Life cycle assessment of soluble lead redox flow battery

Abstract

Energy storage deployment for stationary applications is expected to grow in the next decade, and there is a requirement for storage solutions that minimise materials demand. Soluble lead redox flow battery is a type of flow battery in the early phase of design with the potential for a lower cost than other flow battery solutions. This study presents the first cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment of the soluble lead redox flow battery. The ReCiPe2016 method was used to assess the 18 midpoint impact categories for 1 kWh of energy storage capacity. The assessed environmental impact categories were compared with the most advanced flow battery, the vanadium redox flow battery, and other commercially available stationary batteries; lithium-ion batteries, lead acid batteries, and sodium-ion batteries. The most significant environmental impacts of the soluble lead redox flow battery are associated with power subsystem components; stainless-steel end plates (a key component of the stack frame), and polymethyl methacrylate bipolar and monopolar frames. Despite their non-optimised technology, the environmental impacts of the soluble lead redox flow battery show promising results compared to other stationary storage applications exhibiting one of the lowest depletion of material resources of all compared batteries, including lithium-ion batteries, lead acid batteries, and sodium-ion batteries. This is even more evident at higher energy to power ratios. Increasing the energy storage capacity of the soluble lead redox flow battery, and the optimisation of power subsystem components can further improve the environmental performance of the soluble lead redox flow battery.