Ex-Situ Evaluation of Commercial Polymer Membranes for Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (VRFBs)

Zhao, Nana; Riley, H. L.; Song, Chaojie; Jiang, Zhe; Tsay, Keh-Chyun; Neagu, Roberto; Shi, Zhiqing

doi:10.3390/polym13060926

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The water uptake of the coating increases with the growing content of PVP, providing for easier ion transport. Membranes with 14% and higher content of PVP exhibit low ASR –comparable to the commercial reference FAP 450 and other commercial membranes studied by other authors [ 55 ].…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 78%

Composite Anion Exchange Membranes Fabricated by Coating and UV Crosslinking of Low-Cost Precursors Tested in a Redox Flow Battery

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper presents a novel, cost-effective approach to the fabrication of composite anion exchange membranes (AEMs). Hierarchical AEMs have been fabricated by coating a porous substrate with an interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) layer where poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) is immobilized in a crosslinked matrix. The IPN matrix was formed by UV initiated radical crosslinking of a mixture of acrylamide-based monomers and acrylic resins. The fabricated membranes have been compared with a commercial material (Fumatech FAP 450) in terms of ionic transport properties and performance in a vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB). Measures of area-specific resistance (ASR) and vanadium permeability for the proposed membranes demonstrated properties approaching the commercial benchmark. These properties could be tuned by changing the content of PVP in the IPN coating. Higher PVP/matrix ratios facilitate a higher water uptake of the coating layer and thus lower ASR (as low as 0.58 Ω.cm2). On the contrary, lower PVP/matrix ratios allow to reduce the water uptake of the coating and hence decrease the vanadium permeability at the cost of a higher ASR (as high as 1.99 Ω.cm2). In VRFB testing the hierarchical membranes enabled to reach energy efficiency comparable with the commercial AEM (PVP_14—74.7%, FAP 450—72.7% at 80 mA.cm−2).

show abstract

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 78%

Composite Anion Exchange Membranes Fabricated by Coating and UV Crosslinking of Low-Cost Precursors Tested in a Redox Flow Battery

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Meanwhile, GA was used as the second cross-linker to further enhance the dimensional stability of AEMs. 1 H NMR spectra demonstrated the successful synthesis of PVAc, while IR spectra and solubility in NMP proved the preparation of cross-linked PVAc-xBPTMA-yDBPX membranes. The present QA groups greatly enhanced the ADC % and resulted in low ARs, while those cationic groups effectively blocked the penetration of vanadium ions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Characterizations. 1 H NMR and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra of samples were determined on a Bruker AVANCE instrument (600 MHz) with DMSO-d 6 as the solvent and Bruker VERTEX70 spectrometer, respectively. The scanning electron micrographs (SEM) of membranes were obtained by using an SU-8010 scanning electronic microscope.…”

Section: Preparation Of Pvac-xbptma-ydbpx-ga Membranesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the blooming development of renewable energy like wind and solar energy, the reserve of renewable resources with intermittent and unstable characteristics has become an urgent problem, and developing energy storage devices with super long service life is the key issue. 1,2 As one of the most promising energy storage systems, the vanadium flow battery (VFB) attracts much interest because of its safety, high efficiency, flexible design, long working life, reasonable cost, and environmental-friendliness. 3,4 During the cycle operation of VFB, vanadium ions in four different valence states form two redox couples, which are separated by one membrane to be the anolyte and catholyte, respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Dual Cross-Linked Poly(vinyl alcohol)-Based Anion Exchange Membranes with High Ion Selectivity for Vanadium Flow Batteries

