Computational design of microarchitected porous electrodes for redox flow batteries

Beck, Victor A.; Wong, Jonathan J.; Jekel, Charles F.; Tortorelli, Daniel A.; Baker, Sarah E.; Duoss, Eric B.; Worsley, Marcus A.

doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2021.230453

Title: Computational design of microarchitected porous electrodes for redox flow batteries

Journal Article · 11 September 2021 · Journal of Power Sources

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2021.230453 · OSTI ID:1837361

^[1]; Wong, Jonathan J. ^[1]; Jekel, Charles F. ^[1]; Tortorelli, Daniel A. ^[2]; Baker, Sarah E. ^[1];

^[1]; Worsley, Marcus A. ^[1]

Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)

Porous electrodes are used as the core reactive component across electrochemical technologies. In flowing systems, controlling the fluid distribution, species transport, and reactive environment is critical to attaining high performance. However, conventional electrode materials like felts and papers provide few opportunities for precise engineering of the electrode and its microstructure. To address these limitations, architected electrodes composed of unit cells with spatially varying geometry determined via computational optimization are proposed. Resolved simulation is employed to develop a homogenized description of the constituent unit cells. These effective properties serve as inputs to a continuum model for the electrode when used in the negative half-cell of a vanadium redox flow battery. Porosity distributions minimizing power loss are then determined via computational design optimization to generate architected porosity electrodes. The architected electrodes are compared to bulk, uniform porosity electrodes and found to lead to increased power efficiency across operating flow rates and currents. The design methodology is further used to generate a scaled-up electrode with comparable power efficiency to the bench-scale systems. Finally, the variable porosity architecture and computational design methodology presented here thus offers a novel pathway for automatically generating spatially engineered electrode structures with improved power performance.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-07NA27344

OSTI ID:: 1837361

Report Number(s):: LLNL-JRNL--819457; 1028986

Journal Information:: Journal of Power Sources, Journal Name: Journal of Power Sources Vol. 512; ISSN 0378-7753

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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