Non-aqueous chromium acetylacetonate electrolyte for redox flow batteries

A single-metal redox flow battery employing chromium(III) acetylacetonate in tetraethylammonium tetrafluoroborate and acetonitrile has been investigated using electrochemical techniques. Cyclic voltammetry was used to evaluate electrode kinetics. Four redox couples were observed in the stable potential window. The Cr^II/Cr^III, Cr^I/Cr^II, Cr^III/Cr^IV and Cr^IV/Cr^V redox couples all appeared to be quasi-reversible, with the Cr^III/Cr^IV couple exhibiting comparatively slow kinetics. A cell potential of 3.4 V was measured for the one-electron disproportionation of the neutral Cr^III complex. The diffusion coefficient for chromium acetylacetonate in the supporting electrolyte solution was estimated to be in the range of 5.0–6.2 × 10^?7 cm² s^?1 at room temperature. The charge–discharge characteristics of this system were evaluated in an H-type glass cell, and coulombic and energy efficiencies of approximately 55% and 20%, respectively, were obtained.     

A review of electrolyte additives and impurities in vanadium redox flow batteries

As one of the most important components of the vanadium redox flow battery(VRFB), the electrolyte can impose a significant impact on cell properties, performance and capital cost. In particular, the electrolyte composition will influence energy density, operating temperature range and the practical applications of the VRFB. Various approaches to increase the energy density and operating temperature range have been proposed. The presence of electrolyte impurities, or the addition of a small amount of other chemical species into the vanadium solution can alter the stability of the electrolyte and influence cell performance, operating temperature range, energy density, electrochemical kinetics and cost effectiveness. This review provides a detailed overview of research on electrolyte additives including stabilizing agents, immobilizing agents, kinetic enhancers, as well as electrolyte impurities and chemical reductants that can be used for different purposes in the VRFBs.     

A highly concentrated vanadium protic ionic liquid electrolyte for the vanadium redox flow battery

A protic ionic liquid is designed and implemented for the first time as a solvent for a high energy density vanadium redox flow battery.Despite being less condu...     

Glucose-derived hydrothermal carbons as energy storage booster for vanadium redox flow batteries

Fabricating of high performance electrodes by a sustainable and cost effective method is essential to the development of vanadium redox flow batteries(VRFBs).In this work,an effective strategy is proposed to deposit carbon nanoparticles on graphite felts by hydrothermal carbonization method.This in-situ method minimizes the drop off and aggregation of carbon nanoparticles during electrochemical testing.Such integration of felts and hydrothermal carbons(HTC)produces a new electrode that combines the outstanding electrical conductivity of felts with the effective redox active sites provided by the HTC coating layer.The presence of the amorphous carbon layers on the felts is found to be able to promote the mass/charge transfer,and create oxygenated/nitrogenated active sites and hence enhances wettability.Consequently,the most optimized electrode based on a rational approach delivers an impressive electrochemical performance toward VRFBs in wide range of current densities from 200 to 500 mAcm^-2.The voltage efficiency(VE)of GFs-HTC is much higher than the VEs of the pristine GFs,especially at high current densities.It exhibits a 4.18 times increase in discharge capacity over the pristine graphite felt respectively,at a high current density of 400 mAcm^-2.The enhanced performance is attributed to the abundant active sites from amorphous hydrothermal carbon,which facilitates the fast electrochemical kinetics of vanadium redox reactions.This work evidences that the glucose-derived hydrothermal carbons as energy storage booster hold great promise in practical VRFBs application.     

Quinones for redox flow batteries

Quinones are electroactive species that have shown great promise for redox flow batteries due to the ability to tune their properties and to act as both negative and positive electrolytes. The following review outlines highlights of work in the last couple of years working to provide materials with higher stability, solubility, and performance. Developments toward stable negolytes have provided opportunities for potential commercial opportunities when paired with alternate chemistries. However, the stability of quinones in high potential electrolytes is still not sufficient and the number of potential quinones limited.     

Novel catalytic effects of Mn3O4 for all vanadium redox flow batteries

A new approach for enhancing the electrochemical performance of carbon felt electrodes by employing non-precious metal oxides is designed. The outstanding electro-catalytic activity and mechanical stability of Mn(3)O(4) are advantageous in facilitating the redox reaction of vanadium ions, leading to efficient operation of a vanadium redox flow battery.     

