Design of a cobweb bionic flow field for organic redox flow battery

Abstract

The organic redox flow battery (ORFB) has garnered attention due to its environmentally friendly nature, safety features, and design flexibility, making it an ideal choice for large-scale energy storage. A novel cobweb bionic flow field is designed to significantly improve the battery performance of the ORFB. The battery performance including the charge-discharge voltage, overpotential, concentration distribution and uniformity factors of the cobweb bionic flow field were compared with those of the serpentine flow field and the parallel flow field by a three-dimensional (3D) numerical model. The results indicate that the discharging voltage of the cobweb flow field is 3.35 % higher than that of the serpentine flow field. The uniformity factor of the cobweb flow field is 15.55 % higher than that of the serpentine flow field. The average concentration value of the cobweb flow field is 13.86 % higher than that of the serpentine flow field. Therefore, the design of the cobweb bionic flow field enhances the mass transfer behaviors in the flow field and improves the battery performance. The impacts of the number of branches on the battery performance are studied, and the results show that the cobweb flow field achieves optimal performance with 6 branches.