• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.113-119
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• 2021

In this study, impurity free V^3.5+ electrolytes were prepared using formic acid as a reducing agent and PtD/C as a catalyst and it was applied to VRFB. The well-oriented 3D dendrite structure of the PtD/C catalyst showed high catalytic activity in formic acid oxidation reaction and vanadium reduction reaction. As a result, the conversion ratio of electrolyte using the PtD/C was 2.73 mol g^-1 h^-1, which was higher than that of 1.67 mol g^-1 h^-1 of Pt/C prepared by the polyol method. In addition, in the VRFB charging and discharging experiment, the V^3.5+ electrolyte produced by the catalytic reaction showed the same performance as the standard V^3.5+ electrolyte prepared by the electrolytic method, thus proving that it can be used as an electrolyte for VRFB.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.131-138
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• 2023

The carbon felt is usually hired as electrodes for vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB). In the study, surface modification of carbon felt under CO₂ atmosphere with variables of operating various temperature ranges between 700℃ and 900℃. The qualitative and quantitative analysis were carried out such as scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to observe degree of surface modification. Result of XPS analysis confirmed increase of carbon and oxidation functional group on the surface with increase of temperature. SEM image was discovered similar phenomena. Electrochemical characteristics such as cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) revealed the improved electrode performance with increase of temperature. However, the electrochemical performance under treatments temperature of 900℃ was less than that of under treatment temperature of 850℃ due to weight loss at the treatment temperature of 900℃. From the CV and EIS results, the best electrochemical characteristics was at the temperature of 850℃. That of at the temperature of 900℃ was decreased due to weight loss. The energy efficiencies (EE) obtained from full cell test were 69.37, 80.76, 82.45, and 75.47%, at the temperature of 700, 800, 850, and 900℃, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.82-90
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• 2015

This paper proposes an efficient bi-directional DC/DC converter topology using multi-phase interleaved method for power storage system. The proposed converter topology is used for a power storage system using a vanadium redox flow battery(VRFB) and is configured to enable bidirectional power flow for charging and discharging of VRFB. Proposed DC/DC converter of the 4 leg method is reduced to 1/4 times the rating of the reactor and the power semiconductor device so can be reduce the system size. Also, proposed topology is obtained the effect of four times the switching frequency as compared to the conventional converter in each leg with a 90 degree phase shift 4 leg method. This can suppress the reduction of the life of the secondary battery because it is possible to reduce the current ripple in accordance with the charging and discharging of VRFB and may increase the efficiency of the entire system. In this paper, it proposed bidirectional high-efficiency DC/DC converter topology Using multi-phase interleaved method and proved the validity through simulations and experiments.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.309-316
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• 2021

For the detection of the state of charge in VRFB-ESS, the analyses of UV-Visible spectrometry and the measurements of potential between the anolyte and catholyte were used in parallel. This paper includes the production of 4-valant ion from VOSO4 powder, 3- and 5-valant ions from electrochemical charge of 4-valant ion and 2-valant ion from 3-valant ion. It also includes the analyses of these valance ions and unknown electrolyte at any time using UV-Visible spectrometry. Through the analyses of the valance ions in samples, the SOCs of the samples at any charge-discharge times were verified.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.14-20
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• 2016

Vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is an energy conversion device in which charging and discharging are alternatively carried out by oxidation and reduction reactions of vanadium ions with different oxidation states. VRFB consists of electrolyte, electrode, ion-exchange membrane, etc. The role of ion-exchange membranes in VRFB separates anolyte and catholyte and provides a high conductivity to hydrogen ions. Recently much attention has been devoted to develop ideal ion-exchange membranes for VRFB. A number of developed ion-exchange membranes should be evaluated to find out ideal ion-exchange membranes for VRFB. Long-term durability test is a crucial characterization of ion-exchange membranes for commercialization, but is very time-consuming. In this study, the life time prediction protocol of ion-exchange membranes in VRFB cell tests was developed through short-term single cell performance evaluation (real total operation time, 87.5 hrs) at three different current densities. We confirmed a decrease in test time up to 96.2% of real durability tests (expected total operation time, 2,296 hrs) and 5~6% of relative error discrepancy between the predicted and the real life time in a unit cell.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.341-346
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• 2015

