Abstract: The metal anode of the metal-air battery is in contact with the electrolyte during the shutdown and the corrosion occurs, which seriously affects the shelf life of the metal-air battery. Through the simple improvement of the structure of the conventional metal-air battery, the shutdown corrosion problem of metal-air batteries is solved by using the Kipp′s apparatus principle so that the metal-air battery can last longer. The single cells of metal-air battery before and after the structural improvement were constructed with aluminum foil as the metal anode and the intermittent constant current discharge was carried out to test the shutdown life of the battery. The shutdown corrosion situation of the anode was quantitatively studied by the mass loss experiment and the hydrogen evolution loss experiment. The results show that when 0.25 mm thick aluminum foil is used as the metal anode, the shutdown life of metal-air battery before and after structural improvement is 4 and 21 days, respectively. The anode corrosion rate of the improved metal-air battery is much slower than that of the conventional metal-air battery. For a single battery, only about 0.0380 g of aluminum is needed to generate the hydrogen required for solid-liquid separation, which is about 0.038% of the general commercial aluminum anode.

Key words: metal-air batteries, shutdown corrosion, Kipp′s apparatus principle, solid-liquid separation