Molecular and Cell-Level Engineering of Zinc-Based Aqueous Flow Batteries

Abstract

Among other flow batteries, zinc-based aqueous flow batteries (ZBAFB) have the advantages of 1) smaller amount of electrolyte, and 2) elimination of ion-exchange membrane by using complexing agents to phase-separate charged species (Br2 or I2). However, existing complexing agents are unsatisfactory, which leads to severe self-discharge. Moreover, flow batteries generally have low volumetric power density, limiting their wide applications. In this talk, I will show my lab's recent efforts on enhancing the performance of ZBAFB by designing novel complexing agents and innovating the cell form factors. I will also report our direct visualization of the halogen formation dynamics using in operando optical microscopy.