STUDY OF REDOX TARGETING REACTIONS IN AQUEOUS FLOW BATTERIES

Abstract

Green and renewable energies like wind and solar power have been widely implemented for the sustainable development. However, they are typically intermittent and unpredictable. As such, electrochemical energy storage technology has emerged as an important means to address these issues. Aqueous redox flow batteries (ARFB) have been regarded as one of the most promising candidates due to the salient features of good safety, scalability, and operation flexibility. Zn-air RFBs, alkaline Zn/Fe RFBs and aqueous organic RFBs show great promise for the large-scale application. However, the sluggish oxygen kinetics of Zn-air RFBs, poor zinc reversibility of alkaline Zn/Fe RFBs and poor chemical stability of aqueous organic RFBs prevent their deployment. The main objective of this thesis work is exploring the redox targeting reactions in the aspects of working mechanism, reaction kinetics and their applications in aqueous RFBs including Zn-air RFBs, alkaline Zn/Fe RFBs and aqueous organic RFBs for large-scale energy storage.