A cost-effective alkaline polysulfide-air redox flow battery enabled by a dual-membrane cell architecture.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35501344.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-30044-w and PMC identifier 9061742.
- 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
With the rapid development of renewable energy harvesting technologies, there is a significant demand for long-duration energy storage technologies that can be deployed at grid scale. In this regard, polysulfide-air redox flow batteries demonstrated great potential. However, the crossover of polysulfide is one significant challenge. Here, we report a stable and cost-effective alkaline-based hybrid polysulfide-air redox flow battery where a dual-membrane-structured flow cell design mitigates the sulfur crossover issue. Moreover, combining manganese/carbon catalysed air electrodes with sulfidised Ni foam polysulfide electrodes, the redox flow battery achieves a maximum power density of 5.8 mW cm-2 at 50% state of charge and 55 °C. An average round-trip energy efficiency of 40% is also achieved over 80 cycles at 1 mA cm-2. Based on the performance reported, techno-economic analyses suggested that energy and power costs of about 2.5 US$/kWh and 1600 US$/kW, respectively, has be achieved for this type of alkaline polysulfide-air redox flow battery, with significant scope for further reduction.