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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Capacity balancing for vanadium redox flow batteries through electrolyte overflow

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This article was retracted on 10 July 2020

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Abstract

The vanadium crossover through the membrane can have a significant impact on the capacity of the vanadium redox flow battery over long-term charge–discharge cycling. The different vanadium ions move unsymmetrically through the membrane and this leads to a build-up of vanadium ions in one-half cell with a corresponding decrease in the other. In this paper, a dynamic model is developed based on different crossover mechanisms (diffusion, migration and convection) for each of the four vanadium ions, water and protons in the electrolytes. With a simple to use approach, basic mass transport theory is used to simulate the transfer of vanadium ions in the battery. The model is validated with own measurements and can therefore predict the battery capacity as a function of time. This is used to analyse the battery performance by applying a continuous overflow from one-half cell to the other. Different overflow rates were analysed with regard to an impact of the performance and electrolyte stability. It was observed that a continuous overflow increases the capacity significantly but that the electrolyte stability plays an essential role using a membrane with a big vanadium crossover. Even with a good performance, a complete remixing of the tanks is necessary to prevent electrolyte precipitations.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions AG for financial support and the Energy Research Center of Clausthal University of Technology (EFZ) for technical assistance during this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Chemical and Electrochemical Process Engineering, Clausthal University of Technology, Leibnizstr. 17, 38678, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

    Katharina Schafner, Maik Becker & Thomas Turek

  2. Energy Research Centre of Clausthal University of Technology (EFZ), Am Stollen 19A, 38640, Goslar, Germany

    Katharina Schafner, Maik Becker & Thomas Turek

Authors
  1. Katharina Schafner
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  2. Maik Becker
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  3. Thomas Turek
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katharina Schafner.

Additional information

The authors have retracted this article because new results have shown that the assumption of a hydraulic convection through the membrane was not correct. It is very likely that the membrane used for the experiments in this article was damaged. As a result, a part of the determined model parameters and the simulation results changed after evaluation of new experimental results. The authors intend to publish a corrected version of their findings. All authors agree to this retraction.

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Schafner, K., Becker, M. & Turek, T. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Capacity balancing for vanadium redox flow batteries through electrolyte overflow. J Appl Electrochem 48, 639–649 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10800-018-1187-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10800-018-1187-1

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