Modification of Nafion membrane using fluorocarbon surfactant for all vanadium redox flow battery

Abstract

Fluorocarbon surfactant (potassium nonafluoro-1-butanesulfonate) is employed to prepare the Nafion/fluorocarbon (N/FC) membranes for all vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB). N/FC membranes with different FC surfactant mass ratios were successfully prepared by a solution casting method. The addition of FC surfactant has effectively suppressed the vanadium ions permeability and improved the proton conductivity of Nafion. The N/FC membrane with 5wt% of FC surfactant (N/FC—5%) exhibits the highest ion selectivity (ratio of proton conductivity to permeability) of 2.0×106Smincm−3, which is 2.1 times higher than that of pure recast Nafion (r-Nafion) membrane (9.7×105Smincm−3). Consequently, both coulombic efficiency (CE) and voltage efficiency (VE) of the VRFB with N/FC—5% membrane are higher than that of the VRFB with r-Nafion membrane. The average energy efficiency (product of CE and VE) of the VRFB with N/FC—5% membrane is 11% higher than that of the VRFB with r-Nafion at current density of 40–80mAcm−2.