Efficiency improvement of an all-vanadium redox flow battery by harvesting low-grade heat

Abstract Redox flow batteries (RFBs) are rugged systems, which can withstand several thousand cycles and last many years. However, they suffer from low energy density, low power density, and low efficiency. Integrating a Thermally Regenerative Electrochemical Cycle (TREC) into the RFB, it is possible to mitigate some of these drawbacks. The TREC takes advantage of the temperature dependence of the cell voltage to convert heat directly into electrical energy. Here, the performance increase of a TREC-RFB is investigated using two kinds of all-vanadium electrolyte chemistries: one containing a typical concentration of sulfuric acid and one containing a large excess of hydrochloric acid. The results show that the energy density of the system was increased by 1.3Wh L−1 and 0.8Wh L−1, respectively and the overall energy efficiency also increased by 9 and 5 percentage points, respectively. The integration of the heat exchangers necessary to change the battery temperature is readily facilitated by the design of the redox flow battery, which already utilizes fluid circulation loops.

[1]  Haoran Zhao,et al.  Review of energy storage system for wind power integration support , 2015 .

[2]  Jun Liu,et al.  Electrochemical energy storage for green grid. , 2011, Chemical reviews.

[3]  Kathryn E. Toghill,et al.  All-vanadium dual circuit redox flow battery for renewable hydrogen generation and desulfurisation , 2016 .

[4]  Ngai Yin Yip,et al.  Harvesting low-grade heat energy using thermo-osmotic vapour transport through nanoporous membranes , 2016, Nature Energy.

[5]  Tin-Tai Chow,et al.  A Review on Photovoltaic/Thermal Hybrid Solar Technology , 2010, Renewable Energy.

[6]  Piergiorgio Alotto,et al.  Redox flow batteries for the storage of renewable energy: A review , 2014 .

[7]  Maria Skyllas-Kazacos,et al.  Redox Flow Batteries , 2015 .

[8]  Alasdair J. Crawford,et al.  1 kW/1 kWh advanced vanadium redox flow battery utilizing mixed acid electrolytes , 2013 .

[9]  F. L. Mantia,et al.  Batteries for lithium recovery from brines , 2012 .

[10]  Chenxi Sun,et al.  Investigations on transfer of water and vanadium ions across Nafion membrane in an operating vanadium redox flow battery , 2010 .

[11]  Xiuping Zhu,et al.  A Thermally-Regenerative Ammonia-Based Flow Battery for Electrical Energy Recovery from Waste Heat. , 2016, ChemSusChem.

[12]  G. Graff,et al.  A Stable Vanadium Redox‐Flow Battery with High Energy Density for Large‐Scale Energy Storage , 2011 .

[13]  Yuan Yang,et al.  Charging-free electrochemical system for harvesting low-grade thermal energy , 2014, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[14]  Xing Xie,et al.  Performance of a mixing entropy battery alternately flushed with wastewater effluent and seawater for recovery of salinity-gradient energy , 2014 .

[15]  Yi Cui,et al.  Batteries for efficient energy extraction from a water salinity difference. , 2011, Nano letters.

[16]  M. Mench,et al.  Redox flow batteries: a review , 2011 .

[17]  Steven G. Bratsch,et al.  Standard Electrode Potentials and Temperature Coefficients in Water at 298.15 K , 1989 .

[18]  Zhenguo Yang,et al.  Chloride supporting electrolytes for all-vanadium redox flow batteries. , 2011, Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP.

[19]  H. Ghasemi,et al.  Membrane-free battery for harvesting low-grade thermal energy. , 2014, Nano letters.

[20]  Maria Skyllas-Kazacos,et al.  Progress in Flow Battery Research and Development , 2011 .

[21]  Helena L. Chum,et al.  Review of thermally regenerative electrochemical systems , 1981 .

[22]  J. Ferraris,et al.  Harvesting waste thermal energy using a carbon-nanotube-based thermo-electrochemical cell. , 2010, Nano letters.

[23]  Tsuyoshi Murata,et al.  {m , 1934, ACML.

[24]  C. Zhang,et al.  Effects of operating temperature on the performance of vanadium redox flow batteries , 2015 .

[25]  Wei Liu,et al.  Multi-objective optimization of a continuous thermally regenerative electrochemical cycle for waste heat recovery , 2015 .

[26]  Maria Skyllas-Kazacos,et al.  Vanadium Electrolyte Studies for the Vanadium Redox Battery-A Review. , 2016, ChemSusChem.

[27]  Kathryn E. Toghill,et al.  Redox Flow Batteries, Hydrogen and Distributed Storage. , 2015, Chimia.

[28]  H. Ghasemi,et al.  An electrochemical system for efficiently harvesting low-grade heat energy , 2014, Nature Communications.

[29]  Xueqin Wang,et al.  Study on stabilities and electrochemical behavior of V(V) electrolyte with acid additives for vanadium redox flow battery , 2014 .

[30]  M. Skyllas-Kazacos,et al.  The Effect of Additives on the High‐Temperature Stability of the Vanadium Redox Flow Battery Positive Electrolytes , 2016 .

[31]  Michael Grätzel,et al.  Reversible chemical delithiation/lithiation of LiFePO4: towards a redox flow lithium-ion battery. , 2013, Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP.

[32]  Volker Presser,et al.  Heat-to-current conversion of low-grade heat from a thermocapacitive cycle by supercapacitors , 2015 .

[33]  H. Girault,et al.  Redox Solid Energy Boosters for Flow Batteries: Polyaniline as a Case Study , 2017 .