In order to understand the counter anionic effects in a non-aqueous vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB), we synthesized four types of electrolyte salts (1-ethyltriethamine tertafluoroborate, [E-TEDA]⁺[BF₄]⁻, 1-ethyltriethamine hexafluorophosphate, [E-TEDA]⁺[PF₆]⁻, 1-butyltriethylamine tertafluoroborate, [B-TEDA]⁺[BF₄]⁻, and 1-buthyltriethamine hexafluorophosphate [B-TEDA]⁺[PF₆]⁻) by counter anion exchange reaction after the SN₂ reaction. We confirmed the successful synthesis of the electrolyte salts [E-TEDA]⁺[Br]⁻ and [B-TEDA]⁺[Br]⁻ via ¹H-NMR spectroscopy and GC-mass analysis before the counter anion exchange reaction. The electric potential of the vanadium acetylacetonate, V(acac)₃, as an energy storage chemical was shown to be 2.2 V in the acetonitrile solvent with each of the [E-TEDA]⁺[BF₄]⁻, [E-TEDA]⁺[PF₆]⁻, [B-TEDA]⁺[BF₄]⁻, and [B-TEDA]⁺[PF₆]⁻ electrolyte salts. In a non-aqueous VRFB with a commercial Neosepta AFN membrane, the maximum voltages reached 1.0 V and 1.5 V under a fixed current value of 0.1 mA in acetonitrile with the [E-TEDA]⁺[BF₄]⁻ and [E-TEDA]⁺[PF₆]⁻ electrolyte salts, respectively. The maximum voltage was 0.8 V and 1.1 V under a fixed current value of 0.1 mA in acetonitrile with the [B-TEDA]⁺[BF₄]⁻ and [B-TEDA]⁺[PF₆]⁻ electrolyte salts, respectively. From these results, we concluded that in the non-aqueous VRFB more of the [PF₆]⁻ counter anion than the [BF₄]⁻ counter anion was transported onto the commercial Neosepta AFN anion exchange membrane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.351-362
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• 2021

All-vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is one of the promising high-capacity energy storage technologies. The ion-exchange membrane (IEM) is a key component influencing the charge-discharge performance and durability of VRFB. In this study, a pore-filled anion-exchange membrane (PFAEM) was fabricated by filling the pores of porous polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) support with excellent physical and chemical stability to compensate for the shortcomings of the existing hydrocarbon-based IEMs. The use of a thin porous PTFE support significantly lowered the electrical resistance, and the use of the PTFE support and the introduction of a fluorine moiety into the filling ionomer significantly improved the oxidation stability of the membrane. As a result of the evaluation of the charge-discharge performance, the higher the current efficiency was seen by increasing the fluorine content in the PFAEM, and the superior voltage and energy efficiencies were shown owing to the lower electrical resistance compared to the commercial membrane. In addition, it was confirmed that the use of a hydrophobic PTFE support is more preferable in terms of oxidation stability and charge-discharge performance.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.24-28
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• 2018

The redox flow battery (RFB) is a large-capacity energy storage equipment, and the vanadium redox flow cell is a typical RFB, but VRFB is expensive. Iron-chrome RFBs are economical because they use low-cost active materials, but their low performance is a urgent problem. In this study, the crossover of iron and chromium ion through Nafion membrane and the stability of Nafion membrane in HCl solution were investigated. The permeability of iron and chrome ion through Nafion were $5.5{\times}10^{-5}$ and $6.0{\times}10^{-5}cm^2/min$, respectively, which was 18.9~20.7 times higher than that of vanadium ion ($2.9{\times}10^{-6}cm^2/min$). The crossover of iron and chromium ions were shown to be a cause of performance decrease in Iron-chrome RFB. As the temperature increases, the crossover increases rapidly (activation energy 38.8 kJ/ mol), indicating that operation at low temperature is a methode to reduce the performance loss due to crossover. Nafion membranes were relatively stable in 3 M HCl solution.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.181-187
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• 2022

As the charges/discharges of VRFB-ESS were repeated during 150cycles or more, the capacity of electrolyte in VRFB-ESS was decreased little by little. It results from the decreasing of the level of anolyte and the increasing of the valance value of the catholyte. Then, we tried to recover the capacity loss with 3 different ways. The first way was that the levels of anolyte and catholyte were allowed to be evenly equalized when the difference in the levels of two different electrolytes were severe. The second one was to lessen the valance value of the catholyte through the reduction reaction to 4-valant ions of 5-valant ions in the catholyte with the reductant, oxalic acid. The last one was that the all electrolytes of analyte and catholyte were allowed to be electro-chemically reduced to 3.5 of the valance value by oxidizing new electrolyte with 3.5 valance ions. The last way was the most effective to recover the capacity loss.

• Clean Technology
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.308-313
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• 2017

In this study, we investigated the electrocatalytic effects of the N and O co-doping of Graphite Felt (GF) electrode for the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) at the cathode and the anode reaction, respectively. The electrodes were prepared by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) with $NH_3-O_2$ at 773 K, and its effects were compared with an electrode prepared by an O doping treatment. The surface morphology and chemical composition of the electrodes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The electrocatalytic properties of these electrodes were characterized in a VRFB single cell comparing the efficiencies and performance of the electrodes at the cathode, anode, and single cell level. The results exhibited about 2% higher voltage and energy efficiencies on the N-O-GF than the O-GF electrode. It was found that the N and O co-doping was particularly effective in the enhancement of the reduction-oxidation reaction at the anode.