Microstructural Engineering of Flow Battery Electrodes with Non-Solvent Induced Phase Separation

Rising levels of greenhouse gases urge the decarbonization of human activities. Electrification of strategic sectors such as transport, industry, and heating necessitates affordable, safe, and dispatchable large-scale energy storage systems. Redox flow batteries (RFBs) stand as a promising long-duration and large-scale energy storage technology due to their design features [1] . Ongoing research focuses on engineering key cell components (e.g. membranes, electrodes, active materials) to improve cost competitiveness. This work focuses on the fabrication of novel porous carbon electrodes which strongly influence the performance and cost of the technology. The requirements for porous electrodes liquid-phase electrochemical reactors are contradictory: a large surface area is needed to overall exchange current density, but also minimal pressure losses to decrease pumping costs. Additionally, surface properties of the electrode dictate the reaction kinetics whereas its microstructure controls the mass transport of the reactants within the reactor area [2] . However, the current state-of-the-art porous electrodes for RFBs consists of carbon-fiber materials repurposed from other electrochemical technologies (e.g. polymer electrolyte fuel cells) which do not offer a favorable tradeoff between transport properties and surface area. Additionally, their production involves complex manufacturing processes resulting in high cost and limited morphological versatility. Therefore, there is a need to develop alternative synthetic platforms which offer tailorable microstructures and surface properties to match the requirements of emerging electrochemical applications, such as redox flow batteries. In this work, we draw inspiration from the membrane technology and employ non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) as a method to synthesize porous carbon electrodes for RFBs [3,4] . Here, we present our latest efforts to develop a manufacturing route enabling the control of microstructural features of carbonaceous porous electrodes for RFBs. The microstructure of the carbon scaffold is determined by the nature and composition of the polymer blend used to cast the electrode precursor. We use polyacrylonitrile as scaffold precursor and polyvinylpyrrolidone as a pore forming agent, dissolved in an organic solvent (i.e., dimethylformamide, dimethylsulfoxide or N-methylpyrrolidone). The polymer blends were cast into a mold and immersed in a water coagulation bath prior to being stab