Low-cost hydrocarbon membrane enables commercial-scale flow batteries
Low-cost hydrocarbon membrane enables commercial-scale flow batteries for long-duration energy storage
Credit: DICP
… for long-duration energy storage.
Flow batteries are promising for energy storage due to their high safety, high reliability, long cycle life, and high efficiency.
The development of commercial-scale flow batteries for long-duration energy storage requires to reduce the cost of flow batteries, especially the cost of ion-exchange membranes.
Recently, a research group led by Prof. LI Xianfeng from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) realized pilot-scale synthesis and roll-to-roll manufacturing of hydrocarbon membranes with high-performance in alkaline-based flow batteries.
This work was published in Joule on March 21.
The researchers realized the kilogram-level synthesis of sulfonated poly(ether-ether-ketone) (SPEEK) polymer and demonstrated the pilot-scale roll-to-roll synthesis of SPEEK membrane and their applications in alkaline-based flow batteries.
They found that the rigid skeleton and dispersive cation exchange groups enabled the high stability of the membrane in alkaline media, and could confine O-containing species (H2O, OH–, etc.) inside the membrane, resulting in the formation of continuous hydrogen-bonding networks. This favored the dissociation of H+ in H–O–H (H2O) and transfer from H2O to adjacent OH– ions through a Grotthuss mechanism, thus providing a high OH– conductivity in SPEEK.
The membrane was integrated in alkaline zinc-iron flow battery stack with power up to 4 kW, with a high energy efficiency of 85.5% operated at 80 mA/cm2.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, CAS Engineering Laboratory for Electrochemical Energy Storage, and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of CAS.
Journal: Joule
DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2022.02.016
Method of Research: Commentary/editorial
Subject of Research: Not applicable
Article Title: Low-cost hydrocarbon membrane enables commercial-scale flow batteries for long-duration energy storage
Article Publication Date: 21-Mar-2022
Media Contact
Jean Wang
Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy Sciences
wangyj@dicp.ac.cn
Office: 41182464221
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