Effect of flow field geometry on operating current density, capacity and performance of vanadium redox flow battery

Journal Article · Fri Oct 05 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Journal of Power Sources

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2018.09.093· OSTI ID:1481999

Maurya, Sandipkumar  ^[1]; Nguyen, Phong Thanh  ^[1]; Kim, Yu Seung  ^[1]; Kang, Qinjun  ^[1]; Mukundan, Rangachary  ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

We report that addition of flow fields to carbon paper electrodes in a vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) can improve the peak power density through uniform distribution of electrolyte in the electrodes. However, it is unclear whether flow fields have a similar effect with graphite felt electrodes, as VRFBs with felt electrodes reported in literature show a large anomaly in obtained power density. In this work, we evaluate three flow fields; viz. serpentine, interdigitated and conventional (without flow pattern) type with felt electrodes and compare their performance with a serpentine flow field using carbon paper electrodes under identical experimental conditions. The conventional flow field provides highest energy efficiency (75%) followed by serpentine (64%) and interdigitated (55%) at 0.2 A cm^-2 attributable to the deteriorating electrolyte distribution in the electrodes. Computation fluid dynamic simulations confirm the experimental finding of worsening electrolyte distribution (conventional < serpentine < interdigitated). A power density of 0.51 W cm^-2 at 60 mL min^-1 flow rate is obtained for serpentine and conventional flow fields with felt electrodes; comparable to the highest power density reported in literature for high performing zero-gap flow field architecture. Finally, this paper gives comprehensive insights on flow fields for VRFBs that can be extended to other flow batteries.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
• Grant/Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 1481999
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-18-23778
• Journal Information: Journal of Power Sources, Vol. 404, Issue C; ISSN 0378-7753
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
Energy Sciences
Material Science
Vanadium redox flow battery