Energy Efficiency Of Vanadium Redox Flow Battery Research Articles

A high-temperature tolerance solution for positive electrolyte of vanadium redox flow batteries

Vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is attractive for energy storage applications, but there still remains a problem of preventing V-precipitation reaction (i.e., V2O5) to provide the thermal stability of electrolyte employed in VRFB. The V2O5 precipitation is accelerated in the positive electrolyte under high temperature, resulting in decreasing the charge capacity and energy efficiency of VRFB. So far, previous supporting materials, which are used to solve such precipitation problem, provide a disadvantage of decreasing voltage efficiency of VRFBs by increasing electrolyte resistance. This paper describes an advanced vanadium-positive electrolyte with high-temperature tolerance for high-efficiency VRFBs, which uses a sodium formate as a supporting material. The sodium formate plays a role as an agent capable of preventing precipitation reaction in the positive electrolyte and it also provides an effect of decreasing a viscosity of the positive electrolyte. The effectiveness of the proposed electrolyte solution is demonstrated through the following experiments: UV–vis spectrometry, viscosity measurement, cyclic voltammetry (CV), VRFB operation and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. Then, for the performance comparison of high temperature stability, all experiments are carried out at 60°C. Experimental results show that using the sodium formate leads to near 4.5 times increase of diffusion coefficient as compared to conventional electrolyte, and also provides 20.2% higher charge capacity (50th cycle) and 2.27% higher average energy efficiency (50cycles) at the current density of 80mAcm−2. In addition, it appears that the precipitation of vanadium species is not observed in the electrolyte during VRFB operation. Therefore, this paper provides that new direction about effect of the additive in the positive electrolyte and the sodium formate can be considered as a promising additive for high-performance electrolyte of VRFBs.

Nafion/organically modified silicate hybrids membrane for vanadium redox flow battery

In our previous work, Nafion/SiO 2 hybrid membrane was prepared via in situ sol–gel method and used for the vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) system. The VRB with modified Nafion membrane has shown great advantages over that of the VRB with Nafion membrane. In this work, a novel Nafion/organically modified silicate (ORMOSIL) hybrids membrane was prepared via in situ sol–gel reactions for mixtures of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and diethoxydimethylsilane (DEDMS). The primary properties of Nafion/ORMOSIL hybrids membrane were measured and compared with Nafion and Nafion/SiO 2 hybrid membrane. The permeability of vanadium ions through the Nafion/ORMOSIL hybrids membrane was measured using an UV–vis spectrophotometer. The results indicate that the hybrids membrane has a dramatic reduction in crossover of vanadium ions compared with Nafion membrane. Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR) analysis of the hybrids membrane reveals that the ORMOSIL phase is well formed within hybrids membrane. Cell tests identify that the VRB with Nafion/ORMOSIL hybrids membrane presents a higher coulombic efficiency (CE) and energy efficiency (EE) compared with that of the VRB with Nafion and Nafion/SiO 2 hybrid membrane. The highest EE of the VRB with Nafion/ORMOSIL hybrids membrane is 87.4% at 20 mA cm −2, while the EE of VRB with Nafion and the EE of VRB with Nafion/SiO 2 hybrid membrane are only 73.8% and 79.9% at the same current density. The CE and EE of VRB with Nafion/ORMOSIL hybrids membrane is nearly no decay after cycling more than 100 times (60 mA cm −2), which proves the Nafion/ORMOSIL hybrids membrane possesses high chemical stability during long charge–discharge process under strong acid solutions. The self-discharge rate of the VRB with Nafion/ORMOSIL hybrids membrane is the slowest among the VRB with Nafion, Nafion/SiO 2 and Nafion/ORMOSIL membrane, which further proves the excellent vanadium ions blocking characteristic of the prepared hybrids membrane.