Numerical Simulation and Experiment on the Electrolyte Flow Distribution for All Vanadium Redox Flow Battery

Abstract

The electrolyte flow states of all vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) have a direct effect on the battery performance and life. To reveal the electrolyte distribution in the battery, the computation fluid dynamics (CFD) method was used to simulate a parallel flow field. A hydraulics experiment and a battery performance experiment were carried out to confirm the simulated results. The results show that the predicted information agreed well with the experimental results. The electrolyte has a concentrated distribution in the central region of the parallel flow field and the disturbed flow and then vortex flow areas mainly appear in the inlet and outlet regions. The higher flux of electrolyte is helpful to uniform the distributions and to reduce the impact of flow irregularity on the battery performance. The battery with the flow field generates a power density of 15.9 mW∙cm-2, and the coulombic, voltage and energy efficiency is up to 90.5%, 74.0% and 67.2% at a current density of 20 mA·cm-2.