Characterization and scale-up of serpentine and interdigitated flow fields for application in commercial vanadium redox flow batteries

Vanadium redox flow batteries constitute a promising option in the field of stationary energy storage especially with respect to long-duration and large-scale duty scenarios. Indeed, although having numerous beneficial characteristics in the design and operation of vanadium redox flow batteries, their low power density is hindering their penetration into the energy storage market. Flow-field design and flow rate optimization are effective ways to improve battery power density. There are numerous studies in published literature on serpentine and interdigitated flow fields with deeper flow channels on thick bipolar plates. This paper deliberates the characterization of laboratory cells of size 100 cm 2 equipped with serpentine and interdigitated flow fields on thin bipolar plates which generally employ in commercial stacks. The experimental results of charge-discharge life cycles and polarization measurements have been interpreted with the help of computational fluid dynamics simulations. The simulations are then extended to a cell size of 625 cm 2 . The results revealed an interesting characteristic on the variability of geometrical scale-up in each flow-field to obtain desired electrolyte distribution at minimal pressure drop. • Serpentine and Interdigitated flow fields are investigated on cell area 100 cm 2 . • Geometrical variations introduced to regulate flow uniformity and pressure drop. • The design variants have been scaled-up to a cell size of 625 cm 2 . • IFFp is proved to be superior than SFF for effective use in thin bipolar plates.