Aligned microfibers interweaved with highly porous carbon nanofibers: A Novel electrode for high-power vanadium redox flow batteries

Abstract

In this work, we propose and develop a novel electrode made of aligned microscale carbon fibers interweaved with highly porous carbon nanofibers for vanadium redox flow batteries. Such a unique combination not only endows the electrode with a high permeability due to the reduced tortuosity and large macropores, but also an ultra-large specific surface area for redox reactions. As a result, a vanadium redox flow battery equipped with the newly-developed electrode is able to achieve an energy efficiency of 79.3% at the current density of 400 mA cm−2, which is 9.9% higher than that with pure porous carbon nanofiber electrodes, and 14.1% higher than that with pure aligned fiber electrodes. More remarkably, the battery is capable of delivering a peak power density of as high as ∼1.9 W cm−2 and a limiting current density of ∼5000 mA cm−2. These results demonstrate that our strategy of interweaving porous carbon nanofibers between aligned microfibers effectively addresses the contradiction between permeability and surface area of porous electrodes, opening a new platform to fabricate high-performance electrodes for vanadium redox flow batteries.