Performance of a vanadium redox flow battery with a VANADion membrane

X.L. Zhou, T.S. Zhao, L. An, Y.K. Zeng and X.B. Zhu

Applied Energy, 2016, vol. 180, issue C, 353-359

Abstract: Conventional vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) using Nafion 115 suffered from issues associated with high ohmic resistance and high capital cost. In this work, we report a commercial membrane (VANADion), consisting of a porous layer and a dense Nafion layer, as a promising alternative to Nafion 115. In the dual-layer structure, the porous layer (∼210μm) can offer a high ionic conductivity and the dense Nafion layer (∼20μm) can depress the convective flow of electrolyte through the membrane. By comparing with the conventional Nafion 115 in a VRFB, it is found that the change from the conventional Nafion 115 to the composite one results in an increase in the energy efficiency from 71.3% to 76.2% and an increase in the electrolyte utilization from 54.1% to 68.4% at a current density of as high as 240mAcm−2. In addition, although two batteries show the comparable cycling performance at current densities ranging from 80mAcm−2 to 240mAcm−2, the composite membrane is estimated to be significantly cheaper than the conventional Nafion 115 due to the fact that the porous layer is rather cost-effective and the dense Nafion layer is rather thin. The impressive combination of desirable performance and low cost makes this composite membrane highly promising in the VRFB applications.

Keywords: Energy storage; Flow battery; Performance evaluation; VANADion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.08.001

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