High-energy and low-cost membrane-free chlorine flow battery

Grid-scale energy storage is essential for reliable electricity transmission and renewable energy integration. Redox flow batteries (RFB) provide affordable and scalable solutions for stationary energy storage. However, most of the current RFB chemistries are based on expensive transition metal ions...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2022-03, Vol.13 (1), p.1281-1281, Article 1281
Main Authors: Hou, Singyuk, Chen, Long, Fan, Xiulin, Fan, Xiaotong, Ji, Xiao, Wang, Boyu, Cui, Chunyu, Chen, Ji, Yang, Chongyin, Wang, Wei, Li, Chunzhong, Wang, Chunsheng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
140/133
147/135
639/166/4073/4071
639/4077/4079/891
Batteries
Carbon tetrachloride
Chlorine
Electric power transmission
Electrolysis
Electrolytes
Energy efficiency
Energy storage
Flux density
Humanities and Social Sciences
Immiscibility
Low cost
Membranes
Metal ions
Miscibility
multidisciplinary
Rechargeable batteries
Redox reactions
Renewable energy
Saline water
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Sodium chloride
Storage batteries
Transition metals
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:Grid-scale energy storage is essential for reliable electricity transmission and renewable energy integration. Redox flow batteries (RFB) provide affordable and scalable solutions for stationary energy storage. However, most of the current RFB chemistries are based on expensive transition metal ions or synthetic organics. Here, we report a reversible chlorine redox flow battery starting from the electrolysis of aqueous NaCl electrolyte and the as-produced Cl 2 is extracted and stored in the carbon tetrachloride (CCl 4 ) or mineral spirit flow. The immiscibility between the CCl 4 or mineral spirit and NaCl electrolyte enables a membrane-free design with an energy efficiency of >91% at 10 mA/cm 2 and an energy density of 125.7 Wh/L. The chlorine flow battery can meet the stringent price and reliability target for stationary energy storage with the inherently low-cost active materials (~$5/kWh) and the highly reversible Cl 2 /Cl − redox reaction. Flow batteries provide promising solutions for stationary energy storage but most of the systems are based on expensive metal ions or synthetic organics. Here, the authors show a chlorine flow battery capitalizing the electrolysis of saltwater where the redox reaction is stabilized by the saltwater-immiscible organic flow.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-022-28880-x