How would the performance of a zinc-air battery would be impacted by oxygen starvation – a sealed container with the available oxygen gradually decreasing over time.
Would this just decrease the maximum available current or would there also be a drop in voltage?
I am wondering if there could be some way of deriving changes in oxygen levels inside the container based just on the battery characteristics.
Best Answer
So as it turns out zinc-air button cell batteries can be utilized as oxygen sensors by monitoring the current and voltage characteristics when driving a load as indicated in the two related patents below - there has also been an academic study done on effects of low oxygen environment to zinc-air batteries but I do not have access IEEE paywalled paper: Oxygen consumption of zinc-air batteries and their performance at low oxygen concentration levels (if someone with access is able to summarize the finding in the comments I would be most grateful) :
Patent US6758962B1: Oxygen sensing
Patent US6099707A: Apparatus for sensing oxygen concentration