Tailor-Made Phosphorylated Polyvinyl Alcohol/Tungsten Polyoxometalate Proton Exchange Membrane for a Bio-Electrochemical Energy Storage System

Vassili Glibin,Victor Pupkevich,Dimitre G Karamanev,Vahid Vajihinejad

doi:10.3390/en14237975

Vassili Glibin, Victor Pupkevich + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/en14237975

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Journal: Energies	Publication Date: Nov 29, 2021
Citations: 1	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Western University, University of Alberta

Abstract

In this work, the synthesis of a phosphorylated polyvinyl alcohol (p-PVA)/polyoxometalate (tungsto-phosphate) membrane for the BioGenerator, a bio-electrochemical energy storage technology, is reported. It was shown that bonding of lacunary tungsto-phosphate ions to the carbon skeleton of a polymer matrix results in an increase in proton conductivity of up to 2.7 times, compared to previously studied phosphorylated PVA membranes. Testing of the membrane in an actual Fe3+/H2 electrochemical cell showed that it performs significantly better (0.28 W·cm−2 at 0.79 A·cm−2) than the previously used commercial Selemion HSF (Japan) membrane (0.18 W·cm−2 at 0.60 A·cm−2).

Highlights

The transition from a fossil-fuel-driven economy to one based on clean renewable energy is one of the main problems that our society currently faces
We have recently proposed a novel, fuel cell-based bio-electrochemical system for such energy conversion, named BioGenerator [2,3], where the chemolithoautotrphs Leptospirillum ferriphilum oxidize
The high flexibility of memcan be explained by the plasticizing properties of the absorbed water

Summary

Introduction

The transition from a fossil-fuel-driven economy to one based on clean renewable energy is one of the main problems that our society currently faces. The main idea of energy storage is to convert electrical energy, which is not directly storable, into another, storable form of energy. After storing the latter, it can be converted back to electricity, smoothing the variable electrical input. There are many energy storage technologies under development, based in general on physical and/or chemical principles. In hydrogen-based energy storage, there are three main elements: (i) conversion of the excess of electricity to hydrogen by electrolysis; (ii) storage of the produced hydrogen; (iii) conversion of the stored hydrogen back to electricity (re-electrification). The conversion of hydrogen to electricity is still under development.

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