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Redox flow batteries—Concepts and chemistries for cost-effective energy storage

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Abstract

Electrochemical energy storage is one of the few options to store the energy from intermittent renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Redox flow batteries (RFBs) are such an energy storage system, which has favorable features over other battery technologies, e.g. solid state batteries, due to their inherent safety and the independent scaling of energy and power content. However, because of their low energy-density, low power-density, and the cost of components such as redox species and membranes, commercialised RFB systems like the all-vanadium chemistry cannot make full use of the inherent advantages over other systems. In principle, there are three pathways to improve RFBs and to make them viable for large scale application: First, to employ electrolytes with higher energy density. This goal can be achieved by increasing the concentration of redox species, employing redox species that store more than one electron or by increasing the cell voltage. Second, to enhance the power output of the battery cells by using high kinetic redox species, increasing the cell voltage, implementing novel cell designs or membranes with lower resistance. The first two means reduce the electrode surface area needed to supply a certain power output, thereby bringing down costs for expensive components such as membranes. Third, to reduce the costs of single or multiple components such as redox species or membranes. To achieve these objectives it is necessary to develop new battery chemistries and cell configurations. In this review, a comparison of promising cell chemistries is focused on, be they all-liquid, slurries or hybrids combining liquid, gas and solid phases. The aim is to elucidate which redox-system is most favorable in terms of energy-density, power-density and capital cost. Besides, the choice of solvent and the selection of an inorganic or organic redox couples with the entailing consequences are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Newcastle University and Siemens AG.

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  1. These two authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemistry-School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Matthäa Verena Holland-Cunz, Faye Cording, Jochen Friedl & Ulrich Stimming

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  1. Matthäa Verena Holland-Cunz
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  2. Faye Cording
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  3. Jochen Friedl
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Matthäa Verena Holland-Cunz, née Schwob, studied Bachelor and Master of Chemistry at University of Cologne, Germany, and completed her master thesis with focus on the investigation of new electrode materials for redox flow batteries at FraunhoferInstitut in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Since 2016 she is enrolled as Ph.D. student in Physical Chemistry at Newcastle University. Her research is about the electron transfer kinetics of the vanadium redox reaction and the investigation of new advanced materials for redox flow batteries.

Faye Cording is a postgraduate student in Chemistry of the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences at Newcastle University. She completed undergraduate studies in Chemistry at Northumbria University before joining Newcastle University to study new materials for redox flow batteries.

Dr. Jochen Friedl is a research associate in Chemistry of the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences at Newcastle University. For the past 7 years he has been researching redox flow batteries, with a focus on the electron transfer kinetics of the vanadium redox reactions and novel cell chemistries. His investigations of the electron transfer of vanadium revealed the influence of oxygen functional groups on the redox reactions that are at the heart of the anolyte and the catholyte of the all-vanadium redox flow battery. He helped to develop and scale up a novel redox-chemistry based on nano-sized electron shuttles from batteries that produced some mA to a single cell that can deliver 100 A. Author of 20 publications, he has received his doctorate from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, with highest distinction in 2015.

Ulrich Stimming was educated at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, where he received his Diploma degree in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry.

Prof. Stimming is currently a Professor of Physical Chemistry at Newcastle University, UK. Previously, he was Head of the School of Chemistry at Newcastle University. He was CEO and Scientific Advisor and Principal Investigator of TUM Create in Singapore. He had a Chair of Technical Physics and was Professor of Chemistry at Technical University Munich (TUM). Prior to that he was a Director at the Research Center Jülich and before a member of the faculty of Columbia University in New York, USA. He has visiting appointments at various universities including Shanghai Jiao Tong University and University of Science and Technology of China.

Currently, he is the Director of the North-East Centre of Energy Materials (NECEM) funded by EPSRC. He also directs a large battery project at Newcastle University on degradation of Li-Ion batteries in cooperation with Cambridge, UCL and Glasgow universities. Prof. Stimming is the founder and Editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Fuel Cells-From Fundamentals to Systems, VCH-Wiley. He coordinated for the Association of Leading Technical Universities in Germany (TU9) a research network of a total of 8 universities in electro-mobility between Germany and China, and was the co-director of the Joint “Institute for Advanced Power Sources” of TU Munich and Tsinghua University, Beijing, from 2010 to 2014. He has 300 + publications and numerous patents.

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Holland-Cunz, M.V., Cording, F., Friedl, J. et al. Redox flow batteries—Concepts and chemistries for cost-effective energy storage. Front. Energy 12, 198–224 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-018-0552-4

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