Improved Iron Flow Battery Designs for Low-Cost Grid Storage

To achieve grid-scale energy security through widespread deployment of flow batteries we need to rapidly advance low-cost, scalable, and durable technologies. Even though, earth-abundant iron-based technologies offer low-cost storage solutions projecting levelized cost for storage >$0.05/kWh, durability is yet a major issue hindering the commercialization.Hybrid nature of the system is also another barrier to achieve energy-dense scalable systems compared to all soluble flow batteries. Our present study focuses on understanding the factors affecting long-term durability of the full-cell device and overcoming them by improving electrolyte properties, key reactor components including membrane separators and electrode structures and the kinetics of metal deposition/ dissolution process. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. Funding was provided by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Grant 22-DR-014. IM release number: LLNL-ABS-847140.