Improved properties of positive electrolyte for a vanadium redox flow battery by adding taurine

Taurine was employed as an additive to improve the thermal stability and electrochemical performance of positive electrolyte for a vanadium redox flow battery. The addition of taurine could significantly improve the thermal stability of positive electrolyte, and 2 M V(V) electrolyte with 4 mol% taurine could keep it stable at 40 °C for 120 h, which was 54 h longer than the pristine one. Electrochemical measurements showed that the electrolyte with taurine exhibited superior electrochemical activity and reaction kinetics with a larger diffusion coefficient, exchange current density and reaction rate constant compared with the pristine one. Moreover, the cell using taurine as additive achieved higher average energy efficiency (81.75%) than the pristine cell (79.15%). The Raman and XPS spectroscopy illustrated that taurine could combine with VO²⁺ to form a small molecule complex and the –NH₂ in taurine could be adsorbed on the surface of the electrode to provide more active sites for the electrode reaction, which led to the improvement of mass transfer and the charge transfer process for the V(IV)/V(V) redox reaction.     

Influences of permeation of vanadium ions through PVDF-g-PSSA membranes on performances of vanadium redox flow batteries

The preparation and physical characterization of a poly(vinylidene fluoride)-graft-poly(styrene sulfonic acid) (PVDF-g-PSSA) membrane prepared by a solution-grafting method were described. These membranes exhibited high conductivity with a value 3.22 x 10(-2) S/cm at 30 degrees C. ICP studies revealed that the PVDF-g-PSSA membrane showed dramatically lower vanadium ion permeability compared to Nafion 117. Trivalent vanadium ions had the highest permeability through all these membranes in contrast to pentavalent vanadium ions with the lowest. The VRB with the low-cost PVDF-g-PSSA membrane exhibited a higher performance than that with Nafion 117 under the same operating conditions, and its energy efficiency reached 75.8% at 30 mA/cm(2). The performance of VRB with the PVDF-g-PSSA membrane can be maintained after more than 200 cycles at a current density of 60 mA/cm(2).     

Modified carbon cloth as positive electrode with high electrochemical performance for vanadium redox flow batteries

Carbon cloth modified by hydrothermal treatment in ammonia water is developed as the positive electrode with high electrochemical performance for vanadium redox flow batteries.The SEM shows that the treatment has no obvious influence on the morphology of carbon cloth.XPS measurements indicate that the nitrogenous functional groups can be introduced on the surface of carbon cloth successfully.The electrochemical performance of V（IV）/V（V） redox couple on the prepared electrode is evaluated with cyclic voltammetry and linear sweep voltammetry measurements.The N-doped carbon cloth exhibits outstanding electrochemical activity and reversibility toward V（IV）/V（V） redox couple.The rate constant of V（IV）/V（V） redox reaction on carbon cloth can increase to 2.27 × 10^-4cm/s from 1.47 × 10^-4cm/s after nitrogen doping.The cell using N-doped carbon cloth as positive electrode has larger discharge capacity and higher energy efficiency compared with the cell using pristine carbon cloth.The average energy efficiency of the cell using N-doped carbon cloth for 50 cycles at 30 m A/cm² is 87.8%,4.3% larger than that of the cell using pristine carbon cloth.It indicates that the N-doped carbon cloth has a promise application prospect in vanadium redox flow batteries.     

High electro-catalytic graphite felt/Mn O2composite electrodes for vanadium redox flow batteries

A mild and simple synthesis process for large-scale vanadium redox flow batteries(VRFBs)energy storage systems is desirable.A graphite felt/Mn O_2(GF-MNO)composite electrode with excellent electrocatalytic activity towards VO~(2+)/VO_2~+redox couples in a VRFB was synthesized by a one-step hydrothermal process.The resulting GF-MNO electrodes possess improved electrochemical kinetic reversibility of the vanadium redox reactions compared to pristine GF electrodes,and the corresponding energy efficiency and discharge capacity at 150 m A cm~(-2)are increased by 12.5%and 40%,respectively.The discharge capacity is maintained at 4.8 A h L~(-1)at the ultrahigh current density of 250 m A cm~(-2).Above all,80%of the energy efficiency of the GF-MNO composite electrodes is retained after 120 charge-discharge cycles at 150 m A cm~(-2).Furthermore,these electrodes demonstrated that more evenly distributed catalytic active sites were obtained from the Mn O_2particles under acidic conditions.The proposed synthetic route is facile,and the raw materials are low cost and environmentally friendly.Therefore,these novel GF-MNO electrodes hold great promise in large-scale vanadium redox flow battery energy storage systems.     

