A biomimetic redox flow battery based on flavin mononucleotide

The versatility in design of redox flow batteries makes them apt to efficiently store energy in large-scale applications at low cost. The discovery of inexpensive organic electroactive materials for use in aqueous flow battery electrolytes is highly attractive, but is thus far limited. Here we repor...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2016-10, Vol.7 (1), p.13230-13230, Article 13230
Main Authors: Orita, Akihiro, Verde, Michael G., Sakai, Masanori, Meng, Ying Shirley
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/638/161/891
639/638/675
Electrolytes
Energy
Evolution
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Salt
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Sodium
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The versatility in design of redox flow batteries makes them apt to efficiently store energy in large-scale applications at low cost. The discovery of inexpensive organic electroactive materials for use in aqueous flow battery electrolytes is highly attractive, but is thus far limited. Here we report on a flow battery using an aqueous electrolyte based on the sodium salt of flavin mononucleotide. Flavins are highly versatile electroactive molecules, which catalyse a multitude of redox reactions in biological systems. We use nicotinamide (vitamin B3) as a hydrotropic agent to enhance the water solubility of flavin mononucleotide. A redox flow battery using flavin mononucleotide negative and ferrocyanide positive electrolytes in strong base shows stable cycling performance, with over 99% capacity retention over the course of 100 cycles. We hypothesize that this is enabled due to the oxidized and reduced forms of FMN-Na being stabilized by resonance structures. Redox flow batteries using organic active materials are highly sought after because of their potential to satisfy low cost and sustainability requirements. Here, the authors report a biomimetic flow battery based on flavin mononucleotide and a hydrotrope with promising performance characteristics.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/ncomms13230