Abstract
The vanadium redox flow battery is considered one of the most promising candidates for use in large-scale energy storage systems. However, its commercialization has been hindered due to the high manufacturing cost of the vanadium electrolyte, which is currently prepared using a costly electrolysis method with limited productivity. In this work, we present a simpler method for chemical production of impurity-free V3.5+ electrolyte by utilizing formic acid as a reducing agent and Pt/C as a catalyst. With the catalytic reduction of V4+ electrolyte, a high quality V3.5+ electrolyte was successfully produced and excellent cell performance was achieved. Based on the result, a prototype catalytic reactor employing Pt/C-decorated carbon felt was designed, and high-speed, continuous production of V3.5+ electrolyte in this manner was demonstrated with the reactor. This invention offers a simple but practical strategy to reduce the production cost of V3.5+ electrolyte while retaining quality that is adequate for high-performance operations.
Highlights
The vanadium redox flow battery is considered one of the most promising candidates for use in large-scale energy storage systems
A method of preparing V3.5+ electrolyte for vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) using catalytic reaction of organic reducing agent (ORA) was demonstrated in this report
Candidates for ORA were selected according to logical guidelines, and among the candidates, formic acid was chosen as the best ORA
Summary
The vanadium redox flow battery is considered one of the most promising candidates for use in large-scale energy storage systems. Tanaka et al.[23] invented a method by which to prepare a V3+ electrolyte by mixing V2O5 and sulfur, followed by calcination process to form a soluble V3+ compound This method enables the chemical production of V3.5+ electrolyte from V2O5, its complexity, high temperature processing conditions (200–300 °C), and the possibility of toxic SO2 gas generation inhibit its application. The ions negatively influence VRFB performance by metal deposition and accelerate hydrogen evolution[13] For these reasons, inventing a new greener and simpler method to replace electrolysis when producing impurity-free vanadium electrolyte promises to offer a significant advance in VRFB technology
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