In this work, the effects of electric pulse treatment on the discharge and electrochemical properties of rolled and extruded AZ61 as anode of Mg-air battery were studied. The microstructure, electrochemical behavior and surface morphology after discharge were discussed to relate the discharge performance. The experimental results show that compared with the original magnesium anode (rolled and extruded), the magnesium anode treated by electric pulse has more negative corrosion potential, lower impedance value, higher discharge voltage and better specific energy. This is because electric pulse treatment can cause the coarse second phase in magnesium anode to dissolve and the grains to become more uniform. In particular, in the discharge process, the surface of magnesium anode after electric pulse treatment will form micro cracks, which is beneficial to promote the self-stripping of discharge products. It is worth noting that the effect of electric pulse treatment on rolled anode is better than that of extruded anode. It may be due to the different dislocation density in the two anodes. During the electric pulse treatment, the dislocation density in the alloy is highly correlated with the dissolution rate of β-Mg17Al12, which ultimately affects the volume fraction of the second phase in the alloy.

In this work, the influence of rolling passes on microstructure, corrosion behavior, electrochemical performance, and battery performance of AZ31 magnesium alloy was studied. The experimental results show that the grain size decreases first and then increases with rolling passes. Among them, the grain size of three passes rolled sample is the smallest, while the grain size of the four passes rolled sample is obviously refined and evenly distributed, accompanied by a small number of twins. Therefore, it exhibits more muscular discharge activity. In addition, the corrosion products of the four passes rolled samples are distributed loosely and evenly on the surface during immersion, which is easy to fall off, thus reducing the polarization. The surface of the discharged four passes rolled sample is flat, indicating that the dissolution is uniform, conducive to promoting the self-peeling of discharge products. The results show that the samples with four passes of rolling have high electrochemical activity and anode efficiency. The average cell voltage and anodic efficiency of the four passes rolled anode for Mg-air battery within 5 h at 10 mA cm-2 were 1.065 V and 56.4%, respectively. Therefore, the electrochemical performance of the four passes rolled sample is the best, and the process is more suitable for preparing magnesium alloy anode plate.