Environmental and Health Impacts of Vanadium Redox Batteries: from Chemical Properties to Ecological Safety

Abstract

Due to its distinct design and operation, the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is a cutting-edge energy storage technology that has received a lot of attention lately. The active material of VRFB exists in liquid form, which brings many unique advantages to the battery. Unlike traditional solid-state batteries, the electrodes do not directly participate in chemical reactions during charging and discharging, thus significantly improving the service life of the battery. It is possible to change the VRFB's capacity without changing the battery itself. providing users with great flexibility. VRFB also has some other significant advantages, such as no toxicity by-products, environmental friendliness, high energy efficiency, and rapid response capability. In particular, for large-scale energy storage applications like grid peak shaving, Due to its excellent efficiency, VRFB has attracted a lot of interest. reliability, and economy. However, despite the aforementioned advantages of VRFB, it still faces some challenges in commercialization and large-scale application, such as cost, system complexity, and technology. Furthermore, this paper analyzes the security issues of VRFB in large-scale applications and aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art in VRB technology and its applications in various fields.