On the Role of Electrolyte Mixing in Vanadium Redox Flow Battery Tanks: CFD and Experimental Approaches
Please login to view abstract download link
Redox Flow Batteries are electrochemical energy storage systems that reversibly transform electrical energy into chemical energy using two redox pairs dissolved in separated electrolytes. After flowing through the electrochemical reactor cell, the electrolytes are stored in separate tanks where they discharge as submerged jets with slightly different density and viscosity than the fluid already in the tanks. The resulting mixing process, determined by the competition between jet momentum and buoyancy effects, is essential for battery performance since imperfect mixing causes significant losses in energy storage capacity. Preliminary results based on numerical simulations of industrial-scale tanks and experimental validation tests are presented and discussed.