Study on durability and stability of an aqueous electrolyte solution for zinc bromide hybrid flow batteries

Abstract

Zinc-bromine flow battery using aqueous electrolyte has advantages of cost effective and high energy density, but there still remains a problem improving stability and durability of electrolyte materials during long-time cell operation. This paper focuses on providing a homogeneous aqueous solution for durability and stability of zinc bromide electrolyte. For performance experiments of conventional and proposed electrolyte solutions, detailed cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements (at a scan rate of 20 mV s-1 in the range of -1.5 V∼1.5 V) are carried out for 40 cycles and five kinds of electrolytes containing which has one of additives, such as (conventionally) zinc chloride, potassium chloride, (newly) lithium perchlorate, sodium perchlorate and zeolite-Y are compared with the 2.0 M ZnBr2 electrolyte, respectively. Experimental results show that using the proposed three additives provides higher anodic and cathodic peak current density of electrolytes than using other two conventional additives, and can lead to improved chemical reversibility of zinc bromide electrolyte. Especially, the solution of which the zeolite-Y added, shows enhanced electrochemical stability of zinc bromide electrolyte. Consequently, proposed electrolytes have a significant advantage in comparison with conventional electrolytes on higher stability and durability.