Improved low-cost, non-hazardous, all-iron cell for the developing world
Abstract
A low-cost, non-hazardous personal-power system based on an aqueous all-iron electrochemical cell is demonstrated in this paper. The system is intended to be assembled and operated by developing-world households that lack sufficient access to electricity, thereby enabling LED lighting or mobile phone charging on demand. Lab-scale hardware is used to assess the performance of individual cell components. It is found that coffee filter paper is an effective low-cost separator. Carbon felt is a low-cost electrode material, and its performance and wetting by the electrolyte solution is greatly improved by pre-treatment with sulfuric acid. The carbon felt does not degrade after a week of daily use. By using these components, performance of the system is significantly improved over the previous baseline, with power density more than doubling to 40 mW cm-2, and iron utilization improving from 78% to 88%. The operating cost is estimated to be less than US$0.03 per mobile phone charge. Based on the lab-scale results, a stand-alone prototype consumer product is designed, fabricated, and tested. It successfully provides 2.5 h of LED illumination while consuming 200 mL of electrolyte solution via gravity feed. Finally, we anticipate these results will enable deployment of this innovative system to energy-impoverished individualsmore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
[1];
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Energy Technologies Area. Energy Conversion Group
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Sustainable Transportation Office. Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technologies Office
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1377587
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1359485
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Power Sources
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 332; Journal ID: ISSN 0378-7753
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION; 32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION; 29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY; Redox flow; All-iron; Developing world; Portable power
Citation Formats
Tucker, Michael C., Lambelet, David, Oueslati, Mohamed, Williams, Benjamin, Wang, Wu-Chieh Jerry, and Weber, Adam Z. Improved low-cost, non-hazardous, all-iron cell for the developing world. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2016.09.098.
Tucker, Michael C., Lambelet, David, Oueslati, Mohamed, Williams, Benjamin, Wang, Wu-Chieh Jerry, & Weber, Adam Z. Improved low-cost, non-hazardous, all-iron cell for the developing world. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2016.09.098
Tucker, Michael C., Lambelet, David, Oueslati, Mohamed, Williams, Benjamin, Wang, Wu-Chieh Jerry, and Weber, Adam Z. Wed .
"Improved low-cost, non-hazardous, all-iron cell for the developing world". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2016.09.098. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1377587.
@article{osti_1377587,
title = {Improved low-cost, non-hazardous, all-iron cell for the developing world},
author = {Tucker, Michael C. and Lambelet, David and Oueslati, Mohamed and Williams, Benjamin and Wang, Wu-Chieh Jerry and Weber, Adam Z.},
abstractNote = {A low-cost, non-hazardous personal-power system based on an aqueous all-iron electrochemical cell is demonstrated in this paper. The system is intended to be assembled and operated by developing-world households that lack sufficient access to electricity, thereby enabling LED lighting or mobile phone charging on demand. Lab-scale hardware is used to assess the performance of individual cell components. It is found that coffee filter paper is an effective low-cost separator. Carbon felt is a low-cost electrode material, and its performance and wetting by the electrolyte solution is greatly improved by pre-treatment with sulfuric acid. The carbon felt does not degrade after a week of daily use. By using these components, performance of the system is significantly improved over the previous baseline, with power density more than doubling to 40 mW cm-2, and iron utilization improving from 78% to 88%. The operating cost is estimated to be less than US$0.03 per mobile phone charge. Based on the lab-scale results, a stand-alone prototype consumer product is designed, fabricated, and tested. It successfully provides 2.5 h of LED illumination while consuming 200 mL of electrolyte solution via gravity feed. Finally, we anticipate these results will enable deployment of this innovative system to energy-impoverished individuals in the developing world.},
doi = {10.1016/j.jpowsour.2016.09.098},
journal = {Journal of Power Sources},
number = ,
volume = 332,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Sep 28 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Wed Sep 28 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
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Works referencing / citing this record:
A Rechargeable Battery with an Iron Metal Anode
journal, March 2019
- Wu, Xianyong; Markir, Aaron; Xu, Yunkai
- Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 20
All-Iron Hybrid Flow Batteries with In-Tank Rebalancing
journal, January 2019
- Selverston, S.; Nagelli, E.; Wainright, J. S.
- Journal of The Electrochemical Society, Vol. 166, Issue 10