Role of combinative In and Sm additions in tailoring the discharge performance of extruded AZ31 alloys as anodes for seawater batteries

The discharge behaviors of AZ31 alloys, modified by the addition of In and Sm elements in conjunction with equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) processing, were systematically explored. The incorporation of In suppressed the formation of cathodic second phases. In contrast, Sm promoted the precipitation process and therefore led to higher microstructure uniformity following ECAP processing. The solid-solution In contributed to the activated dissolution of Mg matrix and the inhibited hydrogen evolution during discharge, while Sm was beneficial for the uniform dissolution and the alleviation of chunk effect. The results indicated that the 12-pass ECAP processed AZ31-In-Sm anode revealed the most enhanced discharge performance with a discharge voltage of 0.889 V and a utilization of 66.94% at 100 mA cm−2. This improvement can be primarily attributed to the combined effects of the decreased precipitations of cathodic phases by In addition and the enhanced microstructure homogeneity by Sm addition, collaborated with significant microstructure refinement.