV), linear sweep voltammetry(LSV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy(EIS) and an equivalent circuit analysis were employed to study the electrochemical performance of the gelled electrolyte with the addition of varying amounts of boric acid. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was employed to observe the grid corrosion in corrosion test. For moderate contents of boric acid, the electrode capacity improved, as well as the oxygen evolution profermance. However, the adverse effects of boric acid were found to include increased electrical resistance, decreased hydrogen evolution overpotential and promote the corrosion of the grid. The experimental results indicates that the optimum content was 0.4wt.%.