Transport of active species through the ion-exchange membrane separating the electrodes in a redox-flow battery is an important source of inefficiency. Migration and electro-osmosis have significant impacts on the crossover of reactive anions, cations, and neutral species. In this paper, these phenomena are theoretically and experimentally explored for commercial cation-exchange membranes. The theoretical analysis indicates that plotting the cumulative Coulombic mismatch between charge and discharge as a function of time can be used to assess crossover rates. The relative importance of migration and electro-osmosis over diffusion is quantified and shown to increase with increasing current density and membrane thickness because the contributions of migration and electro-osmosis to ionic flux are independent of membrane thickness and proportional to current density, while diffusion is inversely proportional to membrane thickness and independent of current density. Redox-flow batteries (RFBs) possess compelling attributes for stationary energy storage. In particular, the inherent decoupling of energy and power in RFBs enables the cost effective use of active materials with low energy density.1,2 Energy is stored in redox-active molecules and power is generated by oxidizing and reducing different redox couples at the positive and negative electrodes.3-5 Two promising technologies are the all-vanadium RFB (VRB) and the hydrogen/bromine RFB, where good performances have been demonstrated recently. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Protons in a cation-exchange membrane (CEM) typically carry charge between the two electrodes in these two RFBs. In both systems, movement of reactant or product species from one electrode to the other through the membrane results in inefficiency and reversible capacity loss. 8,15,16 For these reasons it is worthwhile to investigate the causes of crossover, and examination of the two chosen RFBs allows for the study of transport of active cations, anions, and neutral species.The reactions at the negative and positive electrodes in a VRB are:andrespectively. Protons are the primary ionic charge carriers. Because the active species at both electrodes are vanadium ions, transfer from one electrode to the other is less detrimental than it is in other RFBs that have dissimilar active materials at the two electrodes. Vanadium that traverses the separator reacts to form a discharged ion at the opposite electrode. 17 Although imbalances that occur after repeated cycling can be recovered by mixing the electrolytes, vanadium that crosses the membrane represents an inefficiency that is detrimental in applications like grid-scale energy storage where high efficiency is required for economic success.For the hydrogen/bromine RFB, the reactions at the negative and positive electrodes areBr 2 (aq) + 2e 18-21 Br species that enter the negative electrode can be separated from the negative electrolyte and returned to the positive electrolyte without causing permanent decay, in a similar fashion to vanadium in V...