Electrolyte circulation effects in electrochemical performance for different flow fields of all-vanadium redox flow battery

A comparative study of electrochemical performance and hydrodynamic effects on a single cell for all vanadium redox flow batteries has been investigated in the present study. Electrochemical performance of a cell has been conducted with an active area of 414 cm2 fitted with serpentine, interdigitated, and enhanced cross-flow split serpentine (ECFSS) flow fields. The effects of electrolyte circulation rates on the electrochemical performance have been investigated for each flow field, and stable energy efficiency was achieved in 20 charge/discharge cycles for all three flow fields. Higher coulombic, voltage, and energy efficiencies in the serpentine flow field were achieved to be 96%, 82%, and 79%, respectively. The maximum peak power density values for the serpentine, ECFSS, and interdigitated flow field were found to be 158.2, 152.5, and 136.8 mW·cm−2, respectively, at a flow rate of 345 mL·min−1. Furthermore, detailed flow analysis was simulated by using computational fluid dynamics, and these studies postulated the reasons for the higher performance of the serpentine flow field compared to other flow fields.