Liu

Shi

et al. 2023

ACS Appl. Polym. Mater.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As a widely used, low-cost, and environmentally friendly carbohydrate polymer, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) is employed to prepare dual cross-linked anion exchange membranes (AEMs) for vanadium flow batteries (VFBs). Tertiary amine group functionalized PVA (i.e., poly(vinyl acetal) (PVAc)) is first synthesized via the acetalization reaction between 4dimethylaminobenzaldehyde (DMABA) and PVA. Then (5-bromopentyl)-trimethylammonium bromide (BPTMA) is used as the quaternary ammonium reagent, while α,α′-dibromo-p-xylene (DBPX) is adopted as the first cross-linker. Meanwhile, glutaraldehyde (GA) is used as the second cross-linker to further improve the dimensional stability of AEMs. The formed dual cross-linked PVAc-BPTMA-DBPX-GA membranes display enhanced sulfonic acid (SA) uptake and low area resistance (AR), and maintain low VO 2+ permeability and suitable mechanical strength simultaneously. For example, the PVAc-0.5BPTMA-0.5DBPX-GA membrane shows a low AR of 0.27 Ω cm 2 and an ultralow vanadium ion permeability of 8.09 × 10 −8 cm 2 min −1 . Therefore, the above membrane exhibits a significant ion selectivity of 5.95 × 10 5 S min cm −3 , which is nearly 2 orders of magnitude higher than that of Nafion 115 (i.e., 6.66 × 10 3 S min cm −3 ). The VFB based on PVAc-0.5BPTMA-0.5DBPX-GA displays a higher energy efficiency of 85.2% at 100 mA cm −2 than the cell with Nafion 115 (71.1%). Meanwhile, the battery also maintains a stable performance in a long-term operation of 150 cycles.

show abstract

“…In this regard, recently, anion exchange membranes (AEMs) have been demonstrated to be a promising candidate to replace the existing Nafion membranes. In fact, the existing repulsive forces between the positive functional groups of the membrane and the vanadium cations in the electrolyte make AEMs demonstrating a significantly lower vanadium permeability and higher Coulombic efficiency with respect to cation exchange membranes. − For example, in 2013, a VRFB based on a quaternary ammonium-functionalized poly(fluorenylether) anion exchange membrane approached the Coulombic efficiency of 100% . Despite these interesting results, most of the AEMs available in the market are still mainly used solely for alkaline electrolytes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High Performance of Anion Exchange Blend Membranes Based on Novel Phosphonium Cation Polymers for All-Vanadium Redox Flow Battery Applications

Muthumeenal

Sinopoli

Aidoudi

et al. 2021

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The deployment of alkaline anion exchange membranes (AEMs) in flow battery applications has the advantage of a low cationic species crossover rate. However, the alkaline stability conjugated to the low conductivity of hydroxide ions of anion exchange membranes (AEMs) still represents a major drawback for the large deployment of such technology. In this study, three types of tetraarylpolyphosphonium (pTAP)-based copolymers (namely, CP1, CP2, and CP3) are synthesized and blended with chitosan and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) for the fabrication of AEMs. Chitosan, a green biopolymer, was employed as a blend to enhance the water uptake of the base ionomer matrix. It is proposed that the abundancy of hydroxyl groups in chitosan improves considerably the ionic conductivity, water transport, and ion selectivity of the membrane, together with facilitating the dispersion of the chitosan in the pTAP copolymer matrix. The purpose of blending PVDF is instead to provide stable mechanical strength to the composite blend. The chemical, mechanical, and thermal stabilities of the three fabricated composite-blend membranes (i.e., CM1, CM2, and CM3) were characterized. All the membranes exhibited a high water retaining capacity of up to 36.26% (recorded for CM2) along with a hydroxyl ion conductivity of 17.39 mS cm −1 . Due to the strong interactions between pTAP copolymers, chitosan, and PVDF polymers (confirmed also by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), the studied anion exchange membranes are able to retain up to 97% of the original OH conductivity after 1 M KOH treatment at room temperature for 100 h. The three membranes, namely, CM1, CM2, and CM3, have vanadium ion permeabilities measured at 20 °C of 1.775 × 10 −8 , 1.718 × 10 −8 , and 1.648 × 10 −8 cm 2 /s, respectively, which are lower than that for the commercially available Nafion. The good stability and remarkable cell performance of the composite-blend membranes reported here make them definitely excellent candidates for the future generation of vanadium redox flow batteries.

show abstract

Ex-Situ Evaluation of Commercial Polymer Membranes for Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (VRFBs)

Cited by 17 publications

References 40 publications

Composite Anion Exchange Membranes Fabricated by Coating and UV Crosslinking of Low-Cost Precursors Tested in a Redox Flow Battery

Composite Anion Exchange Membranes Fabricated by Coating and UV Crosslinking of Low-Cost Precursors Tested in a Redox Flow Battery

Dual Cross-Linked Poly(vinyl alcohol)-Based Anion Exchange Membranes with High Ion Selectivity for Vanadium Flow Batteries

High Performance of Anion Exchange Blend Membranes Based on Novel Phosphonium Cation Polymers for All-Vanadium Redox Flow Battery Applications

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About