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Title: Improved low-cost, non-hazardous, all-iron cell for the developing world

Journal Article · · Journal of Power Sources
 [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Energy Technologies Area. Energy Conversion Group
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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.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Sustainable Transportation Office. Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1377587
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1359485
Journal Information:
Journal of Power Sources, Vol. 332; ISSN 0378-7753
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 5 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (8)

Kerosene: A Review of Household Uses and their Hazards in Low- and Middle-Income Countries journal August 2012
All-Iron Redox Flow Battery Tailored for Off-Grid Portable Applications journal November 2015
In-tank hydrogen-ferric ion recombination journal August 2016
High Performance Carbon Nanotube Based Electrodes for Zinc Bromine Redox Flow Batteries journal January 2013
Polarization curve analysis of all-vanadium redox flow batteries journal August 2011
Optimization of electrode characteristics for the Br2/H2 redox flow cell journal October 2014
High Performance Hydrogen/Bromine Redox Flow Battery for Grid-Scale Energy Storage journal January 2012
Chemical modification of graphite electrode materials for vanadium redox flow battery application—part II. Acid treatments journal October 1992

Cited By (2)

A Rechargeable Battery with an Iron Metal Anode journal March 2019
All-Iron Hybrid Flow Batteries with In-Tank Rebalancing journal January 2019

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Related Subjects

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