Membranes and separators for redox flow batteries

Ion-exchange membranes are performance- and cost-relevant components of redox flow batteries. Currently used materials are largely ‘borrowed’ from other applications that have different functional requirements. The trend toward higher current densities and the complex transport phenomena of the different species in flow batteries need to be taken into consideration for the design of next-generation membrane/separator materials. In this article, the key requirements and current development trends for membranes and separators for the vanadium redox flow battery are highlighted and discussed.     

The effect of phosphate additive on the positive electrolyte stability of vanadium redox flow battery

The electrolyte is one of the most important components of vanadium redox flow battery(VRFB),and its stability and solubility determines the energy density of a VRFB.The performance of current positive electrolyte is limited by the low stability of VO_2~+at a higher temperature.Phosphate is proved to be a very effective additive to improve the stability of VO_2~+.Even though,the stabilizing mechanism is still not clear,which hinders the further development of VRFBs.In this paper,to clarify the effect of phosphate additive on the positive electrolyte stability,the hydration structures of VO_2~+cations and the reaction mechanisms of precipitation with or without phosphate in the supporting electrolyte of H_2SO_4solutions were investigated in detail based on calculations of electronic structure.The stable configurations of complexes were optimized at the B3LYP/6-311+G(d,p)level of theory.The zero-point energies and Gibbs free energies for these complexes were further evaluated at the B3LYP/aug-cc-pVTZ level of theory.It shows that a structure of[VO_2(H_2O)_2]~+ surrounded by water molecules in H_2SO_4solution can be formed at the room temperature.With the temperature rises,[VO_2(H_2O)_2]~+ will lose a proton and form the intermediate of VO(OH)_3,and the further dehydration among VO(OH)_3molecules will create the precipitate of V_2O_5.When H_3PO_4was added into electrolytes,the V-O-P bond-containing neutral compound could be formed through interaction between VO(OH)_3and H_3PO_4,and the activation energy of forming the V-O-P bond-containing neutral compound is about 7 kcal mol~(-1) lower than that of the VO(OH)_3dehydration,which could avoid the precipitation of V_2O_5and improve the electrolyte stability.     

Chloride supporting electrolytes for all-vanadium redox flow batteries

This paper examines vanadium chloride solutions as electrolytes for an all-vanadium redox flow battery. The chloride solutions were capable of dissolving more than 2.3 M vanadium at varied valence states and remained stable at 0-50 °C. The improved stability appeared due to the formation of a vanadium dinuclear [V(2)O(3)·4H(2)O](4+) or a dinuclear-chloro complex [V(2)O(3)Cl·3H(2)O](3+) in the solutions over a wide temperature range. The all-vanadium redox flow batteries with the chloride electrolytes demonstrated excellent reversibility and fairly high efficiencies. Only negligible, if any, gas evolution was observed. The improved energy capacity and good performance, along with the ease in heat management, would lead to substantial reduction in capital cost and life-cycle cost, making the vanadium chloride redox flow battery a promising candidate for stationary applications.     

The renaissance in redox flow batteries

Although redox flow batteries were invented as early as 1954, no system development took place until NASA demonstrated an Fe/Cr redox flow battery system in 1970s. In hibernation for several years, redox flow battery systems have begun to catch the attention of policy makers globally. The resurrection of redox flow batteries rests heavily on their techno-economic feasibility as large-scale energy storage systems for emerging grid network that are being developed by climate change mitigation industries, namely, wind and solar. This article reviews various redox flow battery technologies with a cost and market prognosis.     

Cycling performance and efficiency of sulfonated poly(sulfone) membranes in vanadium redox flow batteries

As an alternative to Nafion® ion exchange membrane, an inexpensive commercially-available Radel® polymer was sulfonated, fabricated into a thin membrane, and evaluated for its performance in a vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB). The sulfonated Radel (S-Radel) membrane showed almost an order of magnitude lower permeability of VO²⁺ ions (2.07 × 10^?7 cm²/min), compared to Nafion 117 (1.29 × 10^?6 cm²/min), resulting in better coulombic efficiency (~ 98% vs. 95% at 50 mA/cm²) and lower capacity loss per cycle. Even though the S-Radel membrane had a slightly higher membrane resistance, the energy efficiency of the VRFB with the S-Radel membrane was comparable to that of Nafion because of its better coulombic efficiency resulting from the lower vanadium ion crossover. The S-Radel membrane exhibited good performance up to 40 cycles, but a decline in performance at later cycles was observed, likely as a result of membrane degradation.     

