Thin-film composite membrane breaking the trade-off between conductivity and selectivity for a flow battery

Qing Dai, Zhiqiang Liu, Ling Huang, Chao Wang, Yuyue Zhao, Qiang Fu, Anmin Zheng (), Huamin Zhang and Xianfeng Li ()
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Qing Dai: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhiqiang Liu: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, National Center for Magnetic Resonance in Wuhan, Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ling Huang: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, National Center for Magnetic Resonance in Wuhan, Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chao Wang: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yuyue Zhao: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qiang Fu: State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Anmin Zheng: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, National Center for Magnetic Resonance in Wuhan, Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Huamin Zhang: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xianfeng Li: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract A membrane with both high ion conductivity and selectivity is critical to high power density and low-cost flow batteries, which are of great importance for the wide application of renewable energies. The trade-off between ion selectivity and conductivity is a bottleneck of ion conductive membranes. In this paper, a thin-film composite membrane with ultrathin polyamide selective layer is found to break the trade-off between ion selectivity and conductivity, and dramatically improve the power density of a flow battery. As a result, a vanadium flow battery with a thin-film composite membrane achieves energy efficiency higher than 80% at a current density of 260 mA cm−2, which is the highest ever reported to the best of our knowledge. Combining experiments and theoretical calculation, we propose that the high performance is attributed to the proton transfer via Grotthuss mechanism and Vehicle mechanism in sub-1 nm pores of the ultrathin polyamide selective layer.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13704-2

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