Bifunctional Ion-Conducting Polymer Electrolyte for the Vanadium Redox Flow Battery with High Selectivity

Abstract

The need for electrochemical energy storage increases along with the growing share of fluctuating renewables for power generation. The all-vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) has experienced increasing attention in this context. Its electrolyte membrane is a key component, yet currently perfluorinated materials (e.g., Nafion) are mainly used in VRBs, which have neither been designed for this particular application, nor are they cost-effective. The cross-over of redox active vanadium species impairs cell efficiency, in particular in case of thin Nafion membranes with low ohmic resistance. Here, we present a potentially generic concept of a bifunctional ion-conducting membrane prepared by radiation grafting with sulfonic acid proton exchange sites and amidoxime moieties. The crossover of vanadium-ions is reduced four-fold in the presence of amidoxime groups without markedly impairing the conductivity of the membrane. A VRB cell containing such membrane shows increased energy efficiency and negligible capacity fading over 122 charge / discharge cycles compared to cells with Nafion membrane, which showed a loss of discharge capacity of around 35% after 35 cycles and considerable electrolyte imbalance.