Room temperature ionic liquid electrolytes for redox flow batteries

Redox flow batteries (RFBs) usually contain aqueous or organic electrolytes. The aim of this communication is to explore the suitability of room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) as solvents for RFBs containing metal complexes. Towards this aim, the electrochemistry of the metal acetylacetonate (acac) complexes Mn(acac)₃, Cr(acac)₃, and V(acac)₃ was studied in imidazolium-based RTILs. The V²⁺/V³⁺, V³⁺/V⁴⁺, and V⁴⁺/V⁵⁺ redox couples are quasi-reversible in 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, [C₂C₁Im][N(Tf₂)]. The Mn(acac)₃ and Cr(acac)₃ voltammetry, on the other hand, is irreversible in [C₂C₁Im][N(Tf₂)] at glassy carbon (GC) but the rate of the Mn²⁺/Mn³⁺ reaction increases if Au electrodes are used. Charge–discharge measurements show that a coulombic efficiency of 72% is achievable using a V(acac)₃/[C₂C₁Im][N(Tf₂)]/GC cell.     

Selectivity enhancement of quaternized poly(arylene ether ketone) membranes by ion segregation for vanadium redox flow batteries

Quaternary ammonium densely functionalized octa-benzylmethyl-containing poly(arylene ether ketone)s(QA-OMPAEKs) with ion exchange capacities(IECs) ranging from 1.23 to 2.21 mmol g~(-1) were synthesized from:(1) Ullmann coupling extension of tetra-benzylmethyl-containing bisphenol A;(2) condensation polymerization with activated dihalide in the presence of K_2CO_3;(3) selective bromination using N-bromosuccinimide; and(4) quantitative quaternization using trimethylamine. Both smallangle X-ray scattering(SAXS) and transmission electron microscope(TEM) characterizations revealed distinct nano-phase separation in QA-OMPAEKs as a result of the dense quaternization. The QA-OMPAEK-20 with an IEC of 1.98 mmol g~(-1) exhibited a high SO_4~(2-) conductivity of 11.4 mS cm~(-1) and a low VO~(2+) permeability of 0.06×10~(-12) m~2 s~(-1) at room temperature,leading to a dramatically higher ion selectivity than Nafion N212. Consequently, the vanadium redox flow battery(VRFB)assembled with QA-OMPAEK-20 achieved a Coulombic efficiency of 96.9% and an energy efficiency of 84.8% at a current density of 50 mA cm~(-2), which were much higher than those of the batteries assembled with Nafion N212 and a home-made control membrane without distinct nano-phase separation. Therefore, ion segregation is demonstrated to be a strategical route for the design of high performance anion exchange membranes(AEMs) for VRFBs.     

Detrimental role of hydrogen evolution and its temperature-dependent impact on the performance of vanadium redox flow batteries

This paper addresses the damaging role of the parasitic hydrogen evolution reaction(HER) in the negative half-cell of a vanadium redox flow battery(VRFB) on state-of-the-art carbon felt electrodes at different temperatures. It was found that increasing the temperature resulted in a better catalytic performance for both the positive and negative half-cell reactions. In addition, increasing the temperature significantly enhanced the undesired HER at the negative side. Operating the VRFB cell at higher temperature led to a decrease in the coulombic efficiency attributed to the higher hydrogen production. More pronounced hydrogen production caused an oxidation on the surface of the carbon fibers and a degradation of the electrode as indicated from scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements. This observed degradation results in fading of the overall performance of the vanadium redox flow battery over time.     

The numerical simulation of vanadium RedOx flow batteries

In this article a theoretical model of a RedOx flow cell (RFC), based on an equation system of fluid dynamics and of electrochemistry, is presented. A numerical algorithm of the solution of the equation system is developed. The results of numerical simulation of processes in the RFC are analyzed and validated in a test cell. The effects of different electrode collectors and current densities on the operation of the RFC are studied.     

Membraneless vanadium redox fuel cell using laminar flow

This paper describes the design and characterization of a small, membraneless redox fuel cell. The smallest channel dimensions of the cell were 2 mm x 50 mum or x 200 mum; the cell was fabricated in poly(dimethylsiloxane) using soft lithography. This all-vanadium fuel cell took advantage of laminar flow to obviate the need for a membrane to separate the solutions of oxidizing and reducing components.