Improved Vanadium Flow Battery Performance through a Pulsating Electrolyte Flow Regime

The interest in flow batteries as energy storage devices is growing due to the rising share of intermittent renewable energy sources. In this work, the performance of a vanadium flow battery is improved, without altering the electrochemical cell, by applying a pulsating flow. This novel flow battery flow regime aims to enhance performance by improving its mass transfer properties. Both the pulse volume and frequency have an influence on the battery performance, and lead to a 38.7 % increase in accessible discharge capacity compared to the conventional steady flow regime at values of 0.40 cm3 and 2.4 Hz in this cell, respectively. Furthermore, at these parameter settings a reduction of the mass transfer resistance by 71.4 % is achieved at 0.2 cm3/min & sdot; cm2. These results show that a pulsating flow can be beneficial in certain conditions, opening new possibilities for boosting performance in flow batteries. A vanadium flow battery performance was improved by applying a pulsating flow regime, with both pulse volume and frequency having an influence. A 38.7 % increase in accessible discharge capacity compared to the steady flow regime was demonstrated for parallel flow fields, showing that a pulsating flow can be beneficial in certain conditions, opening new possibilities for boosting performance in flow batteries.image