Phosphorus-doped graphite felt allowing stabilized electrochemical interface and hierarchical pore structure for redox flow battery

Rui Wang, Yinshi Li, Yanning Wang and Zhou Fang

Applied Energy, 2020, vol. 261, issue C, No S0306261919320562

Abstract: The redox flow battery technology is of great potential for large-scale energy storage. However, its widespread application is suffering from the challenges of low energy efficiency and considerable performance degradation in the high-current cycles. Herein, we propose and develop a phosphorus-doped electrode with stabilized electrochemical interface and hierarchical pore structure for cost-effective flow batteries. Density functional theory calculation was first used to demonstrate the stability and activity of phosphorus-doped graphite surface. On basis of theoretical design, the phosphorus-doped graphite felt electrode was fabricated by a facial thermally treating method. Stabilized heteroatom-doped chemical surface with abundant phosphorus-containing functional groups (1.7%) was observed. Beyond that, the hierarchical pore structure from macro (~20 μm) to nanoscale (<200 nm) was formed synchronously, suggesting the enhanced reaction activity, stability and mass transport. In charge-discharge test, flow battery assembled with phosphorus-doped electrodes yielded a prominent energy efficiency of 81% at 200 mA cm−2, 46% higher than battery with traditional electrodes. Even current densities up to 500 mA cm−2, battery with phosphorus-doped electrodes still exhibits a workable energy efficiency of 64% while batteries with other electrodes cannot operate properly. Moreover, the superior durability of battery with phosphorus-doped electrodes was verified after 100-cycle charge-discharge test with nearly no-decay energy efficiencies. This work offers a promising way to develop stable and efficient flow batteries for the energy storage systems.

Keywords: Large-scale energy storage; Flow battery; Phosphorus-doped electrode; Hierarchical pore structure; Energy efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.114369

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