Catalytic production of impurity-free V<sup>3.5+</sup> electrolyte for vanadium redox flow batteries.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31562304.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-12363-7 and PMC identifier 6764956.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The vanadium redox flow battery is considered one of the most promising candidates for use in large-scale energy storage systems. However, its commercialization has been hindered due to the high manufacturing cost of the vanadium electrolyte, which is currently prepared using a costly electrolysis method with limited productivity. In this work, we present a simpler method for chemical production of impurity-free V<sup>3.5+</sup> electrolyte by utilizing formic acid as a reducing agent and Pt/C as a catalyst. With the catalytic reduction of V<sup>4+</sup> electrolyte, a high quality V<sup>3.5+</sup> electrolyte was successfully produced and excellent cell performance was achieved. Based on the result, a prototype catalytic reactor employing Pt/C-decorated carbon felt was designed, and high-speed, continuous production of V<sup>3.5+</sup> electrolyte in this manner was demonstrated with the reactor. This invention offers a simple but practical strategy to reduce the production cost of V<sup>3.5+</sup> electrolyte while retaining quality that is adequate for high-performance operations.