Better batteries to support wind and solar

Sara Coles is a guest web-writer for RSC Advances. She currently works for Johnson Matthey in Royston, UK. http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/sara-coles/39/771/899/

I seem to be talking rather a lot about energy just lately, but there is no denying it is a subject that comes up time and again.

Non-aqueous redox flow batteries (RFBs) are a technology aimed at supporting intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, by storing the energy they produce and releasing it on demand. The challenges in developing better batteries of this type are related to optimising their cell potential and designing new membrane materials to minimise cross-mixing and improve selectivity.

This review by researchers at GIST in the Republic of Korea concentrates on reported methods of preparation and characterisation of the anion exchange membranes, and also covers the general principles of RFBs which are necessary to understand the issues involved in membrane development.Non aqueous redox flow battery schematic

They start from the premise that non-aqueous RFBs are better than aqueous RFBs due to the higher energy densities made possible by the wider cell potential range that is available in solvents other than water. Metal-ligand complexes have been the main focus of research as the redox couple.

Redox couples studied in detail have included ruthenium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, nickel, iron, cobalt and uranium based systems. Those based on ruthenium, for example, have improved efficiency since the oppositely charged species generated during charging tend to revert to the same reactive species during discharge, reducing cross-over.

Electrode materials that have been investigated include glassy carbon, platinum or gold.

Read the full review in RSC Advancesfree to access for 4 weeks:

A review of current developments in non-aqueous redox flow batteries: characterization of their membranes for design perspective, Sung-Hee Shin, Sung-Hyun Yun and Seung-Hyeon Moon, RSC Adv., 2013, 3, 9095.

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