What is a vanadium flow battery?

The vanadium flow battery (VFB) as one kind of energy storage technique that has enormous impact on the stabilization and smooth output of renewable energy. Key materials like membranes, electrode, and electrolytes will finally determine the performance of VFBs.

What are the advantages of a flow battery?

The flow battery employing soluble redox couples for instance the all-vanadium ions and iron-vanadium ions, is regarded as a promising technology for large scale energy storage, benefited from its numerous advantages of long cycle life, high energy efficiency and independently tunable power and energy.

Are flow batteries suitable for large scale energy storage applications?

Among all the energy storage devices that have been successfully applied in practice to date, the flow batteries, benefited from the advantages of decouple power and capacity, high safety and long cycle life, are thought to be of the greatest potentiality for large scale energy storage applications , .

What causes the capacity decay of iron-vanadium flow batteries?

Thus, the capacity decay of Iron-vanadium flow batteries can be mainly attributed to the ion diffusions across the membrane. In the main, the capacity retention ability of VFB is superior to that of IVFB, because the VFB capacity is not only higher after 500 cycles, but also without unexpected fluctuation during the whole testing.

Does a flow battery have a sell-discharge function?

In practice however, sell-discharge does exist owing that the flow battery has to be adopted in hot standby modes in some particular applications for a rapid and flexible response to the grid or generation, such that the pump cannot be stopped and the electrolytes needs to be circulated between tank and stack.