As an alternative to the expensive Nafion® ion exchange membrane, an inexpensive commercially-available Radel® polymer was sulfonated, fabricated into a thin membrane, and evaluated for its performance in a vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB). The sulfonated Radel (S-Radel) membrane showed almost an order of magnitude lower permeability of V (IV) ions (2.07×10-7 cm2/min), compared to Nafion 117 (1.29×10-6 cm2/min), resulting in better coulombic efficiency (~98% vs. 95% at 50 mA/cm2) and lower capacity loss per cycle. Even though the S-Radel membrane had slightly higher membrane resistance, the energy efficiency of the VRFB with the S-Radel membrane was comparable to that of Nafion due to its better coulombic efficiency. The S-Radel membrane exhibited good performance up to 40 cycles, but a decay in performance at later cycles was observed.
Revised: December 30, 2010 |
Published: November 30, 2010
Citation
Kim S., J. Yan, B. Schwenzer, J. Zhang, L. Li, J. Liu, and Z. Yang, et al. 2010.Cycling performance and efficiency of sulfonated poly(sulfone) membranes in vanadium redox flow batteries.Electrochemistry Communications 12, no. 11:1650-1653.PNNL-SA-74853.doi:10.1016/j.elecom.2010.09.018