Large-scale all-climate vanadium batteries

Abstract

The vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is a highly promising technology for large-scale energy storage applications due to its exceptional longevity and virtually unlimited capacity. However, for this technology to be widely applicable across different geographical locations, a thorough understanding of its all-climate properties is essential. In recent years, VRFBs have been improved by optimising vanadium electrolytes, exchange membranes, carbon fabric electrodes, and casings. However, most research activities have been limited to batteries operating in moderate temperature conditions, and all-climate vanadium batteries are rarely considered. Therefore, this research work focuses on the effect of temperature on the performance of VRFBs. Existing models that deal with the thermal-hydraulic-chemical modelling of VRFBs either ignore the coupling between the governing physical processes or the variation of key material properties with temperature. In this study, we consider both the coupling of the multi-physics processes that influence the behaviour of VRFBs and the variation of their underpinning properties